Prisons should be racially segregated to reduce incidences of rape

[Seeker]

I'm surprised nobody who considers themselves a liberal remembered who the Brit who thought up the Panopticon was...it was Jeremy Bentham.

[Shi Huangdi]

Why should prisoners get a free education at taxpayer extent? There are plenty of good, honest, hard-working people outside of prison who would like to get an education but don't have the time/money to get one. We shouldn't give criminals special opportunities regular people have.

Prison also definitely needs to be more harsh and cruel IMO. Give them a truly hideous existance and make them hate their lives in prison so much that they swear that no matter what they'll never go back. Of course, all the harshness they experience should come from the guards- not fellow inmates. Being able to hurt other inmates gives them a feeling of power they shouldn't be able to enjoy.

[Seeker]

Why not Shi?

Because your system backfires. People don't get 'scared' into not committing crimes.

Your system would create a man who would not be able to function outside of prison.

Also, being cruel to another human being is the basis of criminal behaviour, whether from the state or an individual. In your world, the state is just the biggest bully on the schoolyard.

The purpose of prison to be a place to keep people who would otherwise harm others, to get 'bad guys' of the street. It isn't some kind of s and m domination dungeon for conservatives to jerk off about.

People make mistakes. People change. People get out of prison.

You can have them get out with no education, no skills, and no future, only able to survive in a brutal world where force and violence are the only realities, and they will bring that world out onto the streets of your world.

Or you can give people the opportunity to change.

There are many countries which have Shi's system, of trying to brutalize prisoners enough that they'll be 'scared away'. It just doesn't work, all it does is create hardened criminals.

My experience:
Over this last year, I have been working with a community volunteer group to sentence summary offences given to us by the Crown Prosecutor. We get kids and adults. Assaults, vandalism, petty theft, shoplifting. Sometimes a little more serious.

Well I have learned a lot. I've learned that good people can do stupid things sometimes. I've learned that bad 'punks' can sometimes reform. I've learned that prison can turn a somewhat bratty little boy into a hardened thug with no capacity for human feeling in a year.

So **** institutionalized cruelty and the horse it rode in on. It doesn't work, it's evil, it's counteproductive, it destroys lives, it's childish, and it plain old doesn't work.

[Urban Ranger]

Prisions are places where prisoners can rehabilitate, so they can become useful members of the society when their terms are up. Not some harsh, brutal places where the inmates are made to believe that might is right, and brute force puts you on top of the pecking order. This is a civilised society, we have different rules than a jungle.