Prison–Taken For Granted?
Both photos courtesy of Reuters, via the NY Times, these are pictures of Stanley Tookie Williams when he was first sentenced to death and committed to jail, and of him today, hours before his lethal injection.
With the same basic facts as Zac’s post on Mr. Williams, co-founder of the Crips gang, I have a different question: Why do we use prison as a punishment? Rehabilitation? Punishment? Deterrence? Protection? How many of these goals does it actually serve? What are the good reasons for putting someone behind bars–to wit, depriving them of their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness–for any length of time? How about for a year? For two years? For twenty? For fifty? Is fifty years worse than the death penalty?
Have we ever considered alternatives? Would such alternatives be viable if it meant not depriving prisoners of their youth while still punishing and exacting payment for society?
Again: Why do we use prison?
In my opinion, one of the government’s fundamental purposes is to maintain the freedom of its citizens, and this is based on an implicit social contract. When a citizen breaks this contract, they have given up their freedom as citizens for as long as they have deprived another of their liberty. In the case of Tookie, he has deprived not one, but four people of lifelong liberty (and probably many more). Therefore, he owes his own lifetime four times over, and since this isn’t possible, he owes his actual life. Prison is not punishment - it is just compensation for breach of the social contract. Without the necessary enforcement for breach of contract, the contract no longer has any validity. Of course deterrence and protection are positive externalities of the prison system, but even if they do not protect or deter, they are still fundamentally necessary as the means for enforcing justice. The inconsistency of the justice system, is, of course, a cause for enormous concern. However, this is not cause for increased leniency, but rather for distributing compensatory justice to all who break the social contract.
Comment by Crazy Libertarian Girl — December 12, 2005 @ 10:42 pm
I agree that breaking the social contract invites “compensation”. However, what you describe sounds like a policy of eye for an eye. Why not just punish murderers with death, then? How do you punish a purse thief under your system? How do you punish genocide, or embezzling? I was not arguing for leniency–I would argue merely that 1) the punishment should fit the crime, and 2) We should think of adequate punishments that are better for society, and less wasteful, than simply tossing offenders in jail.
Does it make sense to imprison non-violent criminals? Do we imprison simply to satisfy our bloodlust, our need for the satisfaction derived from vengeance? Or do we merely want to enforce and protect the social contract of which Crazy Libertarian Girl is rightly enamored? Does our current punishment system damage that contract?
Comment by Jon — December 13, 2005 @ 12:50 am
You know, I find the comments by Crazy Libertarian Girl more philosophical in nature than pragmatic. It’s easy to think about the philosophical reasoning and implications for actions, but politics is the game of pragamatics where philosophy very rarely matters but results do.
As for alternatives, can they even exist? Without some neo-technical Brave New World re-conditioning plant it seems that for the present, us humans are left with a punishment the only way we know how, seperation from society. And yet, where has that gotten us?
Comment by Gary — December 13, 2005 @ 12:56 am
FYI, here’s a whole page on alternatives:
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lrb/pubs/wb/04wb10.pdf
Comment by Jon — December 13, 2005 @ 1:43 am
For your appreciation, the Finns have a totally different take on the prison system and its philosophical basis. Makes for fascinating comparison to our system. I found the original NY Times article that talks about it and put a pdf up on my site.
Comment by b — December 13, 2005 @ 12:02 pm