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Concepts of Justice and The Law [Period 4, Class #8, Mar 2]

"First of all," Alex said, "I'd like to thank you all for your reasoned and articulate responses to the midterm exams. You argued your points well, and I was particularly impressed by some of the compelling arguments many of you came up with. The case studies were actual cases that I was involved with; if you're curious as to the end result of either, see me after class. Secondly, I hope you enjoyed your week off, because we're diving right back in."

Alex sat on the edge of her desk. "Congratulations," she said, "we've convicted Joe Q. Citizen of a crime. Let's call it robbery. Joe is a bank robber who got caught escaping. He used a gun, but he didn't fire it: no one's dead as a result of his actions. Joe was caught on videotape, and confessed. We sent a guilty man to prison. That's where my job ends, unless Joe appeals the decision to a higher court. But what happens to Joe now?

"He'll be taken to a state prison. There, he'll live in an 8-by-10 foot cell, one that has a bed and a toilet. Possibly bunk beds, if Joe has a cellmate. Joe will not be given any privacy: not when he showers, not when he uses the toilet, not when he sleeps. He can work, doing manual labor, for which he'll be paid forty or fifty cents an hour. For reference, that's one-tenth the minimum hourly wage in this country, though in fairness, prisoners don't have rent or groceries to budget for.

"Joe will probably be assaulted by other inmates, and possibly the guards as well. Prisoner-on-prisoner crime is abundant. Some of the violence is sexual in nature, either for psychological dominance or for gratification. Crimes within prison are underreported. When reported, allegations are often dismissed. Just as every defendant insists upon his innocence, every prisoner thinks his treatment has been cruel and unfair. The hundredth time someone threatens to sue the warden for unfair living conditions, the system has already become jaded by the ninety-nine false claims that have gone before -- even if this one has merit. Joe will have some health care, should he become ill, but the bare minimum. And in the interests of fairness, again, health coverage is not universal in this country, so even the bare minimum is more than the average citizen is promised by the government if he or she becomes sick.

"Joe will have access to television -- not a personal one, but the communal area will have one. There will be a gym, where he can work out, and he can check out books from the prison library. It's underfunded, so there are few titles. Joe can write letters to loved ones, and receive visits, but the letters will be read by prison officials, and the visits will be public and heavily restricted. If Joe needs more entertainment than that, he can turn to illegal drugs, which are plentiful on the black market.

"Joe's institution might have programs for rehabilitation -- counseling, therapy, or programs that will teach Joe a trade so that he can work in a legitimate field when he leaves. These are also underfunded, and not available in all prisons. Joe can also take advantage of his time to get tips on being a better criminal via his new connections in jail. His cellmate might teach him lock-picking, or how to disable an alarm.

"Eventually, Joe will be released. Many employers won't hire ex-convicts, considering them a security risk. Joe might try to live lawfully, from now on, or he might return to crime. Recidivism varies, per offense, but nearly half of all Joes will find themselves back in prison.

"So." Alex clapped her hands in front of herself. "What rights does Joe have, as a prisoner? What about once he's been released? What needs are we obliged to meet, and what does our treatment of prisoners say about us as a society? Let's discuss."

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Imprisoned!

I am so sad that I don't have an icon of Alex behind bars.

(Telling a judge she's a hypocrite counts as contempt of court, Alex.)

Talk, take notes, pass notes, decide not to ever rob a bank.

Should prisoners be allowed to work? How much should they be paid? Will employing prisoners remove jobs from the private sector?

What about entertainment? People often object to paying for prisoners to have access to television, but bored prisoners are more likely to riot.

Should prisoners be given job training? Prisoners who receive job training will be less likely to re-offend, but law-abiding citizens do not receive free job training.

What level of health care should prisoners be given?

Edited 2010-03-02 20:15 (UTC)

How do we reduce prisoner-on-prisoner crime? If a prisoner sexually assaults another prisoner, is the state responsible for allowing it to happen? What if one prisoner kills another?

How can we distinguish legitimate complaints about abuse from guards, from petty charges filed malevolently with no basis in reality?

Should ex-convicts be subject to restrictions after they've been released from prison? Excluded from certain jobs, not able to vote or own weapons, forced to disclose their address? How do we protect citizens from ex-convicts who might re-offend without re-penalizing the prisoner for a crime he has already served his time for?

Edited 2010-03-02 20:17 (UTC)

They are not in prison! Alex hopes!

She's here. And not in prison.

Sorry it's late. Words are hard today.

(Everything's fine, I just suck at putting words together.)

Ben Skywalker

Nobody Owens

Ben thought that prison on Earth sounded much better than a few years stuck in the spice mines of Kessel. At least the beings here saw the sun.

Tahiri Veila ~~who gets an astounding amount of use out of this icon in themed sign-in threads~~

George Cooper

George pretty much - didn't care. Everyone did what they had to, an' you accepted the consequences or not. Either way, that's how it worked.

"Why does it matter?" George asked with a little shrug. "People know what they're gettin' into."

"So we should wash our hands of them?" Alex asked. "They're still citizens. They're still entitled to most of their Constitutional rights."

