Turning Imprisonment as Punishment on its Head

I am always surprised by how much the public are opposed to prisoners being treated well.
However it also seems that it is either a breach of human rights or a disgrace that prisoners get any item that may be viewed as a luxury or not depending on the item.
It is my belief that as a society we have never decided wether we want a prison for retribution, reform or rehabilitation.

IMO Sweden have quite advance penal practices and we could learn quite a lot from their models.

Sometimes I think that what is often forgotten is that the actual act of being sent to prison is the punishment. Therefore prisoners should not be treated badly once incarcerated.

I remember someone once told me this analogy in relation to young offenders and it has always stayed with me,

"if a puppy bit you and you just locked it up in a cage, had minimal contact with it and in no way encouraged positive communication how do you think it will behave when you let it out several years later"

I would also agree that prisons are populated with many people who should just not be there. The reduction in care in the community became a rise in care in the jail.

Linda:):)

very interesting. I think most people realize deep down that prisons dont improve a person's morality and behaviour but rather worsens it, because the offender is just not shown any better but instead is put next to very violent inmates, learning to survive in a community that only respects violent people.

it saddens me when someone caught for drugs (for example), is sent to prison and will learn to respect and ultimately find inspiration from properly disturbed individuals, like rapists and pedophiles.

All we teach them is how to be de-sensitised to violence and become ruthless.

I welcome Norway's experiments of treating offenders as if they had a mental or emotional imbalace and therefore offer them a chance to change...

however easy to say, if I had a child who had been the victim of a violent predator I dont think I would welcome the idea of a Spa and soothing retreat for the sadist! I would probably think: lock him for life and make it hard for him.

There s another objective in keeping offdenders (such a vague word, I shudder when I think that each society and each era has its own definition of "offender", in Iran Id be a BIG offender today!), it s that dangerous people are kept away from the public, so that we are safe. and on this last point Ive got my own personal opinion that laws are made by men and many countries dont really panick when women are at risk, or even children, as has been the case again and again recently in France, where serial rapist-killers have been jailed for a few years, then proved they were good guys in jail, had a few psychotherapy sessions, convinced the doctors they were ok and were realeased!! only to rape and kill a girl within a few weeks of coming out of jail. Obviously, I think, the doctors and psychotherapists were men, they never thought "what would happen to me if I met this man on my way home?" or even "what would I think if my daughter was to meet this man? do my instincts really tell me it s ok to let him out?", that s where I think women would react differently from the length of the sentence, to the "care" being given and the way the rapists are observed...

Very interesting! It's certain that prison in the UK does not stop prisoners re-offending, (though recent surveys have indicated that the shorter time someone spends inside almost always means that they re-offend more often.)

Though this article is about difficult teenagers at school, the article about prison made me think about it. It's from the Christian Science Sentinel - oh and it's American, so a public school is a state school! 😉

[url]"My job is to love you"[/url]

Our students are kids who were just not being reached by the traditional high-school model. Some had stopped going to school for months or even years. Others had problems brought on by drug or alcohol abuse. Some had been expelled for fighting or bringing weapons to school, or had been incarcerated for crimes related to gang involvement.

This is a public school, not a specially funded private institution?

That’s right. To be honest, I feel that everything you see at our school should be the norm at all public schools. Our kids voluntarily test 100 percent clean for drugs. We have 100 percent parental participation in monthly meetings, and our graduation rate is 20 percent higher than traditional local schools. The number of fights, gang problems, vandalism and racial incidents is virtually zero.

In my recent experience re-offending is often caused by a small minority, the ones who offend once or twice and then realise what they have done move on are the majority. I'm quoting broadly, cant remember the link for the info, but was for the year ending March 2010. As for the 'whole' of the UK figues, in the UK we are very good at keeping figures, also so it depends on how/who gather data.

I cant believe a particular place has a 100% clean for drugs, attendance, where is this place whould love see how they achieve this, via what programmes, monitoring, funding and resources. Been supporting a group who are lloking at various ways to engage offenders and any bit of info is useful.

Thanks

Fudge

Hi V, I read that article and found it very interesting, I work for NACRO (national association for the care & resettlement of offenders) and it sadens me to see the same faces over and over, the only thing many of them learn in prison (especially the young people) are new, more sophisticated ways of offending, I think Geoffrey Archer had the right idea when he started a campaign after his own release from prison it spelt out the issues with putting first time offenders (some for petty crimes) in prisons with people who have been in and out of the system for years.
I don't think the penal system works because nothing is tackled at grass roots level, often the offenders will come from backgrounds where their parents offend and it is seen as normal or a survival mechanism and this view is quite dangerous as it leads to many offenders actually not realising that there offending is wrong they see what they do almost as an entitlement and the ones I deal with it work who commit acquisitive (spell?) crimes to buy drugs see prison as an occupational hazzard and call it "going for a lie down" it really is no big deal for them. Very sad.

