I have visited a prison and a jail. (My Visit With Judith Clark at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility) I have learned a lot about the failures of our current system of incarceration and it sickens me. As a (relatively) outspoken individual I have made my opinions known to anyone who will listen.
I tell them that I am against prison in principle. I don’t think anyone should go to prison. It’s a waste of money and far worse it is a waste of a human being. People accomplish almost nothing while incarcerated. Society gives them a free ride and they produce next to nothing for society.
The first response I hear is usually related to the safety of society. That somehow we, on the outside, are safer if the criminals are isolated, on the inside. While this is generally true, most crimes do not affect the middle or upper class of society . Most crimes are not violent. Most criminals that go to prison have someone step into their place in their social circle and the crimes continue. I know this is a pretty weak position, but I think that incarceration is also a weak position.
The next thing that I hear is almost always a challenge. “Do you have a better solution?” To which I have been saying “I think so”. Prisons are as an old insitution. They hearken back to a time that it was the only option for incapacitation. The loss to society caused by providing criminals with a prison was worthwhile because there was no other real option. Incarceration is a old system that was the best they could do.
I propose that criminals be monitored. Conviction of a crime is a waiver of one’s privacy. There is no privacy in jail. Instead of tossing them in a cell and monitoring that way, criminals should be monitored by corrections officers. They can be mother or fathers to their families. They must find jobs, they must be productive members of society and only if they lapse back into crime would they go to jail.
To me, this was a sci-fi idea that I had no way of determining its effectiveness or cost. Monitoring was a idea, but just an idea with no real data to back up the idea.
Last week I read a very well written article in The Atlantic (I don’t regularly read The Atlantic, I saw the article linked on Gizmodo) about Monitoring.
It demonstrates the feasibility of the idea and its preference over incarcertation for all but the most dangerous criminals. It explains how badly the current system is failing and the attractiveness of this alternative solution.
I highly recommend the article and I highly recommend the system as described in the article.
Currently, it costs about $50,000 a YEAR to incarcerate a criminal in California. No wonder we have a budget crisis. Monitoring is a much cheaper solution. It is a more humane solution. It is a more productive solution. It is the solution of the future.
The only question that remains is how long will it take us to reach “the future”.
I say, the future is now.
Link: Prison Without Walls
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