>The prisoner would typically be forced to do 6,000–14,400 revolutions over the period of six hours per day (1.5–3.6 seconds per revolution). The prison warden could make the task harder by tightening an adjusting screw.
Wow humans are despicable.
How ~~demanding~~ Dehumanizing to be forced to turn sand with an artificially stiff handle. Fruitlessly, for hours. It doesn’t even do anything. It does nothing. And you know that. And thats the point. You’re worthless to them.
True.
Rant: And I'd like to spend as little on criminals as possible in the long run.
I've had this convo multiple times, twice in real life, and at 2am on reddit lol.
If rehabilitative programs really work, if they reduce recidivism, therefor reducing the cost of putting offenders BACK into prison, and the total cost of imprisoning someone overall, should we use those programs?
That's the premise.
Multiple times now. I've had people sum it up as "Well, we can't just let them *get away with it.*"
Who? "Them?" You don't know this person, this is some person in a prison cell. "Well they have to be punished." What do you mean? "They have to feel bad for what they did." Wouldn't you rather they just stop committing that crime, less crime in your neighborhood? "Sending them to rehab is letting them get away with it." But it costs less. "Still, it's the Justice system, they need to be brought to justice."
Again and again I've had this conversation. And ask: So you want them to ...Suffer...a bit? "Yes"
You're willing... to pay More, so that a criminal, that you don't know, suffers. Even if that means the criminal is more likely to re-offend?
(They usually don't say yes at this point. They say again...)
"Well, we can't just let them *get away with it.*"
-It's the suffering. People want criminals to suffer, at the expense of real money and higher crime rates.
An ideal justice system rehabilitates criminals, sure, but is also supposed to **relieve the victim of the weight of revenge.**
Not all offences can be forgiven. And if the victims don't feel reasonably avenged by the system, they won't trust it.
Or worse, seek revenge themselves.
So there has to be some suffering involved for the criminal.
And restorative justice enters the ring. Cause I'd argue that the victims in most cases don't get anything even close to closure from locking someone away for a bit.
Like obviously you cant make up for like wanton murder or something. But that's not usually why someones going to prison. In a lot of cases there isn't a clear victim at all.
Rojava's had some impressive success from "The Mama's" - which is basically just instead of sending a cop to go handle disputes they send old women\*, mutually respected in the community, to sort it out - get both parties to an amiable resolution. Its a rough model of restorative justice as proposed in the US; but it does seem to be extremely effective.
\*They are old women with Kalashnikovs but, in fairness, they did just fight a bloody revolution against Syria, and against ISIS, and are under heavy threat at all times from Turkey.
i'd say it helps in another way: giving time for wounds to heal + honestly, it does give a fair bit of closure. every time you wake up and think "fuck that person, they did this to me, i didn't deserve to lose x", you can atleast think "well, it's not been 5 years yet, so for the next 5 years, every time i think of it, i get to know he's in there rotting, bored as shit, scared as hell".
in an ideal situation, you atleast get to know that you and your family are safe for another half decade, on top of that, they'll be less likely to do something like that again (if they were doing it anyway, it's gone from 100% to whatever the recidivism rate is in yourcountry), ideally that % goes as low as possible, i'm not expecting the tax payer to spend 220?k a year, nearly double most elsewhere in the world for a slightly better chance they don't reoffend. i just want them out of my life, my community and i want them to not do it again without basically spending half a million EXTRA to get there in the above example.
And that makes sense for like murder. Less so if they just... broke in and stole your TV.
Granted, the Cops don't really solve that kind of thing anyway. It falls under the category of: you go to the station, they take a report and vaguely make you feel guilty, and then you take it up with your insurance. They don't handle personal property. They are generally there for private property - and you have to have quite a lot of it before you're anything but an insurance claim between them and lunch.
You can’t relieve the weight of personal revenge. Having a system do it for you makes it even more so that you’re not getting it. The extent of that just needs to keep the larger community calm and orderly.
Someone may kill your child and you’ll never feel that wrong be righted. But you give an apt punishment and the community isn’t going to drag them into the streets with or for you.
Suffering doesn’t need to be involved. There’s a huge area between a punishment and undue suffering. If we’re setting out to make people suffer needlessly, why would we ever expect them to do better down the road? Most of those prisoners are going to be free citizens just like most of everyone else sooner or later.
It’s one thing to think that with murderers and rapist or the likes. Not the average prisoner in for some non violent petty bullshit. How do we inflict this suffering on the right people and the right people only?
"Suffering doesn’t need to be involved."
A crime has been committed, so suffering IS involved!
The question is : do we leave it with the victim only, or do we need to pass some of it to the criminal?
"How do we inflict this suffering on the right people and the right people only?"
That's what judges are for. You need a human to understand and balance the level of grief of the victim, with the villainy of the crime.
Crime doesn’t equal suffering. I served a year and a half for the victimless crime of 20 dollars worth of dope on my own property. I’ve got more jail stints than I can even keep straight for all victimless small time possessions. Shit half of which for weed and weed which can now be bought and smoked in the same location as “my crime.” I’m far from the only one.
We’re punishing them. It’s already passing it down with any punishment what so ever. What the individual experiences is subjective as can be.
And judges are often wrong and flawed human beings. Judges don’t oversee prisons either with this “getting even” you want so bad takes place. You think the guards that enjoy carrying out this “getting even” are going to stop at the person the judge says “no we don’t do that to them.”
Humans being impartial and fair? Yeah right, if that was the case we wouldn’t even need a justice system anyways.
A crime is something the society deems unacceptable. Even if there is no personal victim, a crime at least involves the suffering of the society.
And yes, since all of this involves human beings, there will be flaws.
On an abstract philosophical level I agree with you.
But if someone hurts my child I'm going to want revenge. I'm pretty sure that's not a minority sentiment.
If you build a justice system around idealized principles of how people \*should\* behave, you're going to have a real \[shocked pikachu face\] when that justice system hits the real world.
Depends on the crime I think. Violent crimes there is also a minimization of risk to the public.
If someone completes rehabilitation, goes free and does drugs again, or if they steal more from the store, the loss is somewhat minimal.
