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:We recognize a need for restraint of those few who are exhibiting dangerous behaviour. The kind of restraint used and the help offered during this time must reflect our concern for that of God in every person.” | :We recognize a need for restraint of those few who are exhibiting dangerous behaviour. The kind of restraint used and the help offered during this time must reflect our concern for that of God in every person.” | ||
=== Gradualism === | |||
No criminal policy should counteract materially or ideologically the goal of reducing and finally abolishing the prison system. | |||
Gradualists favour a slow and steady reduction of the prison system. They advocate | |||
#ending overcriminalization by limiting prison sentences to serious crime | |||
#correcting the sentencing system by substituting, for incarceration, supervised release, probation, restitution to victims, and/or community work; decreasing terms of imprisonment by abolishing mandatory minimum sentencing; decreasing ethnic disparity in prison populations; fighting wrongful convictions; fighting class, race, gender bias in the judicial system | |||
#community-controlled courts, councils, or assemblies to control the problem of social crime (there would be fewer prisoners if society treated people more fairly) | |||
Organizations: GIP (Michel Foucault); ICOPA, KROM, KRIM, KRAK and Thomas Mathiesen (negative reforms; unfinished; an alternative to prisons is any contradiction to the prison system's means and ends. Shifting the focus from the offender to the victim, e.g.). | |||
Most arguments against prisons are not based on moral principle, but could be understood as arguments in favor of reforming the prison and making it more just. Thomas Mathiesen: 8 arguments for a prison building moratorium (UN congress Milano, 1985): | |||
( | |||
#special prevention does not work and violates human rights | |||
Appr. one quarter of people in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males aged 20- 29 are under correctional supervision. They constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison. | #General prevention does not work | ||
The Massachusetts Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition says: the prison system is in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which is prescribing life, liberty, equality and justice to all people without discrimination of any sort as an inalienable right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has also abolished all forms of slavery and genocide, including torture, repression and oppression that prisons thrive upon. | #Overcrowding should be prevented by other means than building more prisons | ||
Imprisonment is seen by some as violent behaviour producing a "boomerang effect of dehumanisation" on the society. Furthermore, prisons are used as a "default asylum" for many individuals with mental illness: "why do governmental units choose to spend billions of dollars a year to concentrate people with serious illnesses in a system designed to punish intentional lawbreaking, when doing so matches neither the putative purposes of that system nor most effectively addresses the issues posed by that population?" (Amanda Pustlinik) | #New construction is irreversible | ||
#Prisons have an expansionist, self-maintaining and self-expanding character | |||
#Prisons are humiliating | |||
#Prisons reveal how a society thinks about human beings and conflict resolution | |||
#Prisons are a waste of money. | |||
The injustice of the prison system: | |||
#Lack of proper legal representation: Eighty percent of people accused of crimes [in the United States] are unable to afford a lawyer to defend them." The US Supreme Court held in 1963 that a poor person facing felony charges "cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him." | |||
#War on drugs conceals racial tension. Appr. one quarter of people in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males aged 20- 29 are under correctional supervision. They constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison. | |||
Dutch criminologist Herman Thomas Bianchi is no friend of prisons, either: | === Abolitionism === | ||
*The Massachusetts Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition says: the prison system is in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which is prescribing life, liberty, equality and justice to all people without discrimination of any sort as an inalienable right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has also abolished all forms of slavery and genocide, including torture, repression and oppression that prisons thrive upon. | |||
*Imprisonment is seen by some as violent behaviour producing a "boomerang effect of dehumanisation" on the society. Furthermore, prisons are used as a "default asylum" for many individuals with mental illness: "why do governmental units choose to spend billions of dollars a year to concentrate people with serious illnesses in a system designed to punish intentional lawbreaking, when doing so matches neither the putative purposes of that system nor most effectively addresses the issues posed by that population?" (Amanda Pustlinik) | |||
*Dutch criminologist Herman Thomas Bianchi is no friend of prisons, either: | |||
They remind him of concentration camps. And he is prepared to sketch his ideas. Holland contains ten thousand incarcerated persons. Six hundred of them present an acute danger. They would fit in one pris-on. He lived among Mohawks in an American reservation a couple of times. They are unfamiliar with criminal law. Jesus said a wrongdoer should be invited seventy times seven times to make up. According to Indian practise, you should ask ten times. But our criminal law does not ask once. Bianchi believes so-ciety should try to induce each criminal to show remorse and to make up. Prison could serve as a last re-sort for those who are absolutely unwilling or unable to show remorse. This principle of reconciliation, restorative justice, is gaining more proponents worldwide. | They remind him of concentration camps. And he is prepared to sketch his ideas. Holland contains ten thousand incarcerated persons. Six hundred of them present an acute danger. They would fit in one pris-on. He lived among Mohawks in an American reservation a couple of times. They are unfamiliar with criminal law. Jesus said a wrongdoer should be invited seventy times seven times to make up. According to Indian practise, you should ask ten times. But our criminal law does not ask once. Bianchi believes so-ciety should try to induce each criminal to show remorse and to make up. Prison could serve as a last re-sort for those who are absolutely unwilling or unable to show remorse. This principle of reconciliation, restorative justice, is gaining more proponents worldwide. | ||
Nor has Heinz Steinert been friend of prisons (in: Feest & Paul 2008): | Nor has Heinz Steinert been friend of prisons (in: Feest & Paul 2008): | ||
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===Reading=== | ===Reading=== | ||
Christie, Nils (1994/2013) Crime control as industry. London: Routledge | *Christie, Nils (1994/2013) Crime control as industry. London: Routledge | ||
Davis, Angela (1999) The Prison Industrial Complex, CD-ROM (Audiobook), AK Press | *Davis, Angela (1999) The Prison Industrial Complex, CD-ROM (Audiobook), AK Press | ||
Mathiesen, Thomas (2000) Prison on trial, 2nd ed., Winchester | *Mathiesen, Thomas (2000) Prison on trial, 2nd ed., Winchester | ||
Morris, Mark (1976). Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists. Syracuse, NY: Prison Research Education Action Project. | *Morris, Mark (1976). Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists. Syracuse, NY: Prison Research Education Action Project. | ||
Religious Society of Friends. Minute on Prison Abolition Approved by the Canadian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in 1981 (Minute 93) | *Religious Society of Friends. Minute on Prison Abolition Approved by the Canadian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in 1981 (Minute 93) | ||
==Penal Law, Criminal Justice, Punishment== | ==Penal Law, Criminal Justice, Punishment== |