Prison Reform By Stats Geek Bill James
Brian Rafferty writes in Wired:
James also posits a way to reform prisons, which he dubs "violentocracies." His proposal: smaller facilities that house no more than 24 inmates and are part of a larger, incentives-based system. At a Level 1 prison, for example, you get a lawyer, a Bible, and around-the-clock supervision; at Level 5, a cat and a coffee machine. At Level 10, you can earn a living and come and go with relative ease. The idea, James says, is not only to reduce the paranoia-fueled violence in large prisons but to encourage prisoners to work their way up the ladder....Of course, these ideas, as well-researched and cogently argued as they may be, are not necessarily workable. Take that utopian prison system, for example: What possible motive would a prisoner have for wanting to leave one of those Level 5 cells, which seem to have more amenities than some New York City apartments? James knows many of his notions are impractical and that readers will pick apart each idea. In fact, that's his hope: that people will start asking some of the same questions he does. "It's simply to get a few people to start talking," he says, "to get a few people to look at this and ask, how can I do better?"
My idea for prison reform is for prison finance reform: To make prisoners work for their room and board instead of making the taxpayers pay for it.
On a less economic note, here's an unsual approach to imprisonment that I read about a while back in Der Spiegel. Nicola Abé's story about Norway's Island Prison is subheaded:
No bars. No walls. No armed guards. The prison island of Bastøy in Norway is filled with some of the country's most hardened criminals. Yet it emphasizes self-control instead of the strictly regulated regimens common in most prisons. For some inmates, it is more than they can handle.
From the story:
The warden, Arne Nilsen, ... is a man who deals in freedom. He is also a visionary. He wants the men here to live as if they were living in a village, to grow potatoes and compost their garbage, and he wants the guards and the prisoners to respect each other. What he doesn't want is a camera in the supermarket. He doesn't want bars on the windows, or walls or locked doors.The inmates on Bastøy have been convicted of crimes such as murder, robbery, drug dealing, fraud, violent crime and petty theft. "We don't pick out the mild cases," says Nilsen. Some inmates serve their entire sentences on the island. Murderers can only apply to be transferred to the island once they have served two-thirds of their sentences elsewhere. Some 115 prisoners live on Bastøy, and those who wish to stay are required to work and integrate into the community. Anyone caught drinking alcohol or fighting is thrown out.
The ferry operates on a regular schedule. It would be possible to swim to the mainland or find a boat in the summer, and the ocean often freezes over in the winter. The idea is that the prisoners should have an incentive to stay, and that they are still there when the count is taken -- four times a day.
...This paradise has been around for 20 years -- and has a warden who loves statistics. The numbers, after all, prove him right. Only 16 percent of the prisoners in this island jail become repeat offenders in the first two years after leaving Bastøy as compared with 20 percent for Norway as a whole. In Germany, where recidivism is measured after three years, the rate is 50 percent.
...(Nilsen) doesn't see criminals as victims, but as citizens who will return to society one day. "On Bastøy, everyone has to learn to handle his freedom and set his own boundaries," says Nilsen, "which is what they have to do outside, too."
'Training Ground for Responsibility'
Even the sailors on the small ferry are inmates. They set sail for the mainland nine times a day, but no one has ever escaped. Each time they return to the island, a sign greets them that reads: "Bastøy, A Training Ground for Responsibility."
You think there's the slightest hope in hell this could work here?
Nope. We have an entitlement class that extends into the political ranks, and we refuse to believe that there can be consequences for some actions.
One fine morning, the National Guard built a tent city, a field HQ, in a field in Orlando, when the Naval Training Center was there. It took them about 8 hours. Two rows of fence with concertina wire, sandbagged defensive positions, two guard towers and a dozen or so tents, complete with a field latrine.
But "modern" jails must have air conditioning, etc., to avoid "cruel and unusual" conditions for the inmates, regardless of their crime. It has become an industry to build jails, expensive ones, and the simple rule that you get killed if you try to escape from a facility like that NG command bivuouac would put a halt on that money.