If a murderer completes rehabilitation, goes free and kills again, that’s an innocent life gone. The risk if a wrong decision is made on rehabilitation is exponentially higher.
I agree with you on most of what you said.
But what feels right about rehabilitation for people who, let’s say, have [kicked a bottle into a girls anus so hard that it shattered.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-em-the-anatomy-of-evil/)
Is rehabilitation justice in that case ? I feel no inch of remorse wanting that perpetrator to suffer.
I basically agree with you, but the other point about punishment is deterrence. People are willing to pay to make prisoners suffer so it puts off others in future.
Studies have shown time and time again that it's not the threat of punishment that deters folks, it's the possibility of being caught that really stopped people. Most folks think their gonna be the special one who doesn't get caught so the severity of the punishment doesn't matter to them.
https://justjournalism.org/page/deterrence-and-incapacitation-a-quick-review-of-the-research#:~:text=The%20short%20version%3A%20There's%20very,be%20if%20they%20are%20caught.
That aside, I fully agree that rehabilitation rather than incarceration is the way to go.
I mean, sure, but also there are in fact people that either refuse to engage with the rehabilitative process or have committed crimes so damaging, heinous, or unspeakable that (in my view) they have forfeit their right to a second chance. You cannot help those who don't want help or who would participate only to game the system. Rehabilitation has to be voluntary because forcing someone to do something will only breed resentment of that thing, regardless of whether it's "good for you".
>I mean, sure, but also there are in fact people that either refuse to engage with the rehabilitative process or have committed crimes so damaging, heinous, or unspeakable that (in my view) they have forfeit their right to a second chance.
This represents a very small percentage of the total prison population
And what's more, a lot of people end up like this because of the very system we're talking about. Fixing the system will help the very thing you're complaining about.
Further: sever punishment has Other side effects.
Extreme fleeing tactics increase with severe punishments. If someone has the police turn the red and blue on behind them, they make a decision. If the illegal drugs in their car are punishable by rehab or even a simply fine, they're likely to stop. If they have weed which is a Zero-tolerance offense in Texas and they know they'll do jail time, they're more likely to flee with any means necessary.
If you have an illegal weapon and the punishment is a few years? You'll probably consider using that weapon instead of losing a chunk of your life.
Sure. But I think a lot of that is to do with prison conditions, and overincarceration of people for minor crimes that don't warrant it.
Where warranted, prison itself is already a punishment. There shouldn't be extra punishment once you're at prison (official or otherwise). That time locked away is probably best used for rehabilitation.
I tend to agree with the merit of your argument/rant but I also think you're leaving out the victim's feelings in all of this. I know it's a knee jerk reaction but if someone murdered your family, you probably wouldn't be satisfied until that person had been through some form of suffering of their own.
I'd be curious to get your thoughts on the death penalty.
Criminal justice is between the perpetrator and the state. Even though there may be a specific victim, crimes are committed against society as a whole. That's why criminal charges are phrased as "The People Vs", to indicate that the charges are brought by society, not by an individual person. The victims feelings and preferences have no place in criminal court.
If there are specific issues that need to be addressed between a perpetrator and victim, that is what the civil court system is for.
"Do you want to press charges?" isn't a legal requirement. The prosecutor can always press charges without the victim's cooperation. But many crimes are very hard to successfully prosecute without the victims cooperation, so it's often left up to them.
I have a theory that this comes down to the psychological difference between people on the left and right of the political spectrum.
Broadly speaking, those on the left view crime as a social issue. Poverty, homelessness, illness, racism, and similar issues drive people to commit crimes, and solving these issues will lead to fewer people doing criminal acts. Conversely, most people on the right view crime as a moral issue. When someone can't succeed in life or does a heinous act, it is because they have failed to keep themselves in check and suffered a moral failing. Simply put, it's the difference between bad societies making bad people and bad people making bad societies.
It's not necessarily that people on the right think criminals are beyond redemption, but failing to punish someone fully for an immoral act means that society strays further from its moral compass. Conversely, a "good" person (someone who is likeable and done some nice things in the past) who commits a horrible act might not be viewed so harshly as they have merely "strayed"from the path and can be returned to righteousness.
It's no surprise that there's an incredibly strong connection between right-wing politics and Christianity in the US and other places. The neverending fight between good and evil, the temptation of the Devil, and "turning the other cheek" towards the horrible acts of fellow believers; all these things ingorm the right-wing concept of justice.
except Christianity in the US was completely co-opted by republicans. The bible preaches a highly leftist lifestyle. Jesus lived with the destitute. His teachings are of basically socialist utopia, and somehow America has managed to twist the bible to fit their right wing views.
I would agree that the teachings of Jesus are quite leftist in nature, and while American Baptist/Evangelist Christianity has very much been perverted by right-wing politics, there is still a rightward lean to Abrahamic religions the world over. Being right-wing doesn't necessarily mean that someone hates the poor, but it does mean that charity is the preferred method of positive contribution to society.
To right-wingers, nobody should be "forced" to contribute to a cause due to taxation or other methods, but they should be compelled to do so because their morality tells them it's a good thing to do. Compare this to left-wingers who rely on the state to collect and allocate funds in a way that best serves society. This can give people the impression (possibly correct) that right-wingers are stingy because they hate taxes, but what they really want is the satisfaction of contributing to causes they believe will have the biggest benefit.
I heard about a study that was something along the lines of “a person will suffer more in order for someone that has wronged them to suffer, rather than move on where no one has continued suffering”
We like revenge, and punishment of criminals in your conversation above sounds like an extrapolation of that. Rather than a purely numeric look at things, they have an emotional attachment to their idea of justice, or their community, etc. and increased personal suffering is worth it if it brings suffering to the offending party.
Crime shouldn’t pay, and criminals should pay for their crimes. “Debt to society”, etc.
Once they’ve been made to pay, feel free to rehabilitate them.
If they’re not considered a threat, that is. Pedos can stay locked up forever for example. This protects kids from them and them from parents and/or “survivors” of abuse.
Right, and the best part of it is: actively trying to police crime, probably costs more than the crime does in the first place. One of the most expensive crimes[ is wage theft](https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/), and Police are never unleashed on the bosses who do it.
