Should jail be to protect society, or to punish

A little of both, tbh. Although, I feel like prison should serve a purpose focused a bit more on rehabilitation.

 

Ooh, tough question. Fundamentally I believe in rehabilitation. If you put people in jail with harsh penalties that ruin their lives, they're going to go straight back to crime, tougher, better at getting away with it, and with a built-in animosity for the law.

In the cases of rape and murder, I don't think we can let those people back into society soon after the offense, if ever. But for lesser offenses, I think charges should be much lighter, with a focus on fixing whatever factors caused their misbehavior and changing their situations for the better. Obviously this is heavily idealistic and probably won't happen, but it's a goal we can work towards.

 

Jail/prison is meant ( but isn't ) to be a place of rehabilitation. Basically to help people understand, follow, and respect the rules of society.

Unfortunately it is more like they throw people into a cage, watch them turn into animals, and then send them out into society and act surprised when they continue being horrible people.

 

I think we're completely schizophrenic over the "shoulds" here.

We know punishment is not a terribly effective long-term method for behavior modification. On the other hand, we also recognize the ethical black-hole of a purely retribution-based justice system. I mean, that's about enough to answer the OP question...it *should* be about rehabilitation. But it isn't.

If we *really* cared about rehabilitation, we would make real attempts to do so. But the fact is that at our base, it really *is* about retribution...we just have a really hard time accepting that awful things happen and returning evil for evil just results in more evil. Also, at a deep level, the human race (or at least US society) seems to feel that you can't rehabilitate without sufficient suffering. Watch parents in public, and you know this is true...and you also see where criminals come from.

 

Neither.

I would like Jail to be there to reform criminals into upstanding citizens.

 

Jail should be a punishment for breaking the law...

Human beings can be no better than animals without some form of fear of punishment. Sad to say. I'd like to think better of humanity, but I think I just know better. I honestly believe fear of punishment is what keeps people from murdering one another.

I know many people disagree, but this is what humans would do if social construct didn't create penalty for crimes. If you look around at how horrible the world can be right now with penalty, imagine a world where there is no law. No punishment for crimes. Imagine a person could go to a school and shoot it up, and then go home and have a bowl of Wheaties free of charge.

Without that fear of incarceration, that fear of being locked up in a place without escape. Forced to live in a cell, forced to relinquish your freedoms and in some cases your life? Human beings need that fear in order to be decent. I wish that wasn't true, but it is. I also am thankful for that fear because many bigoted racist people do not commit life threatening crimes because of that fear. I don't agree that it's right, but I agree that because of the way we are as humans it is necessary. A necessary evil.

However, it should be mandatory that all inmates attempt to rehabilitate and crimes be met with reasonable serving times. But I honestly believe that until humanity cleans up it's act and actually evolves to want to help everyone in need, this will never happen.

We honestly have evolve mentally as a species in order to create a system that helps everyone. I hope we have that one day.

 

Both.

 

I think it's a bit of both it protects the public for example it stops murderers from killing and it makes it takes people's freedom away witch punishes them at the same time

 

I just don't understand how so many people strongly believe that an eye for an eye is the way to handle things. It makes no sense when you look at it logically. If an eye for an eye is the way things should be handled, that would mean if someone murdered a parent's daughter, they would have to murder the killer's daughter who has her very own life that is separate from the killer's just to get 'even', so this ideology completely falls apart when you look at it upon closer inspection, and it turns us into the very people we so stridently abhor.

 

Jail is for both, I suppose. People who commit crime are thrown in there, and those who commit worse crimes (rape, murder, etc) are in there to protect. However, there are implications on that matter itself, especially if we consider those in jail part of society itself. Rapists are considered the worse in jail-they themselves are raped by others in jail, if I'm not wrong. So a rapist gets raped-while he's in jail to be punished, he's also there to be protected.

I suppose everyone there is also supposed to be protected. Especially for heinous crimes, they need to be protected and punished. So putting them in jail is sort of fulfilling both requirements, though in jail itself they are punished by cell mates, the police, etc. Therefore they are separated. These are for the more heinous crimes (rape, murder...)

For the minor ones, jail is probably more of a place of punishment. For breaking this, you get this. Though if they're mixed with the more dangerous people, they themselves need protection. These views are if those in jail are also considered part of 'society'; if they aren't, then they're solely in there for punishment, and whatever happens to them inside is 'punishment', in order to protect the society, which in this case, is those who are not in jail.

But in the end, there might be a few who manage to escape going to jail, becoming part of society, so I say jail as a punishment isn't considered 'perfect'. It boils down to your POV, I suppose-if you see convicts as part of our 'society', or not.

 

Both

 

I'd really like to hear from those who have been to jail, like myself, on what they think of this question.

 

Protection, and, more importantly, as has been mentioned above, rehabilitation.
I also think some kind of forced labor could be a good idea in some circumstances.

 

Rehabilitation is obviously a primary focus, but it isn't the only aspect of the criminal justice system that should be considered. Some cases really require that someone be locked away from the public and punishment is not in itself worthless. For petty crimes, however, I think it's mainly just deterrence that defines the role of gaol in those cases.

Punishment does have some distinct values beyond the merely practical. Retributive justice (punishment for its own sake) gives the public the sense that a wrong has been punished. People feel more likely to trust the judgement of the law when retribution is involved, as it adds a clearly moral dimension and holds the breakers of laws responsible for their actions.

Going to prison is unquestionably a deterrent for most people, simply because of the lack of freedom. But once someone is imprisoned, I really don't see why further punishment beyond the teaching of why such actions are wrong should be considered; they're already locked away from society and good prisons will minimise the harm they can do internally. Obviously any penalty is technically punishment, but there's a distinct line between civilised restrictions of freedom, such as sanitary and safe prisons, and cruel and humiliating punishments such as being pilloried. Civilised punishment reaffirms the humanity of lawbreakers by reinforcing that there is a universal responsibility to the law to which all people in a society are bound. By civilised, I mean made without anger and lacking the petty sense of justice anger begets. I believe punishment is required, but it must be punishment with a route to redemption and the ability to become restored to society at some point following redemption.

We can't throw people into prison for the sake of merely keeping others safe without consideration for the prisoners. That is a rejection of their humanity that doesn't leave open the possibility of redemption. Punishment has its value, but I definitely think we need to be careful in questioning why we punish those whom we punish and how we go about punishing them.

 

Protect.

 

Wonderfully put. Couldn't have said it better(!)(!)(!)

 

I have an interest in this question because I would like to be a magistrate at some point in the future, so I may be considering whether or not it is appropriate to send someone to prison.

The answer to the question could be both, but I would rather focus on prison as a place of rehabilitation, even for serious offenders. Throwing people in prison and leaving them without hope or care is futile; it may satisfy the appetite for retribution, but it does little to break patterns of re-offending and recidivism that blight so many western countries. Breaking those patterns has to be a key goal of the crimminal justice system.

It's a fact that many prisoners are struggling with one or more mental health issues, so there is a huge question mark as to whether or not it is appropriate, or humane to impose a custodial sentence in these cases. I rather think it's not. Prison is not a good place for the mentally ill and that's precisely why suicide rates are so high in the prison estate.

Where appropriate, community sentencing is a better alternative to prison. It's not perfect and some people continue to re-offend, but if we send petty crimminals to prison and fail to rehabilitate them, their offending patterns may worsen, rather than improve and everyone suffers the consequences.

 

Both.