What is the role of prison?

[Ramo]

You're pushing me into Godwin's Law territory.

[alva]

Ideally, prison should be used to rehabilitate people and put them in a controlled environment so they don't have the chance to hurt others in the mean time.

I consider myself to be a more or less left wing person, but there there should be some punishment too IMO. There's something called victims...., remember them?
(and again, I do mean criminals, not someone being arrested for smoking a joint or something)

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ramo
You're pushing me into Godwin's Law territory.

[Ramo]

What about them? Whatever was done to them, inflicting needless punishment on prisoners doesn't do anything to redress the act.

[alva]

Sure you're from texas???!!??

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ramo
Whatever was done to them, inflicting needless punishment on prisoners doesn't do anything to redress the act.

We really aren't talking about needlessly punishing them. Ideally any workable rehabilitation program is going to incorporate some sort of punishment element (Remember the whole taking away your freedom thing). This also has a benefit of filling the deterence role as well.

[Ramo]

I am talking about needless punishment, since that's what criminal justice systems generally are about (for instance, look the death penalty). When the state inflicts punishment, revenge, not simply deterrence or rehabilitation, is a primary motivation.

Sure you're from texas???!!??

Strictly speaking, Austin really isn't part of the rest of Texas. It's the San Francisco of the South.

[St Leo]

Is it to fix the people who have committed crimes and turn them into good people who won't do it again?

Yes.

Does rehabilitation work?

Yes.

[Dis]

Basically to remove unwanteds from society.

I can care less about rehabilitation or punishment. Get these dickweeds out of my face. I would like to walk down the street without being attacked.

**** em'. If they can't keep their violent tendencies to themselves they don't belong in society.

[Az]

I think there is some contradiction in terms going on here. punishing is what's going on. The reason for the punishment are various: re-education, deterring others, isolating the criminal from society, and even, perhaps, revenge. To say that the reason they put criminals in jail is punishment, resembles saying that reason a person was given a certain job is so that he'll work. It is true, but is rather obvious.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Azazel
that reason a person was given a certain job is so that he'll work.

Obviously.

[Pekka]

Number 1 priority is to keep criminals from harrasing the ones who play by the rules. For example violent criminals. Keep the people safer.

Then comes punishing for the crime they did.

Then comes the rehab thing, trying to make these people bounce back to the good side and if they have obvious problems, try working on them.

[Nubclear]

I disagree. It's much more important to rehab the criminal than it is to punish them because punishment (well, severe punishment) would breed resentment, which is counter to the rehabilitation objective.

[BeBMan]

Punishing is there to show that society doesn´t accept when someone goes over the line, so it is not only pure evilness against the poor prisoner, it is also to initiate a learning process (ok, ideally) Personally I think punishment and rehab efforts should be on the same level.

[MarkG]

people are put in prison in order to create a scary law-enforcing image to those who are not in prison