Kurt Wagner

(who is very difficult to imprison)

"He's still a human being," Kurt insisted. "Sure, he's a badguy, but that doesn't make him a monster. EVERY person has rights." He was pretty firm on that point.

"Besides, isn't the whole point of jail to rehabilitate him so he doesn't commit crimes any more when he gets out?"

"So it's okay to treat people like they're not human?" Kurt demanded.

"How much of the prisoner-on-prisoner crime happens because the guards let it?" Kurt asked. "And how much guard-on-prisoner crime is there?"

He shrugged. "Shouldn't we treat crimes inside prison just the same way as crimes outside prison? I mean, we've spent weeks talking about how trials are the way they are for a reason."

George just raised an eyebrow. "Read into it much? I din' say nothin' like that."

He shrugged again. "I don' know about yer citizens an' th'like, but after ye get caught, like ye said, tisn' like all th' 'good an' law-abidin' folk'" that was said with a roll of his eyes. "will accept 'im back. Most who'd be breakin' th' law don' want that anyway. Gettin' caught's th' end of th' road. Don' matter after that."

"It doesn't have to be the end of the road," Alex said. "A person commits a crime. Perhaps he could be rehabilitated. Wouldn't it be better not to write all criminals off? Half will re-offend. The other half won't. Maybe we could improve those odds."

"Not necessarily," she said. "For some people, that's the point of jail. For others, it's punishment, and a deterrent. If jail was like staying in a four-star hotel, then I'd imagine there would be more vagrants committing offenses so they could go to jail instead of sleeping on the streets."

"It's hard to say," Alex admitted. "It's dangerous for guards to intervene in prisoner struggles, and some of them occur outside of the guards' purview."

For the rest, she lifted her shoulders. "The guard-on-prisoner statistic is highly unreliable. Let's say a case comes forward: a prisoner says a guard attacked him. The guard claims the prisoner fell. The prisoner's credibility is low, because he's a convicted lawbreaker. We talk to the warden, who notes that this guard and this prisoner have a pretty contentious relationship. Lots of paperwork. Which means the guard might have escalated to abuse ... but it also means the prisoner has a vested interest in trying to get the guard fired. Do we arrest the guard? Fire him? Charge him with assault? If prisoners know that all allegations are taken as truth, won't they accuse all the guards they don't like?"

George stared at her for a moment then shook his head a little. It didn't matter. She wasn't going to ever understand.

"Why d'ye think anyone wants t'be rehabilitated?"

Jack Priest

Hyuuga Hinata

Jennifer Walters

Momoko Akatsutsumi

Edmund Pevensie

Momoko had started out taking notes wondering if the prisons back home were like that and being glad that she didn't know anyone in prison anywhere.

Then of course, her mind flashed back and she remembered that she did know someone who's supervillain father was currently serving a bunch of life sentences in prison and she now kind of really totally wanted to not be hearing anything Professor Cabot was saying, just in case.

Her face was probably showing her concern.

Momoko blinked. Hey? "Don't monsters have rights too? I know some perfectly nice monsters! Well, okay two, and they became nice after we stopped them beating people and breaking up restaurants."

Momoko had to scramble to come up with answers, she'd been so distracted by worries of the past.

"Uhm. If they want to work, I don't see the problem? And why should they get paid any different than anyone else? Isn't a job a job, no matter where you live? And if you don't let someone work and then take away their tv, of course they're going to riot!"

Leia Organa

Roy Harper

Momoko wasn't sure how much prisoner-on-prisoner crime could occur in solitary, so she kind of breathed a sigh of relief, there, but the rest?

"Does the person, like, have a history of always causing trouble?" She would totally suggest some of that for Mojo Jojo or Fuzzy Lumpkins. On the other hand, she didn't think it would be fair to Sakurako-san.

Gwen Cooper

Karla

Karla was there, scribbling notes.

Dinah Lance

Charles Gunn

Gunn couldn't help but wonder if Cabot had pulled this lecture together from a recent experience of one of her students.

Yes. Wonder indeed.

"I don't think all of them do," Alex said easily. "I know there are plenty of prisoners who don't give a damn and will keep re-offending. There are also some who got into crime out of desperation. If they had had better options, they might have taken them. I'm not ready to write off every single felon as someone who freely chose a lifelong commitment to crime. People change."

"The wage issue is kind of murky," Alex explained. "The minimum wage is set so that companies have to pay decent wages to their employees -- something that a person might reasonably try to build a life upon. Since a prisoner doesn't have day-to-day expenses, like rent or groceries or utility bills, the same rules don't apply. The prisoner's living expenses are covered: this money goes to the prisoner directly, to be spent however he or she sees fit. Buying cigarettes or candy from the commissary, for example."

"He might," Alex said. "After all, he's a convicted felon, and probably guilty of the offense he was charged with. But repeat offenders, chronic liars -- those people are abused, too, and there's no clear way to determine when that happens. Prison officials naturally assume the guard is telling the truth and the prisoner lying, which means prisoner abuse is under-investigated."

Andrew Wiggin

Joan Girardi

OMG I fail at tagging in promptly, sorry.

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Concepts of Justice and The Law [Period 4, Class #8, Mar 2]

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