Reforming the Prison System !

 A long time ago, prisons were a source of labour for getting government work done.   In our early days prisoners shackled in leg chains worked in what were referred to as " chain gangs " building our road system.

Today's prisoners spent a lot of their time simply locked in their cell.  This is totally unproductive and we are constantly building new prisons as the number of people in retention grows. It seems that prison is the only option for punishing those who seriously offends against the rules society imposes on the masses.

Little has changed over many centuries. Deprivation of liberty for a stated period of time is the option available to judges in serious cases and it is hoped the prisoner will mend his or her ways and emerge a model citizen.

What happens is usually the opposite.   For young offenders the prison becomes the " University of Crime ".  They learn the tricks of the trade from the old lags and they form associations which allow them to avoid police attention.  Prisons have become the recruiting grounds for violent religion and issues such as white supremacist hatred of Asians and people of colour.

Unfortunately, we mix violent offenders and those is prison for lesser crimes together in our prisons.  Good behaviour is rewarded with early parole but rehabilitation could be enhanced by putting  non violent prisoners under a milder form of retention where their labour served for the common good.

This could take the form of a prison farm, where prisoners work cultivating vegetables for both the prison and hospital systems.  Security would not be as rigid as within the prison system, but should a prisoner escape he or she would spent the rest of their sentence under close confinement in a regular prison when recaptured.

That " loss of liberty " punishment would remain but under milder conditions more akin to working in a remote mining camp.  Not only would the prisoner retain a degree of dignity, he or she would be performing a service to repair the harm they had done to society.  On release, they could expect many of the conditions imposed on former prisoners to be relaxed.

In particular, people sent to prisoner for the non payment of fines would be better  housed in these lightly guarded open prisons than the fortified jails that are their present destinations, and the outcome of their labour would help support the cost of the prison system.

Its time crime was punished by the type of prison awarded and not simply by the length of the prison sentence.  If nothing else, the benefit of offenders learning to live in harmony with others would be a big advantage of an " open  prison system.

Prisoners would benefit by " earning " their release and their work would actually bring a benefit to society.