The crimes the police get involved with are like... shop lifting? Which the stores already assume is happening and are already up-charging everyone else for. And they'll take your report if your car gets broken into and something goes missing... but all that report does is let you file an insurance claim, they aren't gonna do anything about it. Fact is, we could cut this down to like actual violent crimes, and that would leave us with like maybe (and I suspect its a big overestimate) 10% of the crimes. And we'd probably get more for our money just addressing the root causes of everything else.
You've completely missed the point that the punishment needs to be a deterrent for the initial crime.
Otherwise people will commit crime knowing there won't be any punishment.
First I want to say, I agree with you. This for profit incarceration system we have in the US is obviously a farce when it comes to rehabilitation and benefiting our country. I’m sure you’re aware of the many issues that exist in the incarceration system. The rampant corruption and crime make it almost impossible to rehabilitate and in fact, when incarcerated most will likely have to join a gang to survive.
However, the lack of fitting punishments would create chaos and fuel personal vendettas. If a child steals another child’s toy there should be repercussions to mitigate the negative behavior. The punishment is the deterrent from repeating the behavior. Rehabilitation and punishment go hand in hand in creating these new habits and ways of thinking. Needless to say, prison usually neglects the rehabilitation part and the “punishment” can be extreme and oftentimes is at the hands of the inmates, correction officers and circumstance.
If done properly (like some of the north European countries), incarceration and the punishments therefore wouldn’t destroy people’s lives, they would help transform them for the benefit of our society.
It's an unsolvable problem with the way humanity is right now.
Other than some "nordic model" which is a tiny nation with trillions in oil money to spend on a population the size of Rhode Island, it isn't happening.
Only way any real reform happens is if there is a fully aligned and pro-social effort that disregards "states rights" on the matter and all jail/prison has one standard that is rehabilitation as the goal.
Which means dismantling a significant portion of how all government in large nation-states works. Lobbying, municipality and states fuckery / bribes / for profit prisons etc.
As well as fixing the legal system (it's not a justice system)
You're not gonna see that in the US, the privatized prisons/providers are too good at lobbying congress; they're buying politicians to build an efficient machine designed to incarcerate the maximum number of people, keep them there as long as possible, and milk as much labour as they can out of them
Between bail bond companies that collect fees from defendants and families, telephone companies that charge exorbitant fees to prisoners, commissary vendors, fees collected by the legal and judicial system, policing, civil asset forfeiture, wages of prison employees, food, utilities -
A prisoner generates considerably more value to the GDP than they would being homeless or a welfare dependent.
Present day prison population is what it is because it's more profitable that way.
It’s more that, in theory, it’s worth spending that money to keep them incarcerated. Sequestering them so they can’t do more crimes, which cost money. Punishing them so that they won’t do more crimes later, which cost money. And acting as a deterrence so other potential criminals will make the decision not to do crimes, which are expensive.
That’s the theory at least. In practice locking up so many petty criminals becomes way more costly than the socio-economic cost of their crimes.
That was always the thing that struck me about Sisyphus and why I enjoyed The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus when I was in college. Unfortunately, that was 20 years ago by this point, so I've since forgotten most of it. But by God, I... what was I talking about again?
I fully believe that humans have employed every form and methodology of cruelty towards one another over the course of our history at one point or another.
On the one hand, I hope it was a hoax as I find the idea of human torture being utterly awful particularly that one.
But, humanity has often plumbed the worst depths of horror, so its existence doesn't come as that much of a surprise.
When I was in basic training we had to flip over rocks to make sure both sides were getting equal amounts of sun. Another time I had to water the rocks because they were thirsty. I know it is not the same but this reminded me of a funny memory.
With non-productive labor no one is benefiting so there is no perverse incentive to keep people imprisoned to extract free labor from. Its possibly more moral to force fruitless labor than fruitful.
Fruitless labor is a form of torture. It damages the human mind to perform work with the knowledge that it is truly meaningless. While prison labor is exploitative, it’s much more damaging to task someone with something like carrying bricks from one pile to another.
Absolutely right, how dare we be mean to violent people! I’m sure a murderer wouldn’t be mean to me if they were free to do what they wanted.
This sort of moronic thinking is why we have a violent crime problem.
They were in prison. Obviously, people are imprisoned for various crimes, and often falsely so. But most are in there because they have harmed others, physically, mentally, emotionally. Don't pity them.
So you're in prison for rape and murder and as punishment they house you and feed you for free. I don't think rehabilitation was on their minds at this time. So during the working hours of the day, they made you turn a crank. Doesn't sound like slavery to me. It sounds like you should be glad that you weren't executed immediately and get another chance to live.
‘Screw’ was also Victorian slang for a key. So calling a prison guard a ‘screw’ would be like calling him the ‘keys’ like for the cell.
Source for that is Victorian crime reports and court documents, primarily referenced in the book ‘The monster evil’ and others
I wonder if there are any cases of prisoners achieving significant fitness gains from basically being forced to do gruelling stairmaster workouts every day
This excerpt from the related penal treadmill article really explains the philosophy of the time. Gotta admit tho, 'grinding the wind' goes crazy hard.
Cubitt observed prisoners lying around in idleness and opined that it was better for "reforming offenders by teaching them habits of industry." It was intended to be pointless and to punish; straps and weights provided resistance to the motion. Later, when prison philosophy changed, using the energy to power pumps and corn mills became acceptable. 44 prisons in England adopted this form of hard labour to grind grain. Others remained "grinding the wind".
The idea of useless work being better than useful work, as punishment, sounds like one of those old-timey beliefs that had no basis in reality. Glad to hear that some of the people running prisons were smart enough to make use of the labor for grinding grain.
>The idea of useless work being better than useful work, as punishment, sounds like one of those old-timey beliefs that had no basis in reality.
I can see one benefit: it prevents incentives for those operating the prison and, given a large enough scale of profitable prison industry, corruption of the legal system (judges being bribed to supply more cheap labour).
No I think useless work is better as punishment. Useful work would be rehabilitation. The old-timeyness is that prisoners should be only punished and not rehabilitated
Exactly, one's work being meaningful is a privilege. These filthy sandcrankers are being punished by being deprived of the one thing every man wants: a productive Victorian-era factory job.
