I’m afraid our prison system is a complete failure. As a form of punishment, it serves as no deterrent, and as a tool of reform, it is ineffective. Prison has failed to reform convicts because people think that the best way to teach criminals to live productively in American society is to throw them into an alternative society consisting of murderers and street thugs. This is like socializing small children by having them raised by wolves – which is a great way to raise kids if you want them to become wolves. Our prison system desperately needs to refocus on healthier means of criminal reformation. Let’s not just lock them up. Let’s change them.
On the other hand, if mere punishment should be the goal of prison, then it’s not serving this purpose, either. If prison did indeed teach convicts a lesson, prison populations wouldn’t be rising so drastically, and the majority wouldn’t be made up of repeat offenders. But it would seem that prison would be a sufficient threat to keep the average person from committing crimes.
The average person considers being locked up for years on end with less-than-desirable roommates and decides to follow the law. But the average person is not a criminal and doesn’t think at all like a criminal.
Now, blue-collar criminals who are in abundance in prisons across the nation are typically not very well-educated or well-off financially. This means the average person differs from crooks in that he or she has a clearer mind to examine decisions because of his or her education and less pressure to make these decisions because of financial comfort. This distinction makes it hard for the average law-abiding citizen to understand why crooks do what they do best despite the supposed deterrence of prison.
Some laws are broken out of greed, insanity or maybe just pure contempt for authority, but many laws are broken out of good, old-fashioned necessity, which ignorance and poverty create. The poor man must steal money to buy food or his drug of choice. In contrast, the rich man resists stealing simply because he doesn’t need to. But if the law doesn’t suit him, he will break it and then use his power to cover up his crime.
The way those in power define lawfulness and morality explains why the poor and powerless are so often at fault and need to be punished.
Crime isn’t a matter of morality but of survival for those without power and exploitation for those with power. Prison will never have any effect on crime except to continue incubating the culture within its walls.
We should encourage a society that creates less of a need for crime instead of locking up those who fall prey to its pitfalls. If people had real opportunity in a society without exploitation, everyone could take care of themselves and not resort to harming other people.