This has always bugged me...

What happened to the bare rooms and hard labor?

A lot of inmates these days have way too many privileges. And they don't DO ANYTHING(Well not as much as they could). We (Taxpayers) are paying for them to survive. What do we get in return?

I know Maine State Prison has inmates make crafts and cabinets and stuff like that. I'm not sure where that money goes though. I think it goes back to the Prison...or charity? *shrugs* But they get paid and get to live in low security, nicer cells. I know that Maine won't make them do any work like a lot of states with highway clean up or similar.

OK - Jail is supposed to be a punishment right? HARD LABOR. NO PRIVILEGES. Some people get really bothered by going in Jail. Some don't - they got a pretty good deal in there. They don't have to worry about putting food on their mouth, got a TV, a radio, etc.

I think people would think twice about doing something illegal if instead of just chilling for a year in jail and getting out, if instead of chilling it was doing hard work 8 hours a day. For those not capable - assembly or something like that. For those that are pyschopaths - keep them in isolation

Thoughts? (Yes public opinion would probably never allow this but what do you think?)

That's strange. I think the whole point of crime is so that you don't have to slave away eight hours every day. So eight hours hard work is really no deterrent because that's the alternative to crime anyway.

There are a lot worse things to worry about in jail these days instead of hard manual labour.

Raping doesn't happen that much(?)
I live in Maine so I can't really say much comparing to "hard" city jails/prisons. But the jail I've seen was really chill. We played spades.

Hahahahaha.

Anyway, something like 1% of Americans are in jail. That's pretty terrible. We need to make jail suck more than it already does so people will either stop criming or be smarter about it.

The prison population isn't so high because of a lack of proper deterrent; it's so high because America has more laws you go to jail for than any other country, 'cept perhaps China.

I wasn't just referring to rape.

Jails are a bad idea, locking up the criminals who get caught only increases the chances for the smarter criminals to breed; it's like antibiotic-resistant bacteria: eventually we're going to end up with a species of super-criminals who can never be caught.

As George Jung would have said, "I went in with a Bachelor of marijuana, came out with a Doctorate of cocaine"

What jails are YOU talking about? You must be high.

Also the possibility of being killed in jail is pretty likely too, especially if your white.

I think the big problem here is you're all confusing "jail" with "prison." They're different.

Haha, that's what I was going to say. I don't think anyone here has been to prison. Have you?

make the food as disgusting as possible without health code violations
take away their TVs and internet.. they can still have newspapers and books
make them spend most of their day either doing hard work or taking some form of class to learn something useful
replace weights with chess and checkers
bring back the guillotine... it's cheaper than lethal injection and instead of paying an executioner have the next guy in line on death row do the job
pedophiles should receive daily rapes from pedobear

why don't YOU change our prison system ?

I've always had this theory, and I honestly believe it. I'll sum it up in a few words to prevent this from being a lengthy post.

The Romans had it down.

Jail should turn into an awesome deathmatch gladiator arena where criminals fight for their freedom. More severe the crime, more people you're put into the ring with. Gladiator matches are where it's at. It solves all the problems we run into today (Jail being overcrowded, paying tons of money to support inmates, people that have problems with death sentences, pansy ways of execution, and putting an actual good show on TV).

No, the longest I've been incarcerated was the 2 hours I spent in jail waiting to be bailed out after being arrested last year. My brother, however, has spent years in the state prison system and is headed back pretty soon. I have a pretty good idea what it's like. (When you visit an inmate, it's best not to joke about butt sex unless you like the feeling of 15 pairs of eyes burning into the back of your head.)

I'm not going to follow any new ideas for incarceration from a guy who doesn't know the difference between a "jail" and a "prison".

Making incarceration a hellish nightmare also creates more violent and aggressive prisoners, no? And do you want to work in a place such as that as a prison guard keeping order? Not only that, do you want to pay more for damages inflicted to staff and facility to sustain an even uglier group of angry people, and spend even more cash to reinforce the prisons to house increasingly destructive individuals? I'm guessing Squirrel King's solution is lock up the problems of the worlds and let them rot whilst forgetting them; it isn't such a good idea when you realize prisons influence society.

yeah, im guessing hellish prisons wouldnt be such a problem if you take away the weights and keep everyone on a minimal calorie diet, not saying starvethem, just small enough meals so that theres no way for them to bulk up. also inmates should have access to NOTHING that can be made into weapons.

I've got an idea but it's sort of stolen from a 80s Kurt Russel film.

Giant hamster wheels to generate electricity. kakkdammit I've said this before! Who wasn't listening the first time?!

Alien3.

IRL UT FTW!

Why can't they just control themselves? Hell I've controlled it for twen- er... a while.

Heh good thing I'm not in charge guess this would make the world worse off.. didn't look at it that way.

What about instant death penalty for ANY offense? That would work, no?

How about Penal Legions.

An army of cannon fodder... mmmm.

In Britain, they are overcrowded...
Maybe prison is too soft these days, bit like some of our judges
About time we had coporal punishment back methinks.
It would stop all this...

Because for the most part, they're nothing but animals. If they could control themselves, they most likely wouldn't be rotting in a cell.

^ So true.

Good thing about prisons is that the pedophiles *definitely get raped, if not shanked.

Actually, most prisons keep inmates with a high risk of being attacked by other inmates separated. So some of them probably have special pedo-wings, where they can all rape and shank each other, rather than being shanked by the drug runners and mob thugs.

I'm pretty sure it's that way already. Unfortunately, where there's a will there's a way.

So the OP is basically assuming the validity of deterrence

Assuming that we don't already put most prisoners to forced labor and that it is morally justifiable to put all prisoners to what equates to slave labor because they broke the law.

I suggest you look into the increased privatization of the US prison system and what they do with their prisons (forced labor).

Funny how people are critical of the Soviet Gulags while they turn around and support the US prison system. (similar principle, different goals)

You can kill someone with anything.

true...:tinfoil:

You can't kill someone with a marshmellow.

Yes you can.

Okay, without sticking it in a vacuum tube and accelerating it near the speed of light. Or freezing it and shooting it like a projectile. Just a marshmellow.

instead of prison, just kill em all.

No, you can.

People generally criticized the Gulags because about half the people in them were there for political reasons and not for real crimes.