this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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Even better, let's stop doing prisons
I'd settle for getting rid of for profit ones
Start with getting rid of private prisons, and then go from there
No, we need some prisons.
Certainly cutting back 9 out of 10 prisons is a good idea. I don't object to the idea that there is a certain amount of people who need to be removed for their own and the public's safety.
But is a prison really where someone like that should go/it should be called? I would argue those people should be in a mental asylum, not what we have as prisons today (though today's mental asylums aren't necessarily more humane)
Mental hospitals should be places where people with mental illnesses can go for care and treatment. They shouldn't do double-duty as prisons.
True, but the opposite is the case now: several times more people with mental illness resulting in or at least contributing to unwanted behavior are imprisoned than are receiving any kind of treatment.
As indicated by the fact that the most incarceration-happy country in the world continues to have a much higher rate of violence and enrichment crimes than most rich countries, the prison industrial complex doesn't work for anyone except for the people profiting financially and electorally from its abuses.
If you want to actually reduce crime and make a better society, poverty alleviation, improving mental health services, and restorative justice is the way to go.
The current model of increasingly draconian oppression only leads to MORE crime AND more false imprisonment.
Right. But there needs to be secure treatment facilities.
Something like Norway's system is ideal imo
I don't think people realize how limited psychiatric hospitalizations are. If someone committed a crime because of impulsivity due to untreated mood or psychotic disorder, then a psychiatric stay would likely be appropriate. However, someone who is say psychopathic or committed a crime of passion but has no psychiatric history would get minimal to no benefit from a psych stay.
I mean, if responding to my comment about removing some people for "their own safety," then sure, there are better places that prisons.
But really what I was saying is there are people who do and will continue to be violent toward others, and prisons probably are the right place for them.
But I'm in full agreement that the US incarcerates far far too many people that don't fit into that description.
But jail has to be the last resort not the first one.
The justice system should, not is but should, be in the business of making things right for people who have been wronged and rehabilitating people who have done wrong, as an extension of preventing wrong from recurring, which is itself part of making things right for those wronged.
There is some theoretical minority of people who can't be rehabilitated and don't belong in medical treatment. There are some people where putting them in a medical facility would itself be an injustice to the staff and other patients. The vast majority of people with mental illness are perfectly safe and more likely to be the victim of a crime. Mixing them with billy mcSlapChop the worst person imaginable just creates a lot of dead people with poorly managed bipolar disorder.
The vast majority of crimes can be handled by the judge finding you guilty and then just letting you go.