Just Restitution or Modern Day Slavery?

[Sukerkin]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11444041

I have to say I have mixed responses to this idea.

On the one hand I applaud it wholeheartedly - after all, to get the criminals to repay those they harmed is an excellent idea (there are some good things in that ancient Manual of Societal Management (aka the Bible :tup: )).

On the other hand I can see that it would be open to abuse by those in authority who are not scrupulous in the execution of their duties. That response is alarmist I do confess given the scope envisaged by the changes so far ... but the top of the slippery slope always seems innocuous.

 

[CoryKS]

Would the length of their sentence be reduced to offset the amount of money paid? We talk of prisoners "paying their debt to society". The idea of making them work to pay for their crimes in addition to serving time seems like a double punishment to me.

 

[Big Don]

I'd say it is just restitution, partially, I don't think prisoners should be paid at all. The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution reads, in part:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Sadly, the US government, and the state governments ignore the portion in red...
I'd make everyone of them work from dawn to dusk.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

It is not uncommon in the USA for convicts to be prohibited from profiting from their crimes (selling their 'story' for book, TV, or movie use, giving paid interviews, etc). And anyone can be sued and have their wages garnished (if they lose in court) to compensate injured parties - prisoners or not. So there is no reason to presume that a prisoner in the USA can't be sued, lose, and have their prison wages confiscated to pay a judgment (as far as I know, I could be wrong).

To the best of my knowledge, though, a person can bankrupt out of a civil judgment in many cases; prisoner or not. I could be wrong about that too.

However, it seems to me that increasing the pay prisoners receive for work they do in order to confiscate it to repay victims a more meaningful amount is a round-about way of simply paying victims for their damages directly from government (taxpayer) coffers. Kind of weird.

Yes, I think that criminals should be liable for financial damages as well as the criminal sentence. Not sure how that can be meaningfully done without adversely affecting taxpayers.

 

[Empty Hands]

Only if part of their sentencing involved fines to which the wages go. It is not the place of jail or other government officials to take the place of the courts and decide punishments.

 

[Tez3]

I would like to see a shakeup of who gets sent to prison. At the moment there's a large proportion of people sent to prison who are mentally ill and are sent to prison because there is no provision anymore for them to be looked after in hospital. Mentally ill people are often given short sentences of a few weeks because they have done something that is technically against the law such as begging, urinating in a public place, shop lifting, public nuisance etc because it's clear they need to be looked after but the 'care in the community' laws mean there aren't the places in hospitals for them anymore. Prison officers have said many times they aren't trained to cope with the mentally ill and prison isn't the place for these people.

I'd like to see proper work for prisoners with decent pay that could well have something taken out to recompense victims. Many people in prison are frankly there becuae they cannot cope with life outside either because they are ill educated or have inadequate life skills, basically the losers. If they work, are taught how to cope they stand a better chance of not reoffending, many of them aren't even in for major crimes and keep getting caught through their own stupidity. They are likely to be the ones most likely to benefit from education, work and seeing some of their pay being taken to help their victims. Perhaps though some sort of work for the community would be better?

The rest, the career criminals and gangster types, drugs dealers,callous killers etc aren't going to care and it will do nothing for them or us.

 

[WC_lun]

I can't say I like the idea of prisoners getting paid more so thier victims can get money as restitution. While I can defiitley sympathize for the victims, I don't like the idea of taxpayers money going to them in a direct manner. Money going to programs they can benefit from, such as victim counceling, I don't have as much an issue with.

On a side note, I was watching a news program today while eating lunch in a resteraunt. They were talking about a contraversial idea of microchipping violent felons and child molesters. What do you guys think of this idea? I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea, but I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for predators' civil liberties either. You become a predator on society, maybe society has a right to know where you are at all times.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

On a side note, I was watching a news program today while eating lunch in a resteraunt. They were talking about a contraversial idea of microchipping violent felons and child molesters. What do you guys think of this idea? I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea, but I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for predators' civil liberties either. You become a predator on society, maybe society has a right to know where you are at all times.

