I was having a conversation with my friend the other day about prison and punishment in general by the government.
At the beginning of the conversation, my point of view was that no one should be locked up. Why lock people up? It promotes hatred, not love. Yes, these people did something wrong, but our reaction shouldn't be to get back at them by locking them up. What we really need to do is find some way to reform them.
Psychologically, sending someone to prison is not an efficient way to teach them wrong from right. You send them to prison for something wrong they originally did, and they spend years not contemplating that thing, but rather being angry and living their life trying to forget that thing they did. It doesn't matter where they are, whether they are locked up or whether they are even taken out of society. What should happen is they should be constantly reminded of what they did. They committed a crime because they did not fully understand the consequences of that crime on others. We need to show them how this is wrong and what they really did. For example, someone who brutally murdered someone. Sending this person to prison will do nothing to them. What we need to do is to make their mind a prison. We need to put their actions into perspective. We should show the perpetrator how they have affected the victim's family and friends. We should show the perpetrator how they have taken a life away from this world, just as if their own family were to die. We need to show this criminal what they did to the world, and their treatment is only done once they understand fully and feel the guilt they should. This guilt is worse than any prison sentence that can be given to them. Living with the full guilt of killing someone will change them. Not only would they never do it again, but they will live day to day with this guilt heavy on their minds.
Putting someone in prison is very...human. We need to go beyond our basic human instincts of punishing someone physically for a crime. Yes, if one of my friends or family members were murdered, I would want to find that person and kill them myself, but this is but a human instinct. This is anger-driven. Too many things in this world are anger-driven. We need to stop and think and realize that what is in the past has already happened. We need to realize that the worst we can do to this person is to make them feel how we feel.
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2 comments:
"we are not old enough for war. and then we are too old for it" is not a song lyric or quote. it is mine... hehe. and I am quite proud of it. it's very true, when you think about it... we are either too young to really know what war is, to endure the horrible events of war, to know whether or not we agree with what the war is about. and then we become too old, too old to know if we care, too old to be physically fit for war, too old to be sent out without another thought. it's kind of a two year window of opportunity, I think.
Anyway. I'm torn on whether or not I agree with you on prison. Obviously, a lot of people will just suffer from being in an environment where everything is regulated (too intense for small time criminals, not intense enough for mass murderers?). But then again, some people just won't learn their lesson unless something along the lines of prison is inflicted on them.. I know that sounds harsh, but I believe it. There are good and bad side effects, and I don't really think there's much of a good answer to when it comes to dealing with felons. I guess I just can't make up my mind.
Yes, but I feel like prison itself isn't a very efficient way of connecting the punishment with the crime. I feel like you don't connect the crime you committed with your frustrating that you're locked up in prison. With so much time elapsed from between when the crime was committed and the punishment (eg..if people spend years in jail), they aren't learning that what they did was wrong. Prison is more of a human reaction to take revenge on criminals.
And, I like that "we are not old enough for war. and then we are too old for it". Tis very interesting. Life would be so much easier if we matured backwards. Except not really...
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