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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   27866 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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Official purpose of prisons is to make prisoners into better people, turn them into good law abiding citizens.

Official primary purpose of prisons is to keep criminals out of public and keep them from doing various crimes against the non-criminals. Prisons would look very different if their official primary purpose were rehabilitation.

Official secondary purpose is to turn criminals into non-criminals, and it would take a lot more money to do that. Would it be worth it? Depends on efficacy of methods used. Study which prisons worldwide release good people at end of sentence, which ones release recidivists. Copy the formers’ methods, not the latter… but correct for confounding factors! Note prison demographics of “best” prisons: all factors and mixes/combos of factors, regardless of whose biases they affirm.

Also remember that prison gangs basically run America’s criminal underworld. Correct for that.

Thought you were going to link this piece from our own Kulak.

I would have if I could have found it. That’s actually the piece I was thinking of.

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