http://www.baynews9.com/article/news/2011/november/339781/Inmate-says-soy-in-prison-food-is-cruel,-unusual-punishment

Need to find a way to put a law into place stating when you get imprisoned for life you lose your rights to humane treatment. Want to start seeing chain gangs again and people working in rock quarries with sledge hammers breaking rocks.

Removing someone's humanity should be the last thing we want to do, even if they have a life sentence without hope of parole or appeal. Not only is that unnecessarily cruel for the inmate, but dealing with the results is an unnecessary hardship for the prison staff.

Treat an inmate like a human being and they'll not only behave better, but losing their freedom is more likely to mean something.

I can understand that for someone who just had a stroke of bad luck running in, grabbing something and not paying for it. However with some of these hardened convicts it really makes me question why we should even treat them as human beings. Some of these people have committed acts so heinous I can't even mention it here without it being heavily edited or removed. Worst of all is the inmates that just don't care anymore which are the main ones I would targeted first. Can definitely see where you are coming from treating prisoners humanely but to me some just don't deserve that chance.

seriously though soy is pretty terrible too

Treating inmates well isn't about benefiting the inmates, its about benefiting society. Treating inmates poorly increases crime rates. Treating them with respect, and focusing on rehabilitation instead of retaliation can turn them into productive members of society. Maybe the prisoners themselves don't deserve good treatment, but society deserves to have well-treated prisoners.

Also let's not forget it does happen that innocent people get stuck into prison for the crimes of the guilty. You can't always be 100% sure everyone in prison is there justly and thus every prisoner, scum or not, should be treated at least as a human.

Revenge against criminal scum is only so sweet until it misfires on those who do not deserve it. And that's when we sink down to their level.

Instead of lowering your combat skills like going to prison does in oblivion, most people who enter actual prisons gain a bunch of points in hand to hand, sneak and blade

The whole justice system needs to be reformed. It's a lot more focused on punishment than it is rehabilitation. :thumbsdown:

If there's enough value in being human that it's a big deal to take away someone's rights to be treated as a human, I would assume there's some importance in acting like one, too.

Sure, where ever you happen to be.

Prisons here up north are often called, humourosly, free-of-charge hotels.

These people have committed horrible acts, and I'm not going to say, "society is to blame" and give them suite with a view and a private jacuzzi.

But usually the poor environment they lived in is a major factor in their disturbed behavior, so making their environment worse is just going to make them worse as well. That's a bad idea for everyone involved: the inmate him/herself, their fellow inmates, the prison staff, potentially even the judicial system.

Now while I'm not a fan of soy, I don't believe the occasional soy meal is going to make a violent six offender even worse than they are now (in fact the high levels of phytoestrogens may even be beneficial). However just as a "broken windows" philosophy can keep crime rates down, tackling minor complaints in a prison may help improve things quite a lot. And prisons are notorious for skimping on food in an effort to cut costs and putting the entire inmate population on edge is just a really bad idea.

It has been proven that prison does nothing to rehabilitate most prisoners. Making conditions worse on them would only make the inmates worse within the prison and when they leave. There's really no solution to this. It's nearly impossible for conditions to change in the ghettos and have responsible parenting be mandatory, so we'll have to deal with them later in life. There are those who think that executing prisoners and worsening conditions within prisoners would provide, what I gather from the argument at least, a fear incentive for other potential criminals, yet this has never worked in history and never will. It's a people problem. Repeating the ineffective solutions of the past is senseless and cruel.

:shrug: People pay for this at Taco Bell.

well, his claim is that the FDA doesn't permit that much soy beans to be mixed in with food... i don't know anything about the FDA being able to limit food consumption

^^^ This

No arguments there Sadist i've heard of homeless people around here doing stupid things like dine and dash so they can get sent to prison just to get a free meal + free room and board. Personally i've seen no correlation between inmates being treated happily and them being "reformed" per say. Again not saying we need to treat someone who steals a candy bar like a piece of meat putting them down, etc... . However with those that commit acts of murder in the first degree and the like to me I want to see them put on an island left to fend for themselves. Strap collars on their necks and they try to remove it or get off the island "BOOM" not our problem anymore.

Some people just can't be rehabilitated imho and they just don't deserve those 3 chances like other people do.

I think we need to take a few notes from the prisons in Norway. The US prison system does not work, period. All that it does is remove the possibility of rehabilitation, and causes repeat offences. Solitary confinement is the worst of the punishments use, it literally drives you insane.

All the inmates eat the same food, though.


So...is there really a clear line that can be drawn between the hopeless "bad" inmates and those that still deserve to be treated like human beings? Would you trust a judge to draw that line properly if you were involved in some accident that ended with you (perhaps mistakenly) accused of murder? Things aren't as simple as you're making them sound. :shrug: Wouldn't it be cheaper and more humane just to execute the "bad" people, and do you not see any potential problems with that solution?

I should probably clarify that my original post was referring to the prison system in the United States.

Oh, what's that I'm sorry I couldn't hear you? You wanted what? Rights?

Oh okay.

Well in that case LET ME LAUGH HARDER. :down:

Because someone, somewhere, has to set some sort of moral benchmark? Otherwise you just open the door to a whole new class of sadists - those who abuse inmates, some of whom will no doubt be wrongfully imprisoned, with utter impunity. Abuse of human rights is abuse of human rights, regardless of who it's perpetrated against. Think less about the victim, and more about the abuser. What does it say about someone who feels a select class of people should be stripped of their human rights?


Seriously, there's a lot of nutjob crusaders (not aiming this directly at the OP) who'd do well to stop and actually think about some of the abhorrent ideas they come out with under the guise of "what is right"...

Another benefit is if you feed them enough soy, men will grow man-boobies and be more attractive to the prison Bubbas.

This
He gets a roof over his head, three meals a day, healthcare, rights most Americans aren't ENTITLED to. RIGHTS, you say??
I need to just Please continue, my good sir. before I cross the line I just toed.

So that prisons can undercut businesses who actually run things like quarries or build roads, with their infinite supplies of cheap labour?

Maybe we could just make them run on treadmills and covert soy to electricity.

(on the remote chance that someone misses that this was sarcastic ==>) /sarcasm