Instead of Prisons?

[semaforo]

One criminal can spoil a lot of non criminals in your scenario.

Also - who in their right mind would volunteer to stay beside that certain criminal in the first place?

    An immigrant faced with the choice of live next to the criminal or go back to Sudan, that's who. By helping with rehabilitation they can earn a green card, after, say 5 years. There are millions around the world who would jump at that opportunity, even if just for the chance to have plenty of clean water. A lot of immigrants are happy with wages way lower than what most people would accept, and they would not turn into criminals because of the risk of being deported and not being able to send money to their families.

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[giantdragon]

its human nature to want revenge. that isnt bad itself, its about how u get the revenge and how much

Human nature have been developing in process of natural selection, which leaved many traits that are obsolete for modern society. I think it obvious that revenge must be suppressed if society wants progress.

[semaforo]

so encourage illegal immigrations in order to stop criminals. wt

   No, incentivizing legal immigration using community service.

[TECSHARE]

I would love to see the quote where I called you "a republican bible-basher with an unhealthy bloodlust".

If you want to spend half of your paycheck paying to incarcerate alcoholics for being alcoholics, drug addicts for being drug addicts, and poor people for being poor that's fine - just don't expect the rest of society to help you. If you really think our country (taxpayers) can afford to keep incarcerating more than 2.5 million people and growing, you are truly ignorant. Go take your liberal bashing bullshit rhetoric to a liberal.

In your little scenario you assume a lot of things, like you would personally be overseeing the criminal that committed a crime against you. That is pretty moronic even by your standards. No one in their right mind would put the life of a human in your hands. As you pointed out sadistic individuals like yourself would commit further crimes abusing that individual, most likely leading to that person murdering you in your home because they cant take it any more. You make lots of assumptions about me and why I have the opinions I do. I will be the one to decide why I have an opinion thank you.

Funny how you skipped over the whole funding of 2.5 million people in prison part. I wonder why?

Sorry man, but it's pretty clear you feel that way about me. When you saw my posts, you immediately flew off the handle and went into a rage because you clearly think that I feel that way, even though I stated I don't agree with the prison system for the reasons you stated, among many others.

Your hostility is keeping you from understanding what I was asking and talking about. I was talking about merely the revenge aspect of what you are proposing. Perhaps instead of immediately condemning and being hostile to people who are skeptical of your views, you could calm down and explain yourself more. I'm not trying to attack you nor did I intend to come off that way at all.

Now, as to my question. You did not answer it, you deflected it with hostility. In your first post in this thread, you said:

Why are punishments almost always centered around revenge rather than restitution for the victims? maybe Jake needs mandatory employment working for the victim until he works off a suitable sum in proportion to the damages caused? In the case of murder, in many states they take the life of the murderer. Why not take that life and put it to constructive use rather than just ending life in revenge?

Clearly you feel your system should NOT be used as a kind of revenge, but when I point out that it would in fact be so (and the way you describe it and considering the way reality works, the victim probably would be overseeing or controlling what happens to the prisoner to some degree), you tried to sell the idea as a kind of revenge. When I questioned you about the hypocrisy of it, you instead tried to change the subject. But this isn't about how either you or I are arguing, this is about my question.

If this working-for-the-victim-as-reparation system is a form of revenge (which you said it is) and that is clearly acceptable to you, then why would you complain about revenge at all? Why condemn one system for being revenge-based, but promote your own revenge-based system?

If you feel your system would be better than the status quo in other regards, what's the point of bringing up revenge?

Its clear you live in your own little reality bubble and are determined to not let any conflicting ideas in. Don't let facts stop you from distorting reality into what you want it to be. For the record I was having a discussion when you joined in with the hostility first. What does that say about you? Nice "quote" BTW. Extrapolate some more maybe you can blame 9-11 on me too if you try reeeealy hard.

[randomcloud]

Its clear you live in your own little reality bubble and are determined to not let any conflicting ideas in. Don't let facts stop you from distorting reality into what you want it to be. For the record I was having a discussion when you joined in with the hostility first. What does that say about you? Nice "quote" BTW. Extrapolate some more maybe you can blame 9-11 on me too if you try reeeealy hard.

Are you ever gonna answer my question?

[semaforo]

Its clear you live in your own little reality bubble and are determined to not let any conflicting ideas in. Don't let facts stop you from distorting reality into what you want it to be. For the record I was having a discussion when you joined in with the hostility first. What does that say about you? Nice "quote" BTW. Extrapolate some more maybe you can blame 9-11 on me too if you try reeeealy hard.

Are you ever gonna answer my question?

   Any other comments on the idea I described?

[randomcloud]

   Any other comments on the idea I described?

   I've been working on an idea for a while, this seems like a chance to put it up for comment.

It's basically hybridizing the refuge camp and the prison. The idea is that if you group criminals together, they are going to become more criminal. If I hang out with southerners, eventually I am going to develop a drawl- peer group influences behavior. So criminals need contact with people who they can learn good habits from. The US accepts refugees all the time from places where there are wars or oppression going on, and the idea is to get these people working in small facilities on patches of land, say, a house with 8 bedrooms each with 2 to 4 bunk beds, a big communal kitchen and living area, a workshop and a farm. Maybe a few goats and cows, chickens, vegetables, corn and potatoes and some fruit trees, beehive and duck pond. Maybe a workshop for furniture, window frames, clothing. Take 10 low risk inmates selected for the program because of good behavior in prison, and 10 recent immigrants from Africa and Asia, and 4 -6 staff. The immigrants can get green cards based on good work results, and the inmates can get their sentence reduced.

