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hydrOHxide t1_j2nufjl wrote

Reply to comment by Primary-Initiative52 in Teaching philosophy in a children’s prison has shown me the meaning of anger | The arguments against imprisoning children are well established, yet still we lock up those who have been failed by Va3Victis

And showing monstrously violent children that it's OK to be monstrous to other people is going to help how?

Not sure about the author, but how about instead of setting up the prison system to be monstrous to people, take a look at some other countries? Whereas the anglosphere on both sides of the pond gets off on trying children as adults, other countries allow up to 21 year olds to be tried as juveniles if their maturation is clearly delayed. They also have supervised living arrangements for non-violent offenders etc.

If all you perceive is monsters, monsters is what you're going to get. If you waste any chance at them becoming competent citizens, don't blame them either. Cherrypicking extreme examples just to excuse not putting in even the slightest effort to turn their life around is no less monstrous.

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Atxscrew t1_j2qkewt wrote

Some countries don't have life imprisonment. So the function of them would be to rehabilitate because someday they will be out. Portugal is one such example. So is Norway. One quote I read is "We send murderers and rapists to prison to then be harmed by institutionalized violence (murder and rape factories, aka prisons) and hope that when they come home, they are 'reformed'" Edit: article about long sentences rethinking long prison sentences

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birdandsheep t1_j2twa6k wrote

I was incarcerated as a minor for being monstrously violent. I was smart enough to get my life together. I saw these kids first hand. Many of them will never be able to be fixed. They were born different or fucked up beyond repair. My personal history makes me extremely sympathetic to people who want forgiveness, but not everyone is capable of earning that forgiveness.

It is also patently untrue that children's prisons in the US don't make efforts to help the prisoners. Where I was, there was individual therapy twice a week and group therapy three or four days per week. Sometimes less, if the unit was dangerous. But the staff cared and put in effort to teach us life skills, emotional skills, etc. I got three different job certifications in prison that I was able to use to help me support myself in college.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm glad you're sympathetic and have a sense of outrage about the prison system, and I'm sure that there are places that care less about the kids than where I was. But I want to caution you against being too critical. Juvenile recidivism is a lot lower than adult recidivism. The system works better than you think.

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