I've never worked in a prison. I have a lot of time for the people that do because it's a job I could never do. I've been in prisons for jobs but I was really glad to get out of them. I have worked in short-term custodial facilities and that was enough.

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"There were no D-Day Heroes in 1973" - Cold Chisel Khe Sanh

Short-term facilities (my experience is limited to overnight/weekend custody) don't have a culture. Prison or any longer term custodial facility has a myriad of cultures. Short term custody work is okay, you just have to make sure that the temporary inmates are looked after until they get bail or front court, but longer term facilities, prisons....totally different.

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"There were no D-Day Heroes in 1973" - Cold Chisel Khe Sanh

I like your ideas. My idea of what prison ought to be like is similar in many ways and where I disagree it's mainly in scope.

I firmly believe those saying prison creates criminals, or at least makes those criminally inclined even moreso, are correct.

I would add to your list of what prison should be for, and reorder them this way; 1. restitution, 2. rehabilitation, 3. prevention and last and least significant 4. punishment.

I consider restitution and rehabilitation of primary significance. 1. Like you, I would agree the prisoner get's NO money, but he does work for a wage, he just doesn't get it. It goes to the state, and the state makes payment to the injured party. The state charges for this service. Who pays for it is of course, the prisoner. This solves many problems. What is the answer to illegal immigration? There would be much much less illegal immigration if they came up here and there were no jobs FOR them to steal. Bush said we NEED illegals to do those jobs Americans won't do. Well I say there is a far better work force. This work force will NOT send the money to a foreign country. They are ALREADY DOCUMENTED and will pay for every penny of aid (medical etc. etc.) they receive from the state, as well as income taxes etc. etc... This workforce is called prison inmates, and last I checked there was plenty millions of them.

What could be more poetic justice for a thief than to know each and every day that not only did you NOT get away with your theft, but you are going to wind up paying it back 10 fold. That the party you stole from was going to make a profit off of you, that the state is going to make a profit off of you, and that the government IS going to receive taxes from YOUR labor?

Putting our prisoners to work would be a great boon to our economy. I mean real work, not just groing tomatoes in a field beside the prison.

2. Rehabilitation. I believe this should be right up there with restitution in significance. I don't claim any expertise in that area so I'll just leave it as I think it's important.

3. Prevention. Is obvious. We don't want them to do it again.

4. Punishment. As previously stated I consider this of lesser significance, but not of no significance whatsoever. I think it is easy to become hardened, especially if you are in the law enforcement field. I'm not surprised when I hear of guards torturing inmates, or cops brutalizing some detainee. I'm not surprised by it, but that doesn't mean I condone it.

I believe being locked up IS punishment, and it should suffice AS THE punishment short of any crime we believe warrants death. Even those are done HUMANELY. I believe firmly that if anybody here was locked in an actual honest to God vacation resort, they would eventually FEEL locked up, caged, and punished, no matter how luxurious the conditions if they were NEVER allowed to leave and just go do what they want to do, WHERE they want to do it. Freedom is a precious thing. The deprivation of freedom, no matter how wonderful the slave pen might be, is punishment.

I believe there is a fine line between punishment and torture. Punishment, if administered right, is corrective. Torture is never corrective, but creates an ENEMY for life. Yes, I believe in many many cases our prisons are currently turning people who were simply desperate, or just stupid, into hardened sure enough enemies of our entire culture. Whereas they originally committed a crime/s out of stupidity, desperation, or intoxication; when they come out they have a new motivation, hatred.

I agree, no victim, no crime. I go as far as to include dwi's in that. Although I don't believe people should drive under the influence, I'm a firm believer in no victim no crime. There are far far too many people running around with criminal records who have never hurt anybody.

My solution to the problem would be that when there IS a victim, and alcohol or some drug is involved it should be an aggravated offense and carry much much stiffer charges than it currently does.

My brother is in prison right now. It's because of dwi's. He got several of them through a bad few years of his life. He wound up with a felony conviction (not once was there any accident or any type of of physical harm to anybody) and got 10 years probation. The terms of his probation was no alcohol or drug use at all. He made it through 7 years of probation without any incident. He never drove a vehicle in that entire 7 years because they made it pretty much impossible (or improbable) that he could get his licence back. So he just didn't. He lived in the city and used mass transit. probation officer shows up at his house, he pees dirty, his probation is revoked and he's sitting in prison for 5 years now. Sure sure, he shouldn't have drank, but in his own home? I don't call that justice. I do believe he will come out criminally minded.

All that spanned a period of time of about 25 years. From first dwi to now in prison he never harmed anybody, not so much as a fender bender.

I know that he'd come to feel hopeless. He did tell me shortly before they revoked him that he felt certain they'd get him for something eventually so he might as well drink. They were continuously threatening to revoke him. If they didn't like where he lived; they'd tell him he had to move or they'd revoke him. If he was late to probation they'd tell him he was in danger of being revoked. If they didn't like his job, he'd be ordered to quit, or they'd revoke him. If he didn't HAVE a job soon enough they'd threaten to revoke. Everything they did "for" him cost him money, but if he came up short on his probation or any other fees, they'd revoke him. He gave up. All for a crime in which there was absolutely no victim. He'll be 48 when he gets out of prison with bad knees. Still on probation I assume.

If rape is one of the worst offenses that one can commit.

Then why do we send so many people, convicted of much lesser crimes, to a place where there is a high probability of them becoming victims of rape?