    This way there is a majority of non-criminals in the work group, so the momentum of peer pressure in the groip will be towards non-criminal behavior. Since the immigrants and the criminals can both work for less than minimum wage to secure their early release or green card, the projects can be self sustaining. Currently eajch prisoner costs over 20k a year- a project like this could cost half that, since they would produce their own food, and the food and crafts could even be sold at a profit. In the mean time people would build relationships, learn work ethic, and learn non-criminal thinking. Bad behavior or violence would mean getting sent back to prison or having the visa revoked. Prisoners could be tracked with a tracking chip, so if they run off they would be easily found again. There would also be cultural exchange and people could learn about other parts of the world and maybe broaden their horizons.

    This would just be a way to reduce the number of people in prison and kind of decentralize the system.

I've heard of stuff .... kind of like this before that is done in other countries, and my response is kind of "meh". I remember watching a news clip on how in Norway, their prisons are set up like little dorms and prisoners do in fact garden within the prison bounds. It works for Norway because they happen to have a small, wealthy population that doesn't have the deeply ingrained problems that Western society has, so I don't know how that'd work here.

Then again we already have minimum security prisons for low-risk prisoners in the U.S. anyway, so I don't see how this could really rehabilitate the people whom, if we accept the premise of the topic, need to be rehabilitated more -- the violent, dangerous criminals. And they're the ones who'd put the immigrants in the program you propose in the greatest danger.

The truth is that there is a genetic component to the behavior of lots of violent criminals -- sociopathy, et. al -- that CAN'T be fixed, so unless this is looked at on a case-by-case basis and the system picks out the exceptions to the rules, all this talk about rehabilitation is just a waste of time, one that I feel is advocated by people who are only doing this to make themselves feel better and not for the good of society.

[TECSHARE]

The truth is that there is a genetic component to the behavior of lots of violent criminals -- sociopathy, et. al -- that CAN'T be fixed, so unless this is looked at on a case-by-case basis and the system picks out the exceptions to the rules, all this talk about rehabilitation is just a waste of time, one that I feel is advocated by people who are only doing this to make themselves feel better and not for the good of society.

I bolded the operative statement that clearly demonstrates from your own words that you are operating from a place of emotional bias rather than logic and facts, as I said from the beginning of your little tirade.

[krudkeeper]

its human nature to want revenge. that isnt bad itself, its about how u get the revenge and how much

Human nature have been developing in process of natural selection, which leaved many traits that are obsolete for modern society. I think it obvious that revenge must be suppressed if society wants progress.

My account was hacked. I agree with you. I did not type the previous comments. Sorry.

[wachtwoord]

The most obvious alternative would be capital punishment. Exile seems unlikely as there is no-where to exile to. The only two forms of exile that seem theoretically (but not practically) possible are:

1. Exile to other planets
2. Exile to the past via a one way time-gate (as described by Julian May in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Many-Colored_Land )

I expect capital punishment to get increasingly more popular in the coming years.

Regarding the revenge discussion. Revenge is one of the primary goals of our legal system (to me). The second one is removing (temporarily or not) malignant aspects from society.

[randomcloud]

The truth is that there is a genetic component to the behavior of lots of violent criminals -- sociopathy, et. al -- that CAN'T be fixed, so unless this is looked at on a case-by-case basis and the system picks out the exceptions to the rules, all this talk about rehabilitation is just a waste of time, one that I feel is advocated by people who are only doing this to make themselves feel better and not for the good of society.

I bolded the operative statement that clearly demonstrates from your own words that you are operating from a place of emotional bias rather than logic and facts, as I said from the beginning of your little tirade.

Judging from the unnecessary and irrational hostility you've displayed it's obvious you feel that way. I wish you'd present your argument and tell us why instead of wasting computing power with insults.

But I know you're going to post something dumb like, "I WISH YOU WOULDN'T *insert insult here*". Ugh.

[giantdragon]

The truth is that there is a genetic component to the behavior of lots of violent criminals -- sociopathy, et. al -- that CAN'T be fixed

It is no doubt that appropriate DNA altering technologies (gene therapies) will ever be available, most likely within next 20 years.

2. Exile to the past via a one way time-gate (as described by Julian May in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Many-Colored_Land )

It is impossible at all. Even if you have infinite energy, you can only slowdown the time, not to reverse.

[TECSHARE]

The truth is that there is a genetic component to the behavior of lots of violent criminals -- sociopathy, et. al -- that CAN'T be fixed, so unless this is looked at on a case-by-case basis and the system picks out the exceptions to the rules, all this talk about rehabilitation is just a waste of time, one that I feel is advocated by people who are only doing this to make themselves feel better and not for the good of society.

I bolded the operative statement that clearly demonstrates from your own words that you are operating from a place of emotional bias rather than logic and facts, as I said from the beginning of your little tirade.

Judging from the unnecessary and irrational hostility you've displayed it's obvious you feel that way. I wish you'd present your argument and tell us why instead of wasting computing power with insults.

But I know you're going to post something dumb like, "I WISH YOU WOULDN'T *insert insult here*". Ugh.

Refractory much?  I have presented my argument, but you were too busy interpreting it to understand it.