Fairness vs. Results

[Verbal Pararhea]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13666066

Article is old, but still relevant for the purposes of this post. A proposal exists (or existed) to abolish sending women (and only women) to prison. It was explicitly and obviously a gender-based double-standard. But here's the thing. The proponents of the policy swear that it works. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that they are right, that making prison something only men can be sentenced to actually works in reducing crime effectively, should it be done? It's not "fair," but if it worked, should we forego fairness in favor of results?

Personally, I'm not bothered, in principle, by favoring results over fairness. However, in this particular case, I'm not sure the long term results of overturning the rule of law would be a good thing. You have to look at all the consequences of a policy, not just the immediate ones, and I'm not convinced this would be all sunshine and roses.

[Verbal Pararhea]

I'm surprised no one commented. I at least expected the "More proof that feminism is about destroying men! Misandry!" crowd to post.

[Farnhamia]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13666066

Article is old, but still relevant for the purposes of this post. A proposal exists (or existed) to abolish sending women (and only women) to prison. It was explicitly and obviously a gender-based double-standard. But here's the thing. The proponents of the policy swear that it works. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that they are right, that making prison something only men can be sentenced to actually works in reducing crime effectively, should it be done? It's not "fair," but if it worked, should we forego fairness in favor of results?

Personally, I'm not bothered, in principle, by favoring results over fairness. However, in this particular case, I'm not sure the long term results of overturning the rule of law would be a good thing. You have to look at all the consequences of a policy, not just the immediate ones, and I'm not convinced this would be all sunshine and roses.

It's not "overturning the rule of law," it's changing the law to achieve a desired result. And sometimes threads don't get noticed. Be patient.

[Olthar]

Bar coding all citizens and eliminating any right to privacy would very much reduce crime. Sometimes, the ends don't justify the means.

[Regnum Dominae]

Reforming the prison system to focus more on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment would be a much better alternative. They're right that the prison system isn't doing its job, but we can solve that by fixing prisons, there is no need to abolish them.

Abolishing prisons is an incredibly foolish idea.

[The Parkus Empire]

I understand the issues they're talking about, but I really don't fucking get the logic of being sexist about it. That's absolutely ludicrous.

[The Parkus Empire]

Reforming the prison system to focus more on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment would be a much better alternative. They're right that the womens prison system isn't doing its job, but we can solve that by fixing women's prisons, there is no need to abolish them.

>implying the men's prison system is doing a better job

[Regnum Dominae]

Reforming the prison system to focus more on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment would be a much better alternative. They're right that the womens prison system isn't doing its job, but we can solve that by fixing women's prisons, there is no need to abolish them.

>implying the men's prison system is doing a better job

I never said it was. But this is about the women's prisons, so I'm discussing the women's prisons.

BOTH men's and women's prisons need to reform to focus more on rehabilitation (it works - look at Norway), but that's not what's meant to be discussed here.

[Farnhamia]

Reforming the prison system to focus more on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment would be a much better alternative. They're right that the womens prison system isn't doing its job, but we can solve that by fixing women's prisons, there is no need to abolish them.

Abolishing prisons for women is an incredibly foolish idea.

I don't disagree but perhaps the problem is that rehabilitation is hard to do in a prison environment. That may be the intent of the findings, even if they've been expressed incorrectly.

[The Parkus Empire]

>implying the men's prison system is doing a better job

I never said it was. But this is about the women's prisons, so I'm discussing the women's prisons.

BOTH men's and women's prisons need to reform to focus more on rehabilitation (it works - look at Norway), but that's not what's meant to be discussed here.

Just focusing on women's prisons is as fucked up as just focusing on white inmates.

[Olthar]

I never said it was. But this is about the women's prisons, so I'm discussing the women's prisons.

BOTH men's and women's prisons need to reform to focus more on rehabilitation (it works - look at Norway), but that's not what's meant to be discussed here.

Just focusing on women's prisons is as fucked up as just focusing on white inmates.

Well, clearly black men are just a lost cause and should be forgotten about. *nods*

[The Parkus Empire]

Reforming the prison system to focus more on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment would be a much better alternative. They're right that the womens prison system isn't doing its job, but we can solve that by fixing women's prisons, there is no need to abolish them.

Abolishing prisons for women is an incredibly foolish idea.

I don't disagree but perhaps the problem is that rehabilitation is hard to do in a prison environment. That may be the intent of the findings, even if they've been expressed incorrectly.

