Is it possible to find a punishment which works for all?

[Kermit power]

Which would ever be acceptable to modern society?

I've always shied away from most illegal activities. One of the reasons for this is that I don't want to go to prison. The thought of it scares me.

Contrast that to the friends of my neighbour when I was at Uni in Liverpool. They'd all gone through the care system together, and my neighbour was the only one who hadn't been jailed by the time they were 23. The others had all been in and out multiple times. Prison didn't scare them. As far as they were concerned, it was better than much of their childhood in care.

Now, much as I felt sorry for the extremely stty childhood that these guys had, this doesn't change the fact that prison is absolutely no deterrent to them. It's a deterrent to the nice, middle-class-background people who decided to have prison as the deterrent, but not, it seems, to many of the people who actually end up there.

Set prison aside, and what else is there? Corporal punishment, the stocks and the like is largely considered unacceptable to modern day society, so what is there which could actually work?

Or is it all a lost cause?

[grumbledoak]

Fines are useless; it needs to be time lost or pain- those are the same to all of us, even those who claim not to value it.

[carreauchompeur]

It's not a lost cause. Whilst scrotes may talk tough on the surface, actually most of them really don't want to go to prison.

They don't have a fear of it like you or I, at least not the ones who've been through the system, however they still experience the isolation, lack of contact with loved ones and regulation which makes it a "punishment".

I've been into HMP Bristol on enquiries in the past. Yes, that was a reasonably interesting experience when everyone knows you're a copper. The cells, for 2 blokes, at least in the Victorian bit, are tiny. Really, really not a nice place to be.

Prison isn't a holiday camp and the criminal justice system will never be perfect. However at its basest level prison works for EVERYONE because, whilst they are incarcerated, they don't commit crime. Whilst pathetically low sentences mean this isn't failsafe, believe me, with the really bad'uns they rarely last outside very long...

[grumbledoak]

Money doesn't work; we all earn and value money very differently. It is quite possible that a millionaire will remember the work required to gain it, while those on the scrounge don't do anything at all to earn their cash. You cannot possibly make a fine system 'just'.

[R1 Loon]

Death.

[deevlash]

make prisons godawful stholes instead of a blooming rest cure for junkies and bams. I mean, somebody justify them having playstations? Because theyd riot from boredom otherwise? So what? beat the piss out of them until they behave, I'll even volunteer to wield a batton.

[Kermit power]

grumbledoak said:

Fines are useless; it needs to be time lost or pain- those are the same to all of us, even those who claim not to value it.

I'd agree pain is the same to all, but not time lost.

It would be interesting to see if changed circumstances (having kids, maybe) over the 15 years since I graduated have changed the attitudes of some of the guys I knew then, but I really truly believe that time lost in prison meant absolutely nothing to them at all.

As one of them put it, at any given time some of his mates were inside and some of them weren't. If you got locked up, you'd still have mates with you, and at least there would be heating and hot meals, which wasn't always the case when he wasn't locked up.

I can't begin to imagine how st your life has to be to consider prison as an acceptable alternative, but it some people can.

[OwenK]

Sort of off on a tangent, but in the scifi book "The Healer" there is a society which uses pain as its form of punishment. Crimes go to court as they do in the real world, but any sentence handed out is a sentence to have a certain amount of pain inflicted upon you. They use a robotic device which inflicts the pain, but also reads signals from the person's body - which is used to ensure that everybody experiences the same amount of pain proportional to their ability to bear it. I.E. Thieving little scrotes A and B have each stolen a car. Their sentence is the same, as their crimes are similar, but scrote A's personal ability to bear pain is twice as great as B's. The contraption reads the signals emitted by their brain and puts twice the energy into scrote A's pain so as to ensure both criminals actually experience the same level of pain - no way around it.

Edited by OwenK on Monday 27th September 22:50

[Eggman]

Chop their noses off.

It worked in Ancient Egypt and it'll work now.

[davepoth]

look at it this way. If you've never had a job what deterrent is ruining your career?

Bring back national service I say.

[Hedders]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

money, rights in soceity and most likely public humiliation and shaming.

Lets explore that thought!

What rights could reasonably be taken away?
Obviously the right to drive.

After that i am stumped. If you remove peoples rights, do you remove their responsibilities too?

[ShadownINja]

davepoth said:

Bring back national service I say.

If it can instil discipline and responsibility, then definitely. Question is, how do most ex-military folk behave once they leave?

[dandarez]

carreauchompeur said:

It's not a lost cause. Whilst scrotes may talk tough on the surface, actually most of them really don't want to go to prison.

They don't have a fear of it like you or I, at least not the ones who've been through the system, however they still experience the isolation, lack of contact with loved ones and regulation which makes it a "punishment".

I've been into HMP Bristol on enquiries in the past. Yes, that was a reasonably interesting experience when everyone knows you're a copper. The cells, for 2 blokes, at least in the Victorian bit, are tiny. Really, really not a nice place to be.

Prison isn't a holiday camp and the criminal justice system will never be perfect. However at its basest level prison works for EVERYONE because, whilst they are incarcerated, they don't commit crime. Whilst pathetically low sentences mean this isn't failsafe, believe me, with the really bad'uns they rarely last outside very long...

...but usually long enough to totally and utterly ruin the life of some poor innocent, honest, hard-working member of Joe Public, eh?
The Viccy prison pic of one tiny cell for 2 blokes is as you say, not a nice place to be. What you miss is to them, it's HOME!! That's why they go back... and back... and back...
Just like you and me go on our hols!

Me? I'd give 'em something that they wouldn't want to go back to.
The BIRCH!

Edited by dandarez on Tuesday 28th September 01:33

[Mr Dave]

Prison.

Just different tiers of prisons and effective sentancing.

If they werent scared of going to prison their terms werent hard and horrible enough or long enough.

[Busa_Rush]

Public flogging and the ducking stool.

[Jasandjules]

Each friday the criminal (dependant upon the crime) is taken to the local town square where they are publicly flogged. This happens each week of incarceration. Combine that with increased sentencing.

[BOR]

ShadownINja said:

davepoth said:

Bring back national service I say.

If it can instil discipline and responsibility, then definitely. Question is, how do most ex-military folk behave once they leave?

Sadly, something like 10% of the prison population is ex-military.

[carreauchompeur]

BOR said:

ShadownINja said:

davepoth said:

Bring back national service I say.

If it can instil discipline and responsibility, then definitely. Question is, how do most ex-military folk behave once they leave?

Sadly, something like 10% of the prison population is ex-military.

And a sizeable proportion severely mentally ill. Until we start differentiating between "punishment" and simply human storage that will continue.

[ShadownINja]

Oh! Damn.

[CzechItOut]

The recently animal "cruelty" cases have made be wonder what kind of suitable punishment could be used on these low lifes and I came up with human piñata.

Failing that, I think 2 years of national service for anyone aged 16-30 who isn't in full time education or work. Women and men. Not on the front line in Afghanistan, but doing drill, making beds, shining boots, learning disipline and respect.

Or human piñata.