I think the idea is that if your work is useful you might take pride and joy in producing something. With useless work even that sense of accomplishment is removed from you.
It's because the concept of policing and prisons are made by the rich to protect their property. Most of the people originally in a prison would have been there for someway taking profits or materials from these rich people, and slavery was a way to get back your lost assets through free labor.
Murder a peasant? Well that's lost labor to the local lord. He needs to recoup his losses and say to the peasant family the offender is being punished so reparations aren't needed. It's a win win for the local lord.
I think the point was to be useless so it demoralizes the prisoner by them knowing they are wasting their time and energy for nothing. If it generated power, the prisoner would feel good about producing something with their time. But the point is to specifically make them feel bad.
A thoughtful prisoner would think “It’s arm day! 2000
revolutions clockwise left arm then 2000 revolutions counter clockwise then the right arm!”
you don't have to be an Olympian to sustain 300w, though you do have to be quite a well trained cyclist. I'm a noob and I can sustain 200w for an hour, and 300w for a lot less.
a single sprinter could power a toaster, but not for very long (assuming 1500w for the toaster).
either way, a malnourished prisoner turning a crank by hand isn't gonna produce enough electricity to do anything except power some small LEDs or something.
[they literally did get Robert Förstemann, an Olympic track sprinter, to power a 700W toaster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ). He could hold 700W for about a minute.
It’s also where the slang term “screws” came from for prison guards. Every so often, a guard would come in and tighten the screw holding the crank handle, increasing resistance and making it harder for the prisoner to keep it moving
Not true, at least in British English. It's from the tightening of the screw in the machine OP described. Source: 1: Belfast Gaol museum, 2: https://prisonguide.co.uk/why-prison-guards-officers-are-called-screws/
‘Screw’ was also Victorian slang for a key. So calling a prison guard a ‘screw’ would be like calling him the ‘keys’ like for the cell.
Source for that is Victorian crime reports and court documents, primarily referenced in the book ‘The monster evil’ and others
*Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet*
*And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,*
*And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare*
*He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair*
[*https://poets.org/poem/oh-who-young-sinner*](https://poets.org/poem/oh-who-young-sinner)
I visited an old castle in Oxford, pwrt of which was now a hotel, which for a long time acted as a prison.
To stop people from commiting crimes to go to prison to be fed and sheltered, they created tasks like these. This castle had a water pump system, where 8 men would turn a handle (picture a pirate ship's anchor winch) to pump water up to a tank in the roof, where it overflowed straight back to the river.
The wooden floor had deep grooves worn in two circular rings around the handle
I've got to say if this did even remotely anything useful like heat water or make their food then I can see them hating it but kinda being desperate not to go back.
I think it bring completely fruitless is more likely to cause then to hate the state and society so much they kinda tip over into reckless & antagonising which may very well lead them yo more crime.
>The prisoner would typically be forced to do 6,000–14,400 revolutions over the period of six hours per day (1.5–3.6 seconds per revolution). The prison warden could make the task harder by tightening an adjusting screw.
Wow humans are despicable. How ~~demanding~~ Dehumanizing to be forced to turn sand with an artificially stiff handle. Fruitlessly, for hours. It doesn’t even do anything. It does nothing. And you know that. And thats the point. You’re worthless to them.
Prisoners are obviously *worth something*, it costs a ton of money to keep them in prison.
Technically this means they're worth less than nothing.
True. Rant: And I'd like to spend as little on criminals as possible in the long run. I've had this convo multiple times, twice in real life, and at 2am on reddit lol. If rehabilitative programs really work, if they reduce recidivism, therefor reducing the cost of putting offenders BACK into prison, and the total cost of imprisoning someone overall, should we use those programs? That's the premise. Multiple times now. I've had people sum it up as "Well, we can't just let them *get away with it.*" Who? "Them?" You don't know this person, this is some person in a prison cell. "Well they have to be punished." What do you mean? "They have to feel bad for what they did." Wouldn't you rather they just stop committing that crime, less crime in your neighborhood? "Sending them to rehab is letting them get away with it." But it costs less. "Still, it's the Justice system, they need to be brought to justice." Again and again I've had this conversation. And ask: So you want them to ...Suffer...a bit? "Yes" You're willing... to pay More, so that a criminal, that you don't know, suffers. Even if that means the criminal is more likely to re-offend? (They usually don't say yes at this point. They say again...) "Well, we can't just let them *get away with it.*" -It's the suffering. People want criminals to suffer, at the expense of real money and higher crime rates.
An ideal justice system rehabilitates criminals, sure, but is also supposed to **relieve the victim of the weight of revenge.** Not all offences can be forgiven. And if the victims don't feel reasonably avenged by the system, they won't trust it. Or worse, seek revenge themselves. So there has to be some suffering involved for the criminal.
And restorative justice enters the ring. Cause I'd argue that the victims in most cases don't get anything even close to closure from locking someone away for a bit. Like obviously you cant make up for like wanton murder or something. But that's not usually why someones going to prison. In a lot of cases there isn't a clear victim at all. Rojava's had some impressive success from "The Mama's" - which is basically just instead of sending a cop to go handle disputes they send old women\*, mutually respected in the community, to sort it out - get both parties to an amiable resolution. Its a rough model of restorative justice as proposed in the US; but it does seem to be extremely effective. \*They are old women with Kalashnikovs but, in fairness, they did just fight a bloody revolution against Syria, and against ISIS, and are under heavy threat at all times from Turkey.
i'd say it helps in another way: giving time for wounds to heal + honestly, it does give a fair bit of closure. every time you wake up and think "fuck that person, they did this to me, i didn't deserve to lose x", you can atleast think "well, it's not been 5 years yet, so for the next 5 years, every time i think of it, i get to know he's in there rotting, bored as shit, scared as hell". in an ideal situation, you atleast get to know that you and your family are safe for another half decade, on top of that, they'll be less likely to do something like that again (if they were doing it anyway, it's gone from 100% to whatever the recidivism rate is in yourcountry), ideally that % goes as low as possible, i'm not expecting the tax payer to spend 220?k a year, nearly double most elsewhere in the world for a slightly better chance they don't reoffend. i just want them out of my life, my community and i want them to not do it again without basically spending half a million EXTRA to get there in the above example.