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One day, I will sneak across the border into Canada and be an illegal alien. It will be fun.

I mean no offense at all, but I'm always disappointed with posts like this.

I may be way out of line, but when I read your post my immediate reaction was "good question!". I hoped you would elaborate. My thought was you'd asked the question BECAUSE you had serious opinions on the subject. It's something YOU'VE been thinking about. I was expecting to read your thoughts on the matter.

So anyway, I'm sure there are many here with plenty of good answers to your question. However; your post reads like a perfectly good opening for a thesis. I would like to hear YOUR thoughts on the subject.

This is just so naive and uninformed in so many ways as to be a textbook example of spouting off where one has absolutely no knowledge. I would strongly suggest that you arrange a tour or perform some voluntary work in your local prison (not jail). You are obviously regurgitating some BS poured into your head or making judgements based on TV. Spend some time there. Help as you can. Learn about the environment. Then come back and see if you can post something that has some basis in reality.

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I am like that iritating teacher who asks a question then bows out of the discussion.

I don't know much about the issue. I am not ever sure if rape is that common for prisoners.

I have never been to prison, but I have been to the county jail for a missed court appearance. And I was offended at the way the jailers were complete and total assholes. I know they deal with belligerent criminals and the dregs of society. But I found the overall attitude that everyone behind bars was to be treated like shit to be less than professional or ethical.

But I feel that way about many people in law enforcement. It's like a profession filled with surly assholes that just want to push people around. I guess they become very jaded.

I know they see a world completely different than what I see, but still I can understand why the black community has zero faith in the police.

It's like once you cross over from civillian to inmate, your status as a human being drops to nothing. I understand the "punishment" aspect of incarceration, but I am not sure if making people feel less than equal is conducive to making productive members of society.

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One day, I will sneak across the border into Canada and be an illegal alien. It will be fun.

First of all, there are very few rapes in prison. It is prosecuted vigorously. The instances of sex are usually consensual, although even that is prohibited. The inmates caught will vehemently protest that they are not homosexual. Take women away from men for decades, however, and something will fill the void.

Mr. Cbussey’s brother gets me neither here nor there. It sounds like the inmate that bitched about the unfairness of having a lesbian judge come down on his DomV, etc, until I read his narrative and learned about the kidnapping, the commandeered vehicle and the expended bullets. That shed a bit different light on his protestations. Very few felons are incarcerated on their first rodeo. They usually have built quite the résumé before being put in prison.

Regarding prison creating criminals, I think not. Almost all of them were criminals before they were sent to prison. Society has decided that those that impact another’s life in a severe and negative manner be removed from society. Since there are very few people offering to adopt these miscreants, prison is the only alternative. Some of them can be quite entertaining and interesting personalities once their victim pool has been removed.

For many of these inmates, their Intake physical may be the first time they have ever seen a doctor. They will receive community-standard medical care, probably for the first time. They will receive the meds that they need for any condition they may have. For certain conditions, those can get mighty expensive, running into the thousands of dollars per month.

The only downside is that if they happen to have raped or killed your mother, they may be sentenced to AdSeg, and locked down 23 hours a day. I doubt if any of the victims of their crimes would object.

Once again, I ask anyone that wishes to spout off indiscriminately, at least get a bit of experience in this subject.

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In that case, you might want to argue for life imprisonment or the death penalty for almost any crime. Recidivism is about 70%. These people will be released back into society because your elected representatives have written the laws to provide for their release. You can't have it both ways.

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This is a first. Louisiana officials usually give the taxpayer's money to themselves and/or their spouses.

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Spad, you made the statement "This is just so naive and uninformed in so many ways as to be a textbook example of spouting off where one has absolutely no knowledge.".

You made that statement and then made absolutely ZERO attempt to dispute a single thing I said.

Then you made a bunch of statements you were equally unable to support.

Contrary to your WILD GUESS; I HAVE worked for the prison system in my career. Not only have I worked in the prison system, my brother in law still works there, he's a career man for the Texas department of corrections. My mother worked in a federal penitentiary, as a guard for 11 years. She was one of the very first (go women's lib). My only brother is currently performing a 5 year "tour" of prison, not by choice.

Spaz, you won't learn much by "touring" a prison, or performing charity work there. Somebody is regurgitating crap here alright, but it isn't me.

Between the two of us, one of us would need highly biased and uninformed sources to support their opinion but it would be you, not me.

prisons should be hellholes which are for punishment , where all prisoners are always under the watchful eye of the guards - guards should be armed with shotguns and machineguns and ordered to fire into the prison population if they riot .
prisoners should be assigned a bunk for 8 hours , and 2 other shifts should be assigned to the bunk

when the prisoner is not in his bunk , eating military ration meals , or showering/ using the toilet, he/she should be engaged in hard labor
there should never be a private moment for them

prisons , if they were actually prisons instead of daycare centers , would curb crime because criminals would not wish to ever go back there again.

Why don't you just use the Constitution as toilet paper? You seem to hate it so.

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Whan they come, Ah sall staun mah grun
Staun mah grun, an be na afraid.
Thochts ae hame tak awa mah fear
Sweat an bluid hide mah veil o tears.

One of the main problems with American prisons is that the inmates (for the most part) cannot be isolated from the rest of the population, unless they want to spend 23 hours a day in a fucking rat cage. So most of them obviously choose to be among the rest, even though it means that they'll need to become psychopaths in order to stay alive and get respect.

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January the 20th 2009. The day I started to respect America!