im not subscribed to the prison abolition thing fully but i want to learn. what happens to mass killers? how would they be reformed in this ideology if they would be? how do u make sure they dont do it again? is the official stance that mass murder is not inherent to the human condition? thanks
I have believed since childhood that prisons should be places of healing and recovery rather then of “punishment”, as it was obvious to me that people being “bad” was the result of the conditions that made a person who they are, not of some kind of “magical” “evil” or so called “free will”, each of which is just a label but it is treated like an explanation, that to my view, a “bad” person was the same as someone who is injured and in need of help, since I’ve been learning ML I’ve also come to see the need for practicality, so I don’t expect it to be perfect or it’s just trash anymore, if the resources are lacking but people are still destructive, even non healing prisons may simply be needed until they aren’t, as it is all very complex you can advocate for a better system and work towards that, but it isn’t the end all be all if it isn’t perfect. Of course that’s all a moot point if Revolution isn’t achieved as in Capitalism only cares about profit and control, so prisons are there for slave labor, not even “punishment” let alone healing.
People need to get back ready into society. There are countries, where the whole prison thing is about punishment and declining human rights.
I remember reading about cases about how 13yo killed their whole family and the response was to treat them as adults (!!!). Because, no 13 year old would commit such crimes! This makes me angry every time. When the 13yo old murderer is suddenly a grown ass adult, then he also vote, drink hard alcohol, drive cars and visit a brothel, right?
So many crimes are a product of material conditions. And let’s say you have people who commit something, because they felt that way (anger, rage etc.), then they need to be healed. Integrated back to society. Even for murder, people can absolutely change.
And what if not? You can have folks, which are sadly broken. You then have to protect the society from them, by giving them places to life, where they are protected, protected form themself and where the whole society is protected. Since they are forced to give up rights, then can receive benefits.
Prisons need to be abolished. But this doesn’t mean, that nothing happens to a criminal, the whole thing gets replaced.
This is one of the topics, where you can provide more solid theory about how the practice could be. Because some countries offer ways to integrate criminals back. Are they working? Not that good actually, the reason is obviously and well documented: They go all back to the place where they come from, back to the old environment. Like a person is getting better after a longer stay in psychiatry but then has to go back to the old environment.
Edit:
I said that this goes also for murderer. I also think, that this counts for sexual crimes as well and more. As a victim I got once my hands on a digital version of a therapy manual for psychiatrist, which treat people who commited SA against minors. Stuff got me angry, since they obviously are ways of treatment. But no, let’s better create an atmosphere, where a possible assaulters don’t seek treatment, maybe commit a bad crime and then all can circlejerk because now it is the perfect time for imagining how great it is to torture a person to death.
When the root cause is systemic, the solution also needs to be systemic, like for example, a high security facility to keep them while they recover wouldn’t be the end all, but there could be more outside work as well, such as investigating the conditions that drove them to the crime, and helping them form and follow through on a plan to change those conditions, with state support in what ways are needed to change those conditions. It needs to be treated as a whole and everything relevant integrated into the process of making sure a repeat incident is unlikely, with more serious crimes having a higher bar of thoroughness, though at the same time, their life is not more important than that of others, and what one does affects the system just as the system affects them, so a persons recovery cannot come at greater expense to the rest of society then that of the life of the person that did the crime compared to those that did not, if someone murders someone, the bar for insuring that they will never murder again needs to be no less then on the moon.