What do you think of my proposal to decress the prison population?

Question

The prisons being as full as they are says just one thing, no one is bothered to much about going to prison. I believe the reason for this is that prisons are far to soft. Why prisoners should be allowed to watch tv, play dvds, have pool tables or table tennis and such like is beyond me. If we were to make prison time hard, then people would think twice about putting themselves in a situation where they might end up there. As far as I'm concerned prison should be somewhere you dread going to. So get rid of all the luxuries and get the inmates grafting on something.

Answer 1

I totally agree. Prisons are far too cushy.They should be made to eat bread and water, use buckets as toilets and made to break rocks from morning til night.

Answer 2

I think making prison time as nasty as possible would not serve the main purpose of jail time, that is: rehabilitation. Bad means don't reach good ends. If you make the inmates suffer, you might get them even more antisocial. If on the contrary, you prepare them to have a good job, they might become better people. I agree in part that TV, DVDs, and so on don't do them much good. They are passive entertainment and much of what goes in the air is junk- decadence, empty consumerism and the like.
And what makes you think that prison inmates are more dangerous than some politicians? Who makes more people die or starve? Only the poor go to prison (with some glorious exceptions like Paris Hilton)

Answer 3

The prisons are full because our judges and magistrates are out of touch with reality.E.G first offence shoplifter,three months.Men rape 10year old 2years. Burglar with record as long as your arm pleads guilty and asks for 32 other offences to be taken into consideration ..suspended sentence! Why can't they build bigger prisons,they have the money.Make the prisoners work without wages that will save some dosh.Send them out in chain gangs to do council work,clearing roads shovelling ****, and make them wear bright lime green suits with the offence on their backs men and woman.Prison is meant to be a punishment not somewhere to put your feet up.Don't give me that human rights bollocks either,if you commit offences against society you forfeit those rights.

Answer 4

An old friend of mine who sadly passed away some time ago was a commercial pilot.One of the youngest captains ever on the old VC10's he subsequently worked for a middle Eastern Govt who it would seem had a bizarre method or reducing the prison population.
From time to time they loaded inmates onto a Hercules Transporter for a day out(to give them a treat).At 30,000 ft they would open the rear cargo ramp and go into a steep climb..
My friend never really officially knew what happened, but the gross landing weight was always far less than he anticipated.....

Answer 5

While I partialy agree with your statement, I do have to point out a couple of things.

I used to think that true hard time is the only way to reform a person. Give them a pick, shovel, and a sledge hammer and make them their best friend is what I used to say.

The only problem is that when you make a person go to somewhere as awful as you imagine it, it generaly will only make a worse-off member of society. Strip a person of all self worth and dignity and you are left with just a shell of what they used to be. What possible good will that do if there are no programs for reform?

There are many examples of criminals who really should be just locked up and the key thrown away but there are many more examples of people who just made a bad choice in life and all that hard time for that person will do is make them into more of a criminal as opposed to making them a more productive member of society.

I talk from personal experience and until you have experienced what I did from begining to end, you have no opinion on this subject as you truly do not know what it is like on both sides of the fence.

I personaly took from my experience and turned a negative in my life into a positive in my life.

I do agree with taking away personal t.v.'s and gameboys, etc. as this just takes away from the prisioner's time to contemplate why they are there in the first place.

Making conditions as bad as the way you would like them is useless because a true criminal does not care about the consequences of his or her's action. A good example is people who murder in states where capital punishment is carried out. You can't get a worse sentence than death and yet people every day still murder.

Answer 6

Yes it is TOO EASY

Right now it is choco cookies and hot milk before bed, 4 poster silk sheeted beds and PS3's, cinema visits etc... You're better off inside than out! What needs to be done is make the prisons like they were in the 1960's that eventually broke people like McVicar etc... Right now we'd be lucky to break Mr Blobby

Turning into a poof nation

Answer 7

one of the main reasons that prisoners have all those things in prison,is that there are not enough prison staff to make prisons hard as they should be,plus the do gooders in this country would start bleating about prisoners human rights,not a lot is done for victims of crime,but if you are a criminal and are caught then you have ever-do-gooder trying to help.mrs bliar made a good living and her name in the right circles

Answer 8

Have you heard of Maricopa County in Arizona? Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been doing the things you are proposing for a number of years now. Go check out his office website at www.mcso.org to see what his inmate tent city jail and his chain gang work detail is all about. It is legally possible to institute this type of penal/correction program but it takes the citizens of the area to make it happen and support it.

Answer 9

the purpose of prison is to punish and to re-educate so that they can (generally) be put back in to public, if its too soft then there is less of a deterrent to go back. however rewards/ incentives must be given in order for people to progress again however some of the luxuries out strip what people how anyway

Answer 10

Not for Special Category Status prisoners. I would never want to see another Maze.


Edit: Looking at most of these answers, I can not help but wonder if any of you have ever been in prison...

Answer 11

Your ideas of what prison is like are very glorified. You should go to a prison and see what it is really like, do research and take your blinders off, because prison is one of the harshest places a person can go to. I believe in prison reform, but prison is not all fun and games like you are thinking.