Quote:
Originally Posted by Xist
I never hear anything good about private prisons. What is the purpose of prisons? Keeping criminals off the street? Rehabilitating criminals?
Probably not the second.
