Prisons - are they too cushy?

"This story is taylor-made for the Daily Mail.
Did they commission it?
Many prisoners are people with mental health
problems, backgrounds of failed education
and broken, disfunctional home lives, and
consequently have poor prospects of a decent
home or work.If they end up in prison, maybe
they do like it there because they get the
attention, care - in the sense of having their lives
organised for them - and structure they don't get
outside. It's tough having to take responsibility,
and you need skill and confidence to fit into
our society. They've escaped into jail, no wonder
they're happy there." -a poster ('steady on') on
http://boards.msn.com/UKNewsboards/thread.aspx?boardid=770&ThreadID=644611

I think the point is: what kind of deterrence is
prison when life on the outside for many people
is so precarious,poverty-ridden and not to mention
violent, so that it is quite rational to commit
a crime to be free from all that?

The deterrence argument for prison falls flat on its
face when we are faced with the reality of outside
poverty and violence.

I would assert that, therefore, increasing the prison
population actually increases crime simply due to
certain communities being depleted of male role
models (admittedly thats using the Daily Mail's
argument against them but supporters of prison have
no idea of the social costs, and I've not even started
on the Amercan prison system, which both Labour
and Conservatives seem to want to emulate for
shallow political gain)

The whole talk about and support for prison, reminds
one of Perlman's Leviathan critique of civilisation;
because unthinking support for prison will lead to
its inevitable continued growth.

If any campaign is to be made out of this, it is for less
reliance on prison and shorter sentences in favour of
rehabilitation (community service has less recidivity)
and drug treatment/counselling, and we need to
seriously reconsider the idea of drug prohibition.

The main problem with rape is lack of evidence
and the fact that a large proportion of society at large
believe that rape is somehow acceptable.

Statistics from various countries are shocking: two women
a week are fatal victims of domestic violence in the UK, a
fifth of South African males consider participation in gang
rape an acceptable part of a nights jollies (a similar
proportion of Russian males hold similar views) and one in
two American women will be raped or suffer an attempted
rape in their lifetime, not to mention the long-term social effects
of imprisoning an increasing proportion of the population
(over 1% in the US).

It is obvious that social attitudes need to change first.

A short answer for murderers and rapists is that they
need to be locked up for their own protection, but
there are inherent problems in locking people up
on a large,concentrated scale as it normalises their
crimes-we've all heard about threats made to child
murderers inside but what about what everyone
else is in for?

The only solution I can come up with is a prison of
sorts where most of the 'inmates' are members of the
public who can come and go as they please, but are
there to teach the minority of real offenders/inmates
good behaviour etc.

In Christiana Freetown (Copenhagen), there is a
general agreement: no guns and no hard drugs.
Cars are also prohibited. Similarly, there is a
complete voluntary ban on alcohol and other drugs in
Zapatista-controlled territory (Chiapas, Mexico). In
Anarchy particular neighborhoods could put signs up
saying what is and what is not acceptable. Anarchy
has the potential to be very ordered in this way.

Problems involved with drugs etc would certainly be
reduced if no-one can make a profit out of them.
In the last result if individual worker/producers don't
want to make the effort in producing drugs etc they
don't have to,conversely the supply to addicts or
trouble-makers can be restricted on an individual
basis by a simple refusal to serve.