Do you support Private or for-profit Prisons?

[TNF]

I oppose prisons, period.

[TNF]

I oppose prisons, period.

So what do you propose instead?  Executions?  Selling into servitude to repay the harm of their crimes? The lash?  The stock?  Crimes do require some form of punishment and prisons offer the chance for rehabilitation, even if that is too seldom offered by society these days and too seldom accepted when it is offered.

No s**t?

I don't buy your premise that prisons offer the chance for rehabilitation, given their sorry track record throughout American history. I would rather see the U.S. implement principles of restorative justice rather than continue down the path of imprisonment for imprisonment's sake. How would that work in question? Well, as per the above link, a prison abolitionist like myself would apply restorative justice largely in the following manner:

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I do think that eliminating the causes of crime is of the utmost importance, which ultimately means abolishing capitalist social relations (and in the meantime, minimizing them insofar as possible) in favor of a post-market, post-capitalist economy. Crime is not and never has been something that can be simply boiled down to individual actors: it is a social phenomenon resulting from the uneven distribution of the capitalist surplus and arises naturally from capitalist class society. Only when we have abolished all classes and each of us have full and free access to the surplus of our labor on the basis of need shall we eliminate crime.

[TNF]

I should have phrased my initial response better. The vast majority of crime can be eliminated by ending capitalist social relations, because the vast majority of crime stems from inequities inherent in that social system. A classless and stateless society, without law handed down from legislators or rulers of any sort is the penultimate goal of Marxism, yes. Murder that results from inequities in the system would disappear, of course, and without the profit motive dictating where research money goes, there is a strong possibility that we could cure the mental illnesses that make murder possible in the fist place. Does this mean murder would be eliminated or purged from society over night? No, and I assume that in the meantime those in our hypothetical society would find a way of dealing with it. I'm not in the business of predicting exactly what or how the socialist society of the future will handle such questions, because to do so would be to place my own views in place of what is democratically and freely determined by the producers themselves.

Rape would likely be dealt with the same way as noted above, though part of eliminating rape is eliminating the unequal societal division between men and women. Any socialist revolution worth it's salt will likewise be a feminist revolution and will seek to abolish the distinctions of gender oppression that serve, at this point, as an appendage of the capitalist system of exploitation and oppression. We differ on our view of mankind and its propensity to engage in socially harmful acts, and I don't think there's a chance either one of us will convince the other in that respect, but I understand where you're coming from, because I was raised with similar beliefs. I do not however believe that mankind is destined to always be at war with one another; what I believe is that removing the systems of exploitation which pit man against man will allow for the full and free development of humankind into what it should and what it can be.

To answer your question about pre-capitalist society: you're absolutely correct in asserting that conflict existed before capitalism, but said conflicts were still fundamentally resource/need based in every hitherto existing societal epoch. Only within the socialist epoch, when man's needs have been fulfilled fully and none is denied access to the fruit of our collective labor, can these conflicts be overcome and fully put to rest.

[TNF]

I agree that our prisons at present often fail to implement the rehabilitative programs that could be undertaken there, and that even when they do implement such programs they often fail to do so in the most effective manner.  But that does not negate the fact that they can be done there.

As for your idea that all crime is economically motivated. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! That gave me the greatest laugh I've had in several days.  To be sure, there are some crimes that arise in part from economic circumstances.  But do tell me, what is the economic motivation behind rape, child molestation, or punching someone in the face because he likes the sports team that just humiliated yours?

I welcome any and all changes to the prison system that make it more humane, but that does not also stop my advocacy of the eventual end to it and a new take on rehabilitation and restoration altogether.

Rape, child molestation, and punching someone in the face because he or she likes the sports team that just humiliated yours are not on the surface criminal acts resulting from economic issues, but they do come as a result of the sick, exploitative social relations of capitalism, which creates to a large extent mental illness, a whole host of perversions, and a perverted 'us against them' mentality that celebrates the individual over the collective, the personal over the societal, etc, etc.

[TNF]

I oppose prisons as well. I would be open to other alternatives. The prison system doesn't work at all.

I am not sure either you or TNF understand what the prison system is used for. Or how TNF's nonsense would solve anything.

Nice argument bro.

[TNF]

As I reject the concepts of 'punishment' and 'rehabilitation' as being either achieved in the present punitive regime or as being meaningful psychological concepts (both are loaded terms designed to justify existing practices), this is a false dichotomy. As for what should be done, why not exile, stripped of any pretense of redemptive purpose? The State already justifies itself through the penal discourse: it can surely justify an exilic discourse instead. But this requires a reversal of the Christian belief that purity of soul can be obtained through monastic confinement.

Exile to where?  There no longer is a terra nullis we can sent criminals to and no rational country will want to accept criminals from another country.

Space?

[TNF]

In this thread? No. But it's an unspoken assumption in Ernest's counterargument to exile in particular, as a supporter of Keystone - that development of public land for energy production is fine, but using it to alleviate the conditions in the prisons is not.

My support for Keystone XL is based primarily upon the belief that a pipeline is the least environmentally impactful way to transport crude oil that will be produced regardless of whether Keystone XL is built or not.  But even so, how do you propose forcing criminals to stay in their assigned plots of land, doing a task they have no skill with and likely little inclination?

Translation: I know nothing about KXL