Sadly, in the US (where I live) this would never fly. We are a people of violence and revenge and want those who’ve done us wrong to suffer. It doesn’t matter that it perpetuates a cycle. Even if a miracle happened and a place like this was brought into existence, some politician would start using it to score cheap shots. “Look what $party_name is doing! Sending rapists and murderers to a health spa!! I’m TOUGH on crime! I’ll end this!!”
I suppose I would have a hard time swallowing someone who killed a love one of mine getting to do yoga in the woods too. Dunno.
It's interesting that in the U.S. many people champion the power of incentives to produce goods and services efficiently yet are blind to the perverse incentives of having privately-run prisons. Of course a corporation whose profit comes from running prisons does not want to reduce the recidivism rate.
[0] https://www.encartele.net/2018/04/what-can-us-correctional-f...
There’s so many possible avenues a person could take to commit crimes that send them to jail. I think it’s worth using prison as a way to psychologically investigate what lead people to crime or recidivism, and try to understand crime from micro and macro levels more. Like some kind of criminal science retrospective that goes beyond solving a crime, and also provides a meta post-crime analysis. Of course, this isn’t perfect either and probably will receive privacy and medical qualms, but I also don’t know of a definitive answer about what a realistic hope is to reach for concerning criminal justice. As far as human history goes back, there has always been crime and it has always sucked.
I am sure many here will agree with "Ends don't justify means". That goes both ways,the end goal of rehabilitating a criminal does not justify the means.
To me justice means to correct a wrong done. Someone did some wrong therefore a fairly measured punishment is given so that the wrong doer suffers and/or makes up for their wrong actions. It is this idea that when someone commits a wrong they are indebted for that wrong. It does not have to be a criminal situation, when you see someone suffer and offer help, you saw wrong and attempted to correct it,you attempted to administer justice even though there was no criminal.
Now, a debt can be forgiven but it must be explicit. I understand and can accept mercy being shown to anyone. The core of my disagreement here is portrayal of justice to mean correction and rehabilitation of the wrongdoer. In the eyes of justice, the debt being paid is all that counts. If rehabilitation is a priority to a society, mercy needs to be explicitly shown,it should not be done in a way that waters down justice to where we say "you owe this much but due to the end result we will only accept so much repayment of wrongs from you",you're saying the unpaid debt is ignored,not forgiven. if there is a victim,the victim should also have a say.
I hope I wasn't all over the place with my comment. All in all, I am mostly displeased with the end result being the focus here. I do need good neighbors but not at the cost of graying-down justice.
Really? Even with this low recidivism rate, I find this hard to accept somehow.
I don't even think deranged people like serial killers and pedophile rapists can change.
Even if they could theoretically change, why would we accept them back in society and spend any resources on them after they did that?
That doesn't make us more human. We are redefining 'humanity' to match our politics. But we have evolved over millions of years. Those two things can't coexist.
(edit: removed a paragraph, it was kinda OT)
The whole "tough on crime" headlines and media campaigns in certain sections of the media, and certain shades of politics are the cause of much of our problem with overcrowded and brutal prisons. Tough sentencing does not work. It's been demonstrated decade after decade. It flies well for voters seeking vengeance. The same voters who'd probably bring back hanging tomorrow if there were a referendum. That's not justice.
Citation needed. This claim gets thrown around a lot, but is there any evidence or actual research backing the claim that diversity leads to crime?
There is plenty of evidence that disenfranchisement leads to crime, but you can have diversity without disenfranchisement.
see: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terbeschikkingstelling_(Nederl...
You can call it whatever you want, as long as you keep certain people forever excluded from society. Preferably at low cost.
It's a lot better to base this judgement on real data than on the vengeful feelings of the wronged.
Humans aren't adapted to the possibility of reconciliation, our knee-jerk reaction is revenge out of past necessities. But if we can afford to rehabilitate someone, we absolutely should. We should never limit the rights we grant people purely out of vengeance.
I don't think punishment for criminal action is "revenge" or "vengeance". In theory, it is suppose to stop the possibility of it occurring again and hopefully deter people attempting it.
My opinion is that society needs to be protected from certain people.
If you tell me with a straight face that if someone mutilated your kids and did unimaginable things and you are truly fine with accepting that he will live his life as if nothing happened after a few years, I wouldn't believe you are human.
I can be downvoted to oblivion, but it won't change certain facts and realities.
Assuming you are right, the great majority of prisoners fall into other groups. These prisoners are going to be released at some point, and if you use this effective rehabilitation program, then they will be much less likely to commit more crimes against citizens in the community.
So which part do you disagree with? That prisoners can vote?
Certain people need to be excluded from the society and there is nothing wrong with it. Why do we insist otherwise?
How did we manage to convince ourselves that is "more humane"?
But it is quietly revolutionising the UK prison system. We've had Conservative politicians saying that prisons don't work and that we need a different approach.
As with everything that got shelved because Brexit.
It is undermining the productivity of our society when we have such a large marginalized population that is unemployed and desperate
Again, why wouldn't we leave this determination to the data? If the effect of punishment is practical, then we should look at the practical results of punishment versus rehabilitation.
Do you want to live in a safer society, or do you want to live in a society that fulfills your emotional need for retribution at the cost of efficacy and the rights of others?
It doesn't do that.
My main point is people who commit certain severe crimes (think about serial killers, raping children, mutilation, premeditated murders/arson/lying in wait, etc.; these people should remain behind bars for all eternity. That's just my opinion; I can't imagine going to the families victims and telling them "dont worry, they will be good in a couple of years, and will get to live their lives thanks to our tax dollars, while your son/daughter rots in a grave".
There's no justice, no humanity in that.
And in my mind, reconciliation is always better than revenge. I should think any family should be happier to know that the killer lived to deeply regret their crimes and become a better person than to think that somewhere out there is someone locked in a cage wallowing in resentment and still thinks what they did was right.