Prison Reform???

Aaaand Polka!!



Just give me the firing squad.

Prison has never worked as a deterrent: there's never been any real evidence of that (though there's been quite a bit to the contrary, surprisingly). That's one of the very, very few things about which virtually all criminologists, sociologists, penologists, probation services, legal academics, statisticians and others who have studied this, internationally, for many decades, from all sides of the political spectrum, are close to universal agreement.

But prison conditions, in general, are regarded by many as one of the truest and most valid underlying parameters indicating how "civilised" a society/country is. That's an entirely different point, though - and of course that one's opinion only, not fact.

My own guess is that this Amanda Knox chick is going to walk, anyway, because at the most recent hearing it was court-appointed scientific experts (i.e. not defense ones) who proclaimed that much of the forensic evidence, DNA, and so on, might have been from "contamination" ... and it's surely - rightly - not going to be easy for them not to let her go, on that basis - they had comparatively little without that "evidence", as I remember - just bits and pieces of "circumstantial"?

I'd think the Canadian prison system is likely to be no deterrent whatsoever to criminals in Italy.

Um...Jody - remember you said this when you go to jail and can't get out of there to go where you want to go and do the things you love to do - or when you sit down to your meal of processed foods made with GMO crops and any additives they want to feed you. You won't get your choice of orgainics -- or when you get sick and are forced to use the treatment that their medical team gives you whether you are opposed to the treatment and know it will make you sicker or not. You don't get your choice. What about getting a tooth filled? Sure you get a dentist free - but you will get amalgam (sp?) filling so if you are sensitive to mercury or just object to being poisoned, tough noogies. Don't forget, too - if there is some type of chipping or other social experimentation going on, who do you think will be the first to play guinea pig?

Caged animals (i.e. criminals) will grow agitated and go insane when they are submitted to long term sensory deprivation (more insane in the case of the criminally insane). While some people are in jail for murder - murder that is punished isn't always unjustified. I know a man that was in jail for 14 years for murdering in self defense and showing no remorse for saving his own butt. What about people there for decades just because they smoked a fattie and got caught?

As long as jails in the US (and possibly elsewhere) are actually corporations, there will be a LOT of people in them who were not any harm to society. Even some incarcerated murderers are actually no harm to society. I am more than glad to let a murderer have a night that lacks misery than deprive everyone in the system some normal human outlet and recreation.

If it were only willfully violent and dangerous people locked up I might feel differently, but from our numbers, what you will find is that type are actually a minority in our corporate jails.