Do you support Private or for-profit Prisons?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

For-profit prisons—be they public or private—have the perverse incentive of having more people be jailed so as to make more money.  In theory, a not-for-profit prison run by an NGO could work, but I don't know of anyone who has even proposed such a thing.  Maybe some of the halfway houses that try to ease the transition for ex-cons returning to society, would qualify as such, but I am not aware of any not-for-profit institution that would try to hold and rehabilitate the prisoners from day one of their sentence.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.

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?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Not space - not yet- but to the billions of acres of currently-fallow land held by governments the world over.

So you'd destroy the environment to solve our crime problem?  The idea that fallow land serves no useful purpose is one I would hope we'd long since abandoned.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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

Translation: Moving crude oil by railcar takes more energy and has a greater risk of fatal accident and spillage.