From a practical point of view, there are no such devices (yet) that I am aware of. The current devices that can be implanted are generally read-only RFID devices - they are detected by passing a 'wand' over the body at a close distance, which provides enough RF energy to power up the device, which then broadcasts whatever it was told to broadcast.

This means that currently, there is no way to 'track' such persons from a distance. Larger devices exist which can do that, of course, but they are not (currently) implantable.

From a civil rights standpoint, I'd be against it. I don't have any sympathy for sexual predators or violent criminals either; but that is not the same as saying that their rights should not be respected - that is because THEIR rights are MY rights. While convicted felons in the USA often lose some of their rights permanently (the right to own a firearm, the right to vote in some states), I do not want them to lose their freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, their right to privacy, or their right to give consent to (or refuse) medical procedures upon their bodies.

I do not share the viewpoint that infringement of liberties in this way would stop at the violent and the predators among us. Once that frontier is opened, I believe it would merely be a matter of time before we begin to track everyone as a matter of course.

It is for this reason (among others) that I object to a national ID card, biometric identification implants (tattoos or inserted RFID chips), broadcast GPS that can't be turned off in cell phones (it's there now), and so on.

By the way, such things can be used for good or ill:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/10/tech/main2785364.shtml

Great story, but the same technology can also be used for evil purposes. Governments do not always do the right thing - anyone care to argue that they're trustworthy with such power?

 

[bribrius]

From a practical point of view, there are no such devices (yet) that I am aware of. The current devices that can be implanted are generally read-only RFID devices - they are detected by passing a 'wand' over the body at a close distance, which provides enough RF energy to power up the device, which then broadcasts whatever it was told to broadcast.

This means that currently, there is no way to 'track' such persons from a distance. Larger devices exist which can do that, of course, but they are not (currently) implantable.

From a civil rights standpoint, I'd be against it. I don't have any sympathy for sexual predators or violent criminals either; but that is not the same as saying that their rights should not be respected - that is because THEIR rights are MY rights. While convicted felons in the USA often lose some of their rights permanently (the right to own a firearm, the right to vote in some states), I do not want them to lose their freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, their right to privacy, or their right to give consent to (or refuse) medical procedures upon their bodies.

I do not share the viewpoint that infringement of liberties in this way would stop at the violent and the predators among us. Once that frontier is opened, I believe it would merely be a matter of time before we begin to track everyone as a matter of course.

It is for this reason (among others) that I object to a national ID card, biometric identification implants (tattoos or inserted RFID chips), broadcast GPS that can't be turned off in cell phones (it's there now), and so on.

By the way, such things can be used for good or ill:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/10/tech/main2785364.shtml

Great story, but the same technology can also be used for evil purposes. Governments do not always do the right thing - anyone care to argue that they're trustworthy with such power?

i strongly agree with this. Avoid the police state. 1984.

whatever they can do to them, they can do to you next.

 

[WC_lun]

That was sorta my thinking on the issue as well. Personally, I don't care a whit about a prefator's civil liberties. I don't support anything that would be inhumane, like beatings or torture. I'd be uncomfortable with this because it could be abused so easily. We do have tracking devices we use on criminals, though not impants. Lojacks.

 

[Sukerkin]

Is this the start of that 'slippery slope' I referred to?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11463182

 

[Ken Morgan]

Yes, yes it is.

The money used to cut prison populations is being used backwards. Spend the money beforehand to make sure that kids grow up with a real life and never need to resort to criminal activities. Spending it after is closing the gate after the horse has left the paddock.

Then again why are we training prisoners when there are tens of thousands of law abiding citizens, who pay their taxes but who simply can’t afford the training or education some of these prisoners get. That doesn’t seem fair.

Make the prisoners responsible for growing their own food, laundry, mending their own clothes, and whatever else is necessary to keep them.

 

[Big Don]

Give prisoners the most god awful jobs around, I'm sure the UK has miles of sewers that need service...

