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How to Make Prisons Work
first published- Wednesday, December 18, 1996

Click Here to read a Happy Prison Story

I think that prison is a pretty bad way to try to reform criminals. In fact I'd say that criminals tend to find their criminal nature enhanced during the prison experience. Now just why is that, do you suppose?

First of all, let me make it clear that when I say "criminals," I mean real, pain-causing criminals. As I've mentioned before, I do not consider non-violent offenders to be "real" criminals. And, while many a pot-head or DeadHead has been turned into a violent thug by a short stay in prison, that is not the subject at hand.

Today we are talking about reforming true, violent criminals. Rapists, muggers, murderers, and the like. Or can they even be reformed? Is it simply our fate to have a certain (growing) population of misanthropes (people who hate mankind)? And will we just continue to build more giant cinderblocks to stack them in? Boy, does that sound like fun, or what?

The alternative would be to try to examine the nature of criminality, and try to design a system of solutions to society's many degeneracies.

I will readily grant that the reforming of the criminal element in society is neither a simple task, nor an easily achieved one. But everybody knows that education is the main weapon we have against crime. It is common sense that a person will be less prone to crime if he/she is smarter, and thus more confident, more able, and more aware of others.

What if prisoners were required to get a high school diploma (or G.E.D.) in order to "graduate" from prison?
What if prisoners were required to get a job before being let out of prison?
What if violent criminals had to pass a "sympathy curriculum" connected to their crime, to make them gain an understanding of their victims?

A lot of people are in prison because of a single lapse in judgment. Many more are there because they had felt, from the day they were born, that they were marked for prison, and all-too-often that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. These people, originally good in nature (mostly), now leave prison not less likely, but more likely to return than before they went in.

In layman's terms: An average Joe, or Jane, who "screws up big time" once, may go to prison. If he/she does go to prison, he/she will (on the average) be much more likely to go to prison (again) than he/she ever was before!

Additionally, if Joe (or Jane) is of one of a few select (read: non-white) races, then his/her chances of going to prison are higher as soon as he/she is born! Oftentimes, this will affect Joe or Jane's self esteem enough to increase his/her chances of "screwing up big time" in the first place.

Fascinating, isn't it? Unfortunately, it's all so true.

And as for the "true psychopaths." (Webster's : {psychopath} - "person suffering from a mental or emotional disorder, esp. one who is asocial and amoral"). These are the arsonists, bombers, terrorists, child accosters, and the like. It seems to me that they tend to float in and out of prison and court on the luck of either the State or the Defendant, and it is likely that those types would also attempt to abuse a system like the one I proposed above. After all, many bombers and child molesters can appear normal, and are often plenty intelligent. But these criminals would slip through the cracks no more than they already are.

So many people are so solidly convinced that we have to be "tough on crime" that the educational measures I discussed will be scoffed away almost as soon as they're read, but frankly, that's moronic. To take all these people, who used to have families, who used to have jobs, who used to have lives, and just throw them down the crapper for good? That's basically what prison is for most people - the end.

I mean really, when was the last time you heard a happy prison story?

Yours in Liberty,
Lance M. Brown,
Future Presidential Candidate - Year 2008

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