Rehabilitation is extremely hard to do in a prison environment. You're throwing someone in with people much worse than they are, forcing them to socialize with said people for a long term, subjecting them to an us-vs.-them mentality in regards to the law, and then releasing them and expecting them to find a whole set of brand new, non-criminal buddies and a job to match.

[Vetalia]

Don't do the crime if you don't want to do the time.

That being said, I question the logic of sentencing criminals to an environment that is far more brutal, violent and downright socipathic than *anything* they've encountered outside. Prisons as they currently exist in the United States are simply holding pens for animals and anyone sentenced to them will become animals themselves in order to survive and upon release will much more often than not act upon the instincts they acquired in prison only to return again, producing a never-ending cycle of savagery and violence.

[The Parkus Empire]

Just focusing on women's prisons is as fucked up as just focusing on white inmates.

Well, clearly black men are just a lost cause and should be forgotten about. *nods*

Unfortunately that's an actual thing in this country.

[Olthar]

Well, clearly black men are just a lost cause and should be forgotten about. *nods*

Unfortunately that's an actual thing in this country.

Indeed. In addition to the ludicrous prison-industrial complex, the American "justice" system, if you can really call it that, is notoriously racist. Even TV stars like LeVar Burton are legitimately afraid of encountering police in this nation. It's terrible.

[Blasveck]

Unfortunately that's an actual thing in this country.

Indeed. In addition to the ludicrous prison-industrial complex, the American "justice" system, if you can really call it that, is notoriously racist. Even TV stars like LeVar Burton are legitimately afraid of encountering police in this nation. It's terrible.

Considering that we have people going to jail for victimless crimes, and the horrid penal system, it's no wonder.

[Farnhamia]

Indeed. In addition to the ludicrous prison-industrial complex, the American "justice" system, if you can really call it that, is notoriously racist. Even TV stars like LeVar Burton are legitimately afraid of encountering police in this nation. It's terrible.

Considering that we have people going to jail for victimless crimes, and the horrid penal system, it's no wonder.

Well then, what do we do?

[Mavorpen]

Considering that we have people going to jail for victimless crimes, and the horrid penal system, it's no wonder.

Well then, what do we do?

Imprison ALL the black people. *nods*

[Farnhamia]

Well then, what do we do?

Imprison ALL the black people. *nods*

Besides that. That's already under way.

[Olthar]

Considering that we have people going to jail for victimless crimes, and the horrid penal system, it's no wonder.

Well then, what do we do?

Cut the private sector out of the whole thing. Switch over to rehabilitation instead of punishment. End the Drug War. Stop hiring racist, power hungry douchebags to the police.

[Diopolis]

Reforming the prison system to focus more on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment would be a much better alternative. They're right that the prison system isn't doing its job, but we can solve that by fixing prisons, there is no need to abolish them.

Abolishing prisons is an incredibly foolish idea.

^this. While I have no problems in principle with valuing results over fairness, I think that this proposal goes a little to far. If that's even the reason it was proposed, which I have serious doubts about.

[Blasveck]

Considering that we have people going to jail for victimless crimes, and the horrid penal system, it's no wonder.

Well then, what do we do?

1. End the Drug War. Biggest waste of money ever.
2. Reform our prison system for rehabilitation. Sticking a thief in a box for 10 years doesn't teach the thief anything.

[Vetalia]

Cut the private sector out of the whole thing. Switch over to rehabilitation instead of punishment. End the Drug War. Stop hiring racist, power hungry douchebags to the police.

Actually, the very thought that there is any for-profit corporation involved in managing prisons is obscene.

[Saiwania]

That is preposterous, the whole point of prisons is to segregate dangerous/criminal people from the rest of society. What, so because the person has a vagina- they should be able to get off scott free for rape, murder, etc?

[The Parkus Empire]

Considering that we have people going to jail for victimless crimes, and the horrid penal system, it's no wonder.

Well then, what do we do?

Decriminalizing drug possession would be a good start. As as far as sales, just legalizing that probably wouldn't help considerably, as it would just put the sale of drugs in the hands of big business, and then the people who used to sell them would move to something like robbery. The real problem here is poverty. As for the penal system, that's a little more tricky, because unless you want to isolate criminals from social interaction, they're going to get chummy with each other, and probably end up being controlled by a gang.