Daily Lobo column
If you were unable to leave a small cluster of buildings, stuck with the most reprehensible scum imaginable, for 30 years, how would you feel? Would you regret the circumstances that brought you there? Would you rediscover your inner peace and become a happy, productive member of society upon your release?
I wouldn't. I'd spend every spare moment plotting hideous vengeance against the judge and jury that put me there. I'd consult with my fellow inmates - possibly the greatest source of criminal wisdom to be found. With such a huge portion of my life stolen from me, I would probably just consider myself dead, reduced to nothing more than an avenging revenant punishing my killers.
Not every prison inmate plots revenge, but how many "reform" themselves and walk out of prison with a smile on their face?
Some criminals do reform themselves. They know that they deserve whatever the system does to them because they are, for the most part, good people. They are good people who made a mistake and who could be counseled and helped to return to society, but to whom the specter of a long prison sentence removes such hopes. Years or decades spent confined in the company of harder criminals do little to bring them back to the path of righteousness.
Another category of criminal is the career criminal, someone who, because of economic circumstances or the way they were raised, have lost hope in honestly making their way toward the American Dream. For these people, idling about in prison does nothing to change their nature. The moment they are released, they will go back to the only way of life they are familiar with.
Of course, you have your psychopaths, those who are unable to tell the difference between right and wrong and have no hope of being reformed because they lack any desire to do the right thing. They end up having to be confined for life for the safety of society.
How does our current prison system help any of these criminals? We make virtually no effort to help those who can reform do so. We just put them behind a fence for a specified amount of time and hope for the best. It seems that little consideration is given to each individual's prospects for personal change.
Allow me to propose a radical and even frightening solution. Throw out the system of punishment through prolonged boredom and come up with quicker and more effective punishments. For minor, non-violent and most juvenile crimes, go back to floggings. Just take them out back the courthouse and administer 10 lashes. Inhumane, you say? If it was commonplace, everyone who committed those crimes would know the consequence they faced. You think it might be ineffective? How much crime is there in Singapore?
Then for those who know no other life but crime, put them in a prison-like factory where they are taught a trade that they can use after they are released from jail. Teach them work ethic and the knowledge that if they keep committing crimes after being released, they will stay in prison for life. Then have them do something not only useful for civilian life, but something that forces them to learn how to get along with people. Make them do telemarketing, or something.
And for the psychopaths? Why not just execute them? It's not like they have much else to look forward to. For that matter, why should taxpayers pay to keep someone alive who we never want to see or hear from again? Execution by lethal injection is too expensive? Grab a rope.
Am I cold, cruel and heartless? I don't think so - if I was up for the death penalty, I'd rather die quickly and simply at the end of a rope than be strapped to a table and watch them pump green stuff into me, or languish in prison until I had a heart attack.
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Is this a vast oversimplification of our criminal justice system? Yes, it is. Every crime and its circumstances are unique. Everyone deserves the chance to represent their case before a jury of their peers.
But at what point do the rights of the criminal come to an end? New Mexico's prisons are an excellent example of why the current system is not working. Our prisons here are bursting at the seams, mostly with people for whom a good spanking is all that's needed.
