Reimagining Crime Stats

[IMPress Polly]

Brilliant post Polly.

My wife suggest that prison sentences for most crimes should be open ended in that everyone entering prison should not be released until they have a marketable skill and have been given extensive psychological testing showing their fitness to re-enter society. I am not sure I agree with her on this 100% but I don't see much good coming out of the prison system currently.

carolina73 wrote:
I like her idea. Prison reform should mean that you don't knowingly release someone into society that has no intention or tying to make an honest living.

Some of them want to go back to jail. They have no desire to live in a free society that requires them to earn instead of steal.

My point about people just being let out of the prison system without the life skills necessary to successfully reintegrate into society was really more that we need to integrate quality rehabilitation services into the prison system broadly. They really do seem to get results!

But we also have to enforce the laws. If people don't see the laws being enforced, crime will proliferate and that's just a fact. If people don't perceive there to be consequences, bad things will happen. One can't be naive about that.

We need to do a lot more of both of those things right now.

[carolina73]

My point about people just being let out of the prison system without the life skills necessary to successfully reintegrate into society was really more that we need to integrate quality rehabilitation services into the prison system broadly. They really do seem to get results!

But we also have to enforce the laws. If people don't see the laws being enforced, crime will proliferate and that's just a fact. If people don't perceive there to be consequences, bad things will happen. One can't be naive about that.

We need to do a lot more of both of those things right now.

I think that is assumed when Mrs.Old Man in Florida says that they need to have marketable skills.

I mention in another thread, that we tried hiring ex-cons through a state program but the problem is that they were not really ready to go to work. They probably went back to drug dealing or there old easy way of making money. They were not ready to get out of jail. They were probably all sitting around watching TV all day.