Love

Rebecca

An expanding Norwegian method of dealing with those who commit even the most serious of crimes turns the whole notion of how to treat them on its head....

[url]Norway's controversial 'cushy prison' experiment - could it catch on in the UK? | Mail Online[/url]

V

Some years ago when I still had a TV there was a discussion with ex-cons, MPs, officers, etc following a film of a Danish prison where conditions were generally much more lenient and respectful of prisoners' rights. The discussion, as usual, was disappointing, being more emotional than looking at the evidence. One "expert" stated that the Danish example was irrelevant, because Danish culture is different to ours, you couldn't get away with doing here what you can do there.

No one took him up on this, but I found it interesting. The assumption was that there's something intrinsically more violent and brutal about British culture. I'm prepared to believe this, but I don't know if I do or not- evidence of crime statistics for instance is notoriously unreliable, since cops and politicians have a vested interest in distorting the statistics.

I'd like to know what other people think on this one, especially anyone who's lived outside the UK. Certainly I have a vague general impression that other West European and White Commonwealth countries regard us as a nation of thugs.

As regards prison, I think it depends what you think prison's for. Is it punishment, deterrence of others, prevention of further crime, or reform? These goals are entirely separate, although politicians and commentators mostly seem oblivious of this obvious fact.

No one in their right mind believes that going to prison reforms people- how would one be reformed by living 24/7 in the company of criminals, often with no constructive occupation?

Prison is certainly a punishment for most people, although some are so institutionalised and inadequate that they prefer prison to being outside, so for them obviously its not a punishment at all. Another problem here sometimes is that prison conditions may not seem bad enough for some high-profile criminals such as sexual murderers of young children.

Regarding crime prevention, prison doesn't seem to work at all, except insofar as people don't commit crimes while they're actually in prison (That's how America reduced its crime rate, by locking up several million people- among young black American males its now seen as normal to have gone to prison- more normal than going to university). Of course people do commit crimes inside prison, such as attacking officers and each other, and taking drugs, but the public doesn't care about that much.

Finally we come to deterrence. Problem here is that because most politicians wouldn't do something if they thought they'd go to prison for it, they assume that the average potential criminal also thinks like that. In fact they don't at all. Many of the most horrifying crimes in this country are committed in circumstances where the perpetrator, had they given it a moments' thought, would have known they would be caught. Yet they still went ahead and did it. An obvious example being the youths recently convicted of murdering a boy at a London tube station. This crime was committed in full view of CCTV, after being planned on Facebook. And the perpetrators were arrested within 24 hours of the offence. Why are so many young people so entirely lacking in foresight and impulse control? That's the really big question.

Very interesting! It's certain that prison in the UK does not stop prisoners re-offending,

Indeed and whats the point then - if prison doesn't act as a deterrent, why are we using it?

[url]Reoffending rates top 70% in some prisons, figures reveal | UK news | guardian.co.uk[/url]

Fourteen prisons in England and Wales, most of which hold short-term inmates, have reconviction rates of more than 70%, Ministry of Justice figures disclosed today reveal.
The reconviction rates for individual prisons published for the first time show that Dorchester, in Dorset, has the highest at 74.7% for adult male prisoners and New Hall, in Yorkshire, has the highest reconviction rates for female prisoners at 76%.
[url]The MoJ's first compendium of reoffending statistics and analysis[/url] shows that prisoners starting a community punishment under probation supervision have a reoffending rate 7 points below those discharged from short-term prison sentences of 12 months or less – 46% compared with 53%.
The statistics, based on 2007 data, show that reoffending rates for individual prisons range from 26.7% to 76.6% for criminals locked up for less than 12 months and between 2% and 55% for those serving more than a year.
MoJ statisticians warn against creating a prison performance league table and argue that the mix of prisoner types in each jail determines the reconviction rate. But Dorchester is named as having the highest rate for those serving short sentences at male local prisons, followed by Gloucester (74.6%), Leeds (74%) and Hull (73.8%).

Indeed and whats the point then - if prison doesn't act as a deterrent, why are we using it?

