Prisons are Universities for criminals
Prison reform normally has one side saying kill them or lock them up permanently and the other saying there should be no prisons. Studies, opinions, blah de blah de blah. We have heard them all at least a couple of times. There is one thing though that rarely gets talked about in the studies and it was first introduced to me by a friend of mine who went to prison many years ago. He said,
Prisons are Universities for criminals
He then went on to explain it like this. When he "went inside" he would get asked what for and other people would say he should have done car conversion instead as the prison sentence was far less with greater amounts of money and less chance of getting caught.
Prisoners are not stupid and even if some were ideas are a little like pirating movies, it only takes one person to copy the movie and then they can share it with all the others. So when we send people to prison we are actually sending them to a place where they can learn to be better criminals, and not in the good sense.
Another childhood friend described prison as a good place for him. He went to prison, got fed, clothed, knew everyone, knew his place in the order, got fit and healthy, played sport. In his experience out was the bad place where everything was fun but went wrong and prison was the good place with structure.
An alternative
As an alternative why don't we separate prisoners from each other. There are a lot of shipping containers in the world, retrofitting them with a bed, toilet, water and heating wouldn't be all that hard and then instead of being trapped inside a prison non-violent or low level crimes could spend their time in a paddock with an ankle monitor.
Additionally, this would make it easier for families to visit their relatives and really in a much nicer situation than the nasty hall with the flickering neon lights. It would also allow the control of media and counselling could happen over the internet.
On the down side of things the risk of contraband being provided to prisoners would be increase but since it would remove the market and social prestige of that contraband perhaps the risks associated with them wouldn't be so high. Drug tests could be random and automated anyway.
What ever the rules, at some point they are going to be broken and the difference in my mind between going from cell to solitary is much smaller than going from container house in paddock to cell to solitary. In many cases it may also sort those who wish to rehabilitate themselves from those who do not.
We should try it, even as a test. It isn't so far off our present usage of ankle bracelets and if it helps break the cycle for people by not being introduced to other criminals then it may be of some benefit to them.