Radwaste at May 9, 2011 2:43 AM
I'd say air conditioning is a necessity depending where you love. But I get migraines in hot, sunny weather. And I digress.
My big question is this... is there something inherently different about American psychos than Norwegian ones?
NicoleK at May 9, 2011 4:15 AM
Perhaps a similiar program could be useful for juveniles.
ahw at May 9, 2011 7:24 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/05/09/prison_reform_b.html#comment-2117711">comment from ahwSeems like showing benefits from work would be beneficial to juveniles - maybe keep them fro reoffending.
Amy Alkon
at May 9, 2011 7:28 AM
Back in the early days of blogging, Susannah Cornett once wrote something that I found enlightening: she said that one reason rehabilitation fails is that a lot of criminals were never "habilitated" in the first place. In other words, in the environment where they grew up, they were not taught the basics of civilized social interaction.
We know that a significant percentage of our prison population consists of non-violent drug offenders. We also know that many of them reoffend, often moving up the severity scale with each additional offense. Susannah's observation seems to be applicable here, and I think this is one place where the Norwegian concept could work. I'm thinking particularly about young men who are vulnerable to getting involved with gang activity. If you can get them on the first offense, before they have become embedded in the criminal life, and get them out of that environment and into an environment where they have to learn to interact in civilized ways, maybe you can get some of them off of the career-criminal path.
But as far as the hardened criminals... no, I don't see that working here. A skilled sociopath would absolutely pick that system apart. In fact, if you read the Rafferty article closely, you'll see that they're screening those people out.
Cousin Dave at May 9, 2011 8:10 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/05/09/prison_reform_b.html#comment-2118004">comment from NicoleKMy question, too, NicoleK!
Amy Alkon
at May 9, 2011 8:49 AM
No. Nobody with a brain is going to hire a convicted felon into any sort of position of trust. The possible reward isn't worth the risk.
We're a one-strike society. Heck, we put kids on sex offender registries for life.
The best we'll ever achieve is to decriminalize some things when we can't afford to lock any more people up. Violent offenders are worth whatever it costs to keep them caged.
Why are more people in prison when the crime rate is decreasing? Cause, meet effect.
MarkD at May 9, 2011 9:04 AM
Work here? For non violents... prolly so. For the others, not. One thing you have to remember about a percentage of the violent one is that they are part of a gang organism, so you can't look at an individual prisoner, but as a whole organism. We arent talking about one person and their responsibility, but of a group of people and their responsibility to a larger organization. An organization that will kill them for betrayal. Some do make it out of that, but they are very strong, and something has changed about them, they started looking at themselves as individuals.
Norway is a small and homogeneous country... most people want similar things there. We are a whole other thing.
SwissArmyD at May 9, 2011 10:02 AM
I think some inmate's lawyer would ruin it for everyone. Not worth trying.
TomJW at May 9, 2011 10:31 AM
Norway is pretty much a homogenous sciety (read that white and speak same language). We on the other hand have lost our identity through inner city black women producing kids by different fathers that the kids will never know and the government will support, or through uncontrolled immigration. Our system works so well that the criminals inside the prison continue to run criminal enterprises outside the walls. The only way a prison can work is for the time spent there to be so miserable that the criminals actually fear returning. I say that plus 3 strikes and you are executed, you are a virus to the community
ronc at May 9, 2011 11:18 AM
The racial tensions in American society are ten times worse in the prison system. Blacks, whites and Hispanics are kept separate by a system of apartheid far more severe than anything ever seen in South Africa. Just speaking to anyone outside your race will get you beaten up. (I know this because my kid did time.) Since these rules are imposed and enforced by the inmates themselves, I'm sure it would be the same on a Bastoy-style island if we had one.
Rex Little at May 9, 2011 1:05 PM
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Ilias
game at June 10, 2011 7:36 AM
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