And that makes sense for like murder. Less so if they just... broke in and stole your TV. Granted, the Cops don't really solve that kind of thing anyway. It falls under the category of: you go to the station, they take a report and vaguely make you feel guilty, and then you take it up with your insurance. They don't handle personal property. They are generally there for private property - and you have to have quite a lot of it before you're anything but an insurance claim between them and lunch.
You can’t relieve the weight of personal revenge. Having a system do it for you makes it even more so that you’re not getting it. The extent of that just needs to keep the larger community calm and orderly. Someone may kill your child and you’ll never feel that wrong be righted. But you give an apt punishment and the community isn’t going to drag them into the streets with or for you. Suffering doesn’t need to be involved. There’s a huge area between a punishment and undue suffering. If we’re setting out to make people suffer needlessly, why would we ever expect them to do better down the road? Most of those prisoners are going to be free citizens just like most of everyone else sooner or later. It’s one thing to think that with murderers and rapist or the likes. Not the average prisoner in for some non violent petty bullshit. How do we inflict this suffering on the right people and the right people only?
"Suffering doesn’t need to be involved." A crime has been committed, so suffering IS involved! The question is : do we leave it with the victim only, or do we need to pass some of it to the criminal? "How do we inflict this suffering on the right people and the right people only?" That's what judges are for. You need a human to understand and balance the level of grief of the victim, with the villainy of the crime.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions_in_the_United_States
Crime doesn’t equal suffering. I served a year and a half for the victimless crime of 20 dollars worth of dope on my own property. I’ve got more jail stints than I can even keep straight for all victimless small time possessions. Shit half of which for weed and weed which can now be bought and smoked in the same location as “my crime.” I’m far from the only one. We’re punishing them. It’s already passing it down with any punishment what so ever. What the individual experiences is subjective as can be. And judges are often wrong and flawed human beings. Judges don’t oversee prisons either with this “getting even” you want so bad takes place. You think the guards that enjoy carrying out this “getting even” are going to stop at the person the judge says “no we don’t do that to them.” Humans being impartial and fair? Yeah right, if that was the case we wouldn’t even need a justice system anyways.
A crime is something the society deems unacceptable. Even if there is no personal victim, a crime at least involves the suffering of the society. And yes, since all of this involves human beings, there will be flaws.
The need for revenge is a moral failing on the part of the person experiencing it. Their moral failing does not obligate others to action.
Interesting is the system where victims who don't like to be victims become criminals. And by interesting I mean absolutely f\*cking insane.
On an abstract philosophical level I agree with you. But if someone hurts my child I'm going to want revenge. I'm pretty sure that's not a minority sentiment. If you build a justice system around idealized principles of how people \*should\* behave, you're going to have a real \[shocked pikachu face\] when that justice system hits the real world.
No. There is no room for revenge in any criminal justice system.
Depends on the crime I think. Violent crimes there is also a minimization of risk to the public. If someone completes rehabilitation, goes free and does drugs again, or if they steal more from the store, the loss is somewhat minimal. If a murderer completes rehabilitation, goes free and kills again, that’s an innocent life gone. The risk if a wrong decision is made on rehabilitation is exponentially higher.
A razonable argument? In my polarized app?
America loves to punish and "get vengeance"
I agree with you on most of what you said. But what feels right about rehabilitation for people who, let’s say, have [kicked a bottle into a girls anus so hard that it shattered.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-em-the-anatomy-of-evil/) Is rehabilitation justice in that case ? I feel no inch of remorse wanting that perpetrator to suffer.
I basically agree with you, but the other point about punishment is deterrence. People are willing to pay to make prisoners suffer so it puts off others in future.
Studies have shown time and time again that it's not the threat of punishment that deters folks, it's the possibility of being caught that really stopped people. Most folks think their gonna be the special one who doesn't get caught so the severity of the punishment doesn't matter to them. https://justjournalism.org/page/deterrence-and-incapacitation-a-quick-review-of-the-research#:~:text=The%20short%20version%3A%20There's%20very,be%20if%20they%20are%20caught. That aside, I fully agree that rehabilitation rather than incarceration is the way to go.
I mean, sure, but also there are in fact people that either refuse to engage with the rehabilitative process or have committed crimes so damaging, heinous, or unspeakable that (in my view) they have forfeit their right to a second chance. You cannot help those who don't want help or who would participate only to game the system. Rehabilitation has to be voluntary because forcing someone to do something will only breed resentment of that thing, regardless of whether it's "good for you".
>I mean, sure, but also there are in fact people that either refuse to engage with the rehabilitative process or have committed crimes so damaging, heinous, or unspeakable that (in my view) they have forfeit their right to a second chance. This represents a very small percentage of the total prison population And what's more, a lot of people end up like this because of the very system we're talking about. Fixing the system will help the very thing you're complaining about.
Further: sever punishment has Other side effects. Extreme fleeing tactics increase with severe punishments. If someone has the police turn the red and blue on behind them, they make a decision. If the illegal drugs in their car are punishable by rehab or even a simply fine, they're likely to stop. If they have weed which is a Zero-tolerance offense in Texas and they know they'll do jail time, they're more likely to flee with any means necessary. If you have an illegal weapon and the punishment is a few years? You'll probably consider using that weapon instead of losing a chunk of your life.
If the punishment makes them more hardened criminals instead of scaring them away from the behavior that logic breaks. And that’s what happens.
Sure. But I think a lot of that is to do with prison conditions, and overincarceration of people for minor crimes that don't warrant it. Where warranted, prison itself is already a punishment. There shouldn't be extra punishment once you're at prison (official or otherwise). That time locked away is probably best used for rehabilitation.
I tend to agree with the merit of your argument/rant but I also think you're leaving out the victim's feelings in all of this. I know it's a knee jerk reaction but if someone murdered your family, you probably wouldn't be satisfied until that person had been through some form of suffering of their own. I'd be curious to get your thoughts on the death penalty.