 

[Sukerkin]

I do appreciate where you are coming from with that Don but, in the end, sewer maintence is still someones job. It might not seem thje most salubrious of activities but it most certainly is essential and is big business:

http://www.thameswater.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/corp/hs.xsl/10249.htm

The company I work for has just won a £10M contract to supply SCADA systems to assist in the project.

Plus, in the country at present, we have an estimated shortfall of a million jobs for the population of working age.

Giving the nasty jobs to prisoners just keeps another law-abiding person on the dole.

 

[Big Don]

I do appreciate where you are coming from with that Don but, in the end, sewer maintence is still someones job. It might not seem thje most salubrious of activities but it most certainly is essential and is big business:

http://www.thameswater.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/corp/hs.xsl/10249.htm

The company I work for has just won a £10M contract to supply SCADA systems to assist in the project.

Plus, in the country at present, we have an estimated shortfall of a million jobs for the population of working age.

Giving the nasty jobs to prisoners just keeps another law-abiding person on the dole.

You leave Bob Dole out of this! (jk,)
There is garbage that needs picked up off the streets, there are windows that need washed, there are things you can make them do to earn their keep...

 

[Tez3]

You leave Bob Dole out of this! (jk,)
There is garbage that needs picked up off the streets, there are windows that need washed, there are things you can make them do to earn their keep...

We have people paid to do those jobs too, don't think they'd be too chuffed to be sacked so prisoners can do it.

Many in prison are socially inadequate, some of them it's their own fault, some it's parents fault or they grew up in care, others are just inadequate and/or as thick as too short planks so education is a large way forward for many of these to make them able to work. I agree some sort of work would be good but I think it has to be of value for them as well as us. I think Ken's idea of making them responsible for themselves has merit, it has the elements of education they need as well as giving them something to work for without either making someone else unemployed or giving them something honest people can't afford.

 

[Big Don]

My point is, there exists some vocation you can force your felons to perform, even if it is walking a treadmill to turn a generator.

 

[Ken Morgan]

My point is, there exists some vocation you can force your felons to perform, even if it is walking a treadmill to turn a generator.

Oh I actually like that one!!

Any outside job can in theory be taken over by a non-violent inmate. Once we start laying people off, downsizing, so we can employ cheaper labour (prisoners), we run this risk of what Suk was initially talking about, a mode of slavery.

I believe prisoners should contribute as much as possible to their own upkeep and well being, but we still need to watch what that is.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

Oh I actually like that one!!

Any outside job can in theory be taken over by a non-violent inmate. Once we start laying people off, downsizing, so we can employ cheaper labour (prisoners), we run this risk of what Suk was initially talking about, a mode of slavery.

I believe prisoners should contribute as much as possible to their own upkeep and well being, but we still need to watch what that is.

Just going to quip that I think that, unless the punishment is specifically changed in order to keep people in longer so that they can do more work, this is far from slavery.

Unlike slaves in the past, they were forced to do work without profit through no fault of their own, other then losing a war. In this case, the individuals concerned actually committed an act which caused their being imprisoned and forced to work.

I would call it more indentured servitude then slavery. Let them work of their debt to society, rather then having society continue to pay for their negative behavior. Even if they are forced to grow their own food, raise their own cows, etc., there is the cost of building maintanence, guards, medical care. This all needs to be paid for. Let them do some profitable work which goes directly to pay for such things.

 

[Sukerkin]

We did the treadmill thing, without generators obviously, in the Workhouses of the Victorian era. Not sure if they were used in prisions, I'll have to research it.

I concur with the terminology suggested by Kenpo above, altho, to an extent, the semantics of what we call it amongst ourselves are not really an issue.

I still maintain that, whilst it 'feels' like a great idea, as soon as a legitimate job opportunity for a non-felon is lost then that slippery slope begins to make itself felt. Putting aside the moral issues and addressing only the tangible, if indentured 'free' labour is available then private enterprise will make use of that rather than paying for workers.

Even keeping the tasks focussed on providing for themselves has an impact on the economy outside of the prison system as it reduces aggregate demand for whatever goods and services are no longer being brought in. If that lead to a reduction in tax burden of course then perhaps that is not so much of an issue.