One of the largely unacknowledged problems of prison is that it manufactures bad people.
When someone is arrested, it is often a traumatic event. It’s backed up by the promise of violence, and even death if someone resists.
Police are often brutal, and, once in prison, one is surrounded by dangerous people. The least sign of weakness will make one into a victim, so one must pretend to be tough, no matter what. Months to years of living like that, plus the real possibility of new trauma from rape, assault, or battery, along with the certainty of living in near constant fear will likely give the person trauma and rage issues, and teach them that the best way not to be a victim is to be a victimizer.
When they get out…
This is made worse by the fact that once you’ve got a record, good jobs are largely closed off from you. Even a lot of bad jobs are, as so many employers do criminal records checks now that it is easy.
Poor, traumatized, and used to violence as a solution to problems; having been taught that admitting any weakness will just get you victimized, you’re very likely to turn to crime and even violent crime.
Prison in all Anglo countries created worse, harder criminals. By making a lot of poverty illegal, by locking up junkies (who should be in for treatment), and by disproportionately locking up minorities for crimes for which whites tend to skate (most drug use crimes), we tend to create the very monsters we think we are protecting ourselves from. And when we don’t create them, we make them worse.
There is another possibility: Norway has half the recidivism rate of the US because they treat their prisoners well. They don’t throw them into a situation with a great threat of violence, including rape, instead they genuinely try for rehabilitation.
Hurting people who have already been hurt makes them worse, not better, in most cases. It teaches them that violence is the way of the world, and that the strong do what they will to the weak. Victims become victimizers.
This is a choice. A lot of the people we lock up don’t need to be locked up: They have committed no crime of violence. There are other ways to deal with them, from medical help to removing their ability to do harm (like forbidding bankers to ever be involved with the financial industry ever again, seizing their ill-gotten wealth, and garnishing their income until they have paid back the billions they destroyed through their fraudulent actions. No money, no position = no power. But they can have good jobs which don’t pay more than median wages.)
And once they are in the system, we could choose not to treat them horribly, and not put them in a position where the other inmates will brutalize them further. This can be done, because other societies do it.
If we choose to perpetuate the violence, it is because, like Justice Clarence Thomas of the US Supreme Court, we think rape is part of the punishment.
Which, to be clear, makes us rapists. If you support criminals being raped, you’re little different from some asshole cheering a rapist on, screaming, “He has it coming!”
Perhaps, having tried cruelty for most of our history, we might consider trying a bit of kindness and a lot of “no harm”?
At the least, even if it doesn’t work (and the evidence is that it does), we wouldn’t be complicit in generating more violence.
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