The real cause of prison as we know it is the hateful, vengeful, resentful, loveless attitudes prevalent in most minds. The accomplices fanning these poisonous fumes are the Sun, the Daily Wail, the Mirror and the Torygraph (yes, the middle-classes are not exempt). Plus the prevalent guiding belief that attacking and controlling by force from the top downwards is the right way to deal with any undesirable phenomenon, from Helmand Province to Toxteth to the child not wearing the correct uniform in your local school. When those in power don't like the contollers they call it "bullying" or "terrorism", but what they themselves do comes from the same way of thinking, only with more power. Q. What's the moral difference between a B52 bomber and a suicide bomber? A. The suicide bomber has to be willing to sacrifice his own life.

Imagine a youth/young adult crime prevention programme that consisted of:

• human values education in schools with the teachers trained to lead by example
• intensive literacy and numeracy training for new offenders and their not-caught peers (with special attention to overcoming the effects of dyslexia)
• medium-term humanistic counselling (any modality except CBT) for people with unmet psychological needs (often associated with separated, drug taking and/or violent parents)
• easy-to-access parenting classes
• racism prevention training for police and teachers; and
• a programme of subsidised job creation for low-skilled people sufficient to bring an end to involuntary unemployment at least for the 16-30 age group.

Think it might achieve more than a hundred times as much £ spent on prisons and drug rehab schemes, as well as saving the taxpayer money on a ten year horizon? I bet.

So what's stopping it from happening? Only the nastiness between our ears.

• human values education in schools with the teachers trained to lead by example
• intensive literacy and numeracy training for new offenders and their not-caught peers (with special attention to overcoming the effects of dyslexia)
• medium-term humanistic counselling (any modality except CBT) for people with unmet psychological needs (often associated with separated, drug taking and/or violent parents)
• easy-to-access parenting classes
• racism prevention training for police and teachers; and
• a programme of subsidised job creation for low-skilled people sufficient to bring an end to involuntary unemployment at least for the 16-30 age group.

Hello Wademk,

The suggestions you make are interesting but in my opinion would have little or no impact at all, the first one relating to human values being taught by teachers, firstly I don't believe this is a teachers job this is a job for the parents and even if teachers did teach this subject it would have no impact if there are no human values at home which often if not 100% of the time there are not, hence why so many young people are repeat offenders in the first place.

The importance of literacy and numeracy to many offenders especially younger ones is of no value they would not see the point in why it is being taught and promoted if you told them for example it's so they could get a better job and have a better life this is something they would never believe they are in too much pain and that pain means they are in a great, big hurry the things they want i.e. latest fashion and technology are balms for their pain, an instant fix and not something they are willing to wait for, save or and work for they want it NOW!

I am a humanistic counsellor (existential and person centred and TA psychotherapy) as much as I hate CBT I am afraid this therapy is the only one with any chance at all of success, all humanistic therapies rely on the client engaging to be successful, the client base you are talking about won't engage because they see no need for change, they see nothing wrong, many have been rasied without anything even resembeling love in extreme poverty and often the only approval they have had from a parent is because they have committed a crime this makes them a 'chip off the old block' according to the proud parent.

Easier to access parenting classes is something I would agree with but I feel the situation is so dire right now that parenting classes should be compulsory with the threat of benefits being taken away for those who refuse to attend and make progress.

I thought the police and teachers already wasted enough money on anti racist intiatives I know they do here in Manchester?

Subsidised job creation; As I mentioned above in an earlier post I work for a crime reduction charity one if it's aims this last couple of years has been to create such a system to get ex-offenders back into work, my response to this fits in with point No.2 above no matter how hard you try to you cannot explain the benefits of work to young people or offenders who have come from 4 and even 5 generations of the same family who have never had a job, where having a job is regarded as a 'mug's game' where working and saving for something you want is an alien concept.

The torygraph hit the nail on the head in an article about a year ago when they said the grass roots of all society's problems comes down to poor parenting and emotional immaturity and until we find a way to tackle that nothing will ever be resolved.

Love

Rebecca xx

The real cause of prison as we know it is the hateful, vengeful, resentful, loveless attitudes prevalent in most minds. The accomplices fanning these poisonous fumes are the Sun, the Daily Wail, the Mirror and the Torygraph (yes, the middle-classes are not exempt).

There's a lot of truth in that, although it's probably not the full story. Its a generational problem, looking for fixes over the course of a year or two isn't going to be of much use. We need to target the longer term problems and focus on making sure that kids growing up don't experience the prison culture, while their parents might be a lost cause.