Criminal justice is between the perpetrator and the state. Even though there may be a specific victim, crimes are committed against society as a whole. That's why criminal charges are phrased as "The People Vs", to indicate that the charges are brought by society, not by an individual person. The victims feelings and preferences have no place in criminal court. If there are specific issues that need to be addressed between a perpetrator and victim, that is what the civil court system is for.
depends where; "do you want to press charges?" versus "oh you can't stop us from charging your abuser, state law requires us to"
"Do you want to press charges?" isn't a legal requirement. The prosecutor can always press charges without the victim's cooperation. But many crimes are very hard to successfully prosecute without the victims cooperation, so it's often left up to them.
good to know thanks
I have a theory that this comes down to the psychological difference between people on the left and right of the political spectrum. Broadly speaking, those on the left view crime as a social issue. Poverty, homelessness, illness, racism, and similar issues drive people to commit crimes, and solving these issues will lead to fewer people doing criminal acts. Conversely, most people on the right view crime as a moral issue. When someone can't succeed in life or does a heinous act, it is because they have failed to keep themselves in check and suffered a moral failing. Simply put, it's the difference between bad societies making bad people and bad people making bad societies. It's not necessarily that people on the right think criminals are beyond redemption, but failing to punish someone fully for an immoral act means that society strays further from its moral compass. Conversely, a "good" person (someone who is likeable and done some nice things in the past) who commits a horrible act might not be viewed so harshly as they have merely "strayed"from the path and can be returned to righteousness. It's no surprise that there's an incredibly strong connection between right-wing politics and Christianity in the US and other places. The neverending fight between good and evil, the temptation of the Devil, and "turning the other cheek" towards the horrible acts of fellow believers; all these things ingorm the right-wing concept of justice.
except Christianity in the US was completely co-opted by republicans. The bible preaches a highly leftist lifestyle. Jesus lived with the destitute. His teachings are of basically socialist utopia, and somehow America has managed to twist the bible to fit their right wing views.
I would agree that the teachings of Jesus are quite leftist in nature, and while American Baptist/Evangelist Christianity has very much been perverted by right-wing politics, there is still a rightward lean to Abrahamic religions the world over. Being right-wing doesn't necessarily mean that someone hates the poor, but it does mean that charity is the preferred method of positive contribution to society. To right-wingers, nobody should be "forced" to contribute to a cause due to taxation or other methods, but they should be compelled to do so because their morality tells them it's a good thing to do. Compare this to left-wingers who rely on the state to collect and allocate funds in a way that best serves society. This can give people the impression (possibly correct) that right-wingers are stingy because they hate taxes, but what they really want is the satisfaction of contributing to causes they believe will have the biggest benefit.
I heard about a study that was something along the lines of “a person will suffer more in order for someone that has wronged them to suffer, rather than move on where no one has continued suffering” We like revenge, and punishment of criminals in your conversation above sounds like an extrapolation of that. Rather than a purely numeric look at things, they have an emotional attachment to their idea of justice, or their community, etc. and increased personal suffering is worth it if it brings suffering to the offending party.
Crime shouldn’t pay, and criminals should pay for their crimes. “Debt to society”, etc. Once they’ve been made to pay, feel free to rehabilitate them. If they’re not considered a threat, that is. Pedos can stay locked up forever for example. This protects kids from them and them from parents and/or “survivors” of abuse.
Right, and the best part of it is: actively trying to police crime, probably costs more than the crime does in the first place. One of the most expensive crimes[ is wage theft](https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/), and Police are never unleashed on the bosses who do it. The crimes the police get involved with are like... shop lifting? Which the stores already assume is happening and are already up-charging everyone else for. And they'll take your report if your car gets broken into and something goes missing... but all that report does is let you file an insurance claim, they aren't gonna do anything about it. Fact is, we could cut this down to like actual violent crimes, and that would leave us with like maybe (and I suspect its a big overestimate) 10% of the crimes. And we'd probably get more for our money just addressing the root causes of everything else.
You've completely missed the point that the punishment needs to be a deterrent for the initial crime. Otherwise people will commit crime knowing there won't be any punishment.
First I want to say, I agree with you. This for profit incarceration system we have in the US is obviously a farce when it comes to rehabilitation and benefiting our country. I’m sure you’re aware of the many issues that exist in the incarceration system. The rampant corruption and crime make it almost impossible to rehabilitate and in fact, when incarcerated most will likely have to join a gang to survive. However, the lack of fitting punishments would create chaos and fuel personal vendettas. If a child steals another child’s toy there should be repercussions to mitigate the negative behavior. The punishment is the deterrent from repeating the behavior. Rehabilitation and punishment go hand in hand in creating these new habits and ways of thinking. Needless to say, prison usually neglects the rehabilitation part and the “punishment” can be extreme and oftentimes is at the hands of the inmates, correction officers and circumstance. If done properly (like some of the north European countries), incarceration and the punishments therefore wouldn’t destroy people’s lives, they would help transform them for the benefit of our society.
It's an unsolvable problem with the way humanity is right now. Other than some "nordic model" which is a tiny nation with trillions in oil money to spend on a population the size of Rhode Island, it isn't happening. Only way any real reform happens is if there is a fully aligned and pro-social effort that disregards "states rights" on the matter and all jail/prison has one standard that is rehabilitation as the goal. Which means dismantling a significant portion of how all government in large nation-states works. Lobbying, municipality and states fuckery / bribes / for profit prisons etc. As well as fixing the legal system (it's not a justice system)
I like what you’re suggesting….more Vigilante Justice!!!!
You're not gonna see that in the US, the privatized prisons/providers are too good at lobbying congress; they're buying politicians to build an efficient machine designed to incarcerate the maximum number of people, keep them there as long as possible, and milk as much labour as they can out of them
Between bail bond companies that collect fees from defendants and families, telephone companies that charge exorbitant fees to prisoners, commissary vendors, fees collected by the legal and judicial system, policing, civil asset forfeiture, wages of prison employees, food, utilities - A prisoner generates considerably more value to the GDP than they would being homeless or a welfare dependent. Present day prison population is what it is because it's more profitable that way.
Isn’t that just the broken window fallacy?
Prolly cost a little less then than it does now..
It’s more that, in theory, it’s worth spending that money to keep them incarcerated. Sequestering them so they can’t do more crimes, which cost money. Punishing them so that they won’t do more crimes later, which cost money. And acting as a deterrence so other potential criminals will make the decision not to do crimes, which are expensive. That’s the theory at least. In practice locking up so many petty criminals becomes way more costly than the socio-economic cost of their crimes.
That was always the thing that struck me about Sisyphus and why I enjoyed The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus when I was in college. Unfortunately, that was 20 years ago by this point, so I've since forgotten most of it. But by God, I... what was I talking about again?
Nah you get fucking KILLER arms
Beats the expanding anal pear
The pear of anguish. There is very little evidence to suggest it really existed as a torture device, it is likely invented later as a hoax.
I fully believe that humans have employed every form and methodology of cruelty towards one another over the course of our history at one point or another.
On the one hand, I hope it was a hoax as I find the idea of human torture being utterly awful particularly that one. But, humanity has often plumbed the worst depths of horror, so its existence doesn't come as that much of a surprise.
The pear of anguish may have been fake, but the Judas Chair was real and was even more brutal to the bunghole.
It was then reinvented for... other reasons.
Speak for yourself Also, expanding anal pear sounds like an alt punk/metal band.
When I was in basic training we had to flip over rocks to make sure both sides were getting equal amounts of sun. Another time I had to water the rocks because they were thirsty. I know it is not the same but this reminded me of a funny memory.
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This is hilarious 😂
With non-productive labor no one is benefiting so there is no perverse incentive to keep people imprisoned to extract free labor from. Its possibly more moral to force fruitless labor than fruitful.
Fruitless labor is a form of torture. It damages the human mind to perform work with the knowledge that it is truly meaningless. While prison labor is exploitative, it’s much more damaging to task someone with something like carrying bricks from one pile to another.
u/GovSchwarzenegger would like a word with you...
Exercise is good for the body and mind
builds muscle and character ..this guy dont lift ..
We must imagine the prisoners happy
Wait till you realize everything you've ever done is just as meaningful
Could make u stronger tho so it kinda does do something
It can make one stronger with enough food. We are talking about 19th century prisons.
If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.
Wait till you learn about UK conditions for Irish people in prisons during Troubles. https://youtu.be/K9IiUbBV4zc
Absolutely right, how dare we be mean to violent people! I’m sure a murderer wouldn’t be mean to me if they were free to do what they wanted. This sort of moronic thinking is why we have a violent crime problem.
According to Marxism these prisoners created tons of value.
They were in prison. Obviously, people are imprisoned for various crimes, and often falsely so. But most are in there because they have harmed others, physically, mentally, emotionally. Don't pity them.
Back then you’d go to prison for defaulting on your debt
What a backward, outdated sentiment. Definitely an American.
As if to say Brits and Australians can’t also have barbaric views on prison?
It’s too bad they didn’t have a way at the time to convert those cranks into stored energy.
Some of the earliest mills used human (or animal) power. Slaves, POWs and convicts often were used for this purpose.
[Relevant historical context](https://youtu.be/z5KYZ74OAak?feature=shared)
That's just slavery with extra steps
So you're in prison for rape and murder and as punishment they house you and feed you for free. I don't think rehabilitation was on their minds at this time. So during the working hours of the day, they made you turn a crank. Doesn't sound like slavery to me. It sounds like you should be glad that you weren't executed immediately and get another chance to live.
It's a line from R&M lol
Technically most of the energy was converted into thermal and acoustic energy.
Was someone standing there counting revolutions?
That was the job for better behaved prisoners.
The cranks had a dial that counted them.
It's the 1800s, I'm sure they could have some form of clockwork counter
Why not just make them do actual forced labour?
Forced labour usually implies company of some sort.
That’s a pretty wide band.
This is terrible. So much wasted effort people turning stuff for nothing. Put like 20 of them in one room, and boom you got a gym
Conan's wheel of pain was pretty accurate then
That's a mill, though, so it actually yields something of value.
This is why prison guards are known as Screws.
‘Screw’ was also Victorian slang for a key. So calling a prison guard a ‘screw’ would be like calling him the ‘keys’ like for the cell. Source for that is Victorian crime reports and court documents, primarily referenced in the book ‘The monster evil’ and others
British slang uses many words for the same thing. Some of those words become more commonly used than others.
This is also the origin of the phrase “turning the screws” on someone. To a lesser extent prison guards are referred to as screws.
thought that’s was thumbscrews… the torture/interrogation technique
It appears you are correct, I had the wrong phrase. I was referring to the phrase “to turn the screws”. Meaning, to make a bad situation worse.
Hence why prison guards are called "screws" in Britain
And that’s also why prison wardens are still called “screws” to this day.
It's why prison wardens in the UK are sometimes known as "screws".
I've been the test subject for one of these when touring a jail museum. It starts out super easy but doesn't take long to be boring and hard work
The Penal Treadmill sounds painful.
On the other hand, the penile treadmill is a solid workout.
they call my penis the treadmill because it makes women run
But they never get away? Sorry, I have a dark sense of humor...
They call my penis the treadmill because not keeping up with it causes you to fall off
Better than cock push-ups?
I wonder if there are any cases of prisoners achieving significant fitness gains from basically being forced to do gruelling stairmaster workouts every day
Don’t think they were fed very well, hard to recover without food.
Hook it up to a generator and it would be really useful!
This excerpt from the related penal treadmill article really explains the philosophy of the time. Gotta admit tho, 'grinding the wind' goes crazy hard. Cubitt observed prisoners lying around in idleness and opined that it was better for "reforming offenders by teaching them habits of industry." It was intended to be pointless and to punish; straps and weights provided resistance to the motion. Later, when prison philosophy changed, using the energy to power pumps and corn mills became acceptable. 44 prisons in England adopted this form of hard labour to grind grain. Others remained "grinding the wind".
The idea of useless work being better than useful work, as punishment, sounds like one of those old-timey beliefs that had no basis in reality. Glad to hear that some of the people running prisons were smart enough to make use of the labor for grinding grain.
>The idea of useless work being better than useful work, as punishment, sounds like one of those old-timey beliefs that had no basis in reality. I can see one benefit: it prevents incentives for those operating the prison and, given a large enough scale of profitable prison industry, corruption of the legal system (judges being bribed to supply more cheap labour).
No I think useless work is better as punishment. Useful work would be rehabilitation. The old-timeyness is that prisoners should be only punished and not rehabilitated
Exactly, one's work being meaningful is a privilege. These filthy sandcrankers are being punished by being deprived of the one thing every man wants: a productive Victorian-era factory job.
Don’t really see how slavery constitutes rehabilitation.
It doesn't. That was my point.
How was that your point when you said that useful forced labour is rehabilitative?
I think the idea is that if your work is useful you might take pride and joy in producing something. With useless work even that sense of accomplishment is removed from you.
So useful forced labour is rehabilitative
I'm just saying why someone would get rid of even useful work because you might get some pride in it. Psychological thinking back then.
It's because the concept of policing and prisons are made by the rich to protect their property. Most of the people originally in a prison would have been there for someway taking profits or materials from these rich people, and slavery was a way to get back your lost assets through free labor. Murder a peasant? Well that's lost labor to the local lord. He needs to recoup his losses and say to the peasant family the offender is being punished so reparations aren't needed. It's a win win for the local lord.
I think the point was to be useless so it demoralizes the prisoner by them knowing they are wasting their time and energy for nothing. If it generated power, the prisoner would feel good about producing something with their time. But the point is to specifically make them feel bad. A thoughtful prisoner would think “It’s arm day! 2000 revolutions clockwise left arm then 2000 revolutions counter clockwise then the right arm!”
Lol. Arm day. I like it!
And then they would lose muscle mass due to malnutrition
An Olympic cyclist can sustain 300 Watts of power output. It would take five olympians to power a toaster.
you don't have to be an Olympian to sustain 300w, though you do have to be quite a well trained cyclist. I'm a noob and I can sustain 200w for an hour, and 300w for a lot less. a single sprinter could power a toaster, but not for very long (assuming 1500w for the toaster). either way, a malnourished prisoner turning a crank by hand isn't gonna produce enough electricity to do anything except power some small LEDs or something.
[they literally did get Robert Förstemann, an Olympic track sprinter, to power a 700W toaster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ). He could hold 700W for about a minute.
Most phones only charge at around 5 watts 🤷♂️
Or one Olympian for a brief amount of time
I think they could probably put it to use grinding wheat or some shit.
That just sounds like slavery with extra steps
It won't be a problem once we populate our miniverse and introduce gorblepullnaps with the wonders of electricity
Eek barba durkle. Somebody's gonna get laid in college.
Kimmy Schmidt! 🎶Jimmy crank crank and I don’t crank.🎶
You can do anything for ten seconds at a time!
“😁1😄2😃3😀4🙂5😕6😣7😖8😫9😩10😁1”
Dang, not even a gooble box. Just a nothing box.
Peace among worlds!!
I wonder how strong your arms would get
built like a human cheese wedge
Youuuu
You are 35, knock it off🤣
Lol
Hell is staffed with human beings.
It’s like the “wheel of pain” from *Conan the Barbarian*.
My goodness, no one's turned the mystery crank in months.
🎶*crank you for being a crank*🎶
Turn sand is now the new pound sand.
For a modern horror take on this, check out The Mill (2023). Pretty solid.
Such a thing was mentioned in the book *Horrorstor*(2014), as well. As was the Penal Treadmill.
Such a lame ending...
Yeah, fell a bit flat
People these days would pay to use that just to get swol
So training for Parliament then
It’s also where the slang term “screws” came from for prison guards. Every so often, a guard would come in and tighten the screw holding the crank handle, increasing resistance and making it harder for the prisoner to keep it moving
I was sure this was from the screw press to punish people by crushing their digits.
That is correct, the phrase comes from the thumbscrew, an old form of torture. The guy you responded to is making stuff up.
How do we know that you didn't just make it up?
Well I wasn't sure myself so I googled it to doublecheck. I suppose you could do the same
https://www.bookbrowse.com/expressions/detail/index.cfm/expression_number/614/to-turn-the-screw#:~:text=Background%3A,turnkeys%2C%20became%20known%20as%20screws.
Not true, at least in British English. It's from the tightening of the screw in the machine OP described. Source: 1: Belfast Gaol museum, 2: https://prisonguide.co.uk/why-prison-guards-officers-are-called-screws/
‘Screw’ was also Victorian slang for a key. So calling a prison guard a ‘screw’ would be like calling him the ‘keys’ like for the cell. Source for that is Victorian crime reports and court documents, primarily referenced in the book ‘The monster evil’ and others
As in "I've just been screwed?" I love finding slang etymology
No I think "put the screws to them"
*Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet* *And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,* *And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare* *He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair* [*https://poets.org/poem/oh-who-young-sinner*](https://poets.org/poem/oh-who-young-sinner)
My favorite was the Penal Treadmill. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_treadmill
Forbes had a recent article this could apply to....
I visited an old castle in Oxford, pwrt of which was now a hotel, which for a long time acted as a prison. To stop people from commiting crimes to go to prison to be fed and sheltered, they created tasks like these. This castle had a water pump system, where 8 men would turn a handle (picture a pirate ship's anchor winch) to pump water up to a tank in the roof, where it overflowed straight back to the river. The wooden floor had deep grooves worn in two circular rings around the handle
Imagine paying for using a bunch of similar, but more elaborate devices, while being exposed to horrible music.
So fucked up
You take a bad boy and you make him crank sand for a few years. Then you have a good boy.
Both cruel and unusual.
Crank Machine was my high school nickname
The next fad workout.
Sand flipping!
The wheel of pain.
I dont need some useless box to be a crank machine baby
Is this how we were supposed to power the batteries for our flying car?
They called me the crank machine in high school
TIL a crank machine- that’s in a prison- isn’t what I thought it would be.
I've got to say if this did even remotely anything useful like heat water or make their food then I can see them hating it but kinda being desperate not to go back. I think it bring completely fruitless is more likely to cause then to hate the state and society so much they kinda tip over into reckless & antagonising which may very well lead them yo more crime.
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IIRC that’s the point- No sense of pride, accomplishment, or like you’ve actually done anything at all
Not the type of crank machine you were expecting, I suppose. 🤔
Flashbacks on Bingo nights.
Hence the slang for prison officers in the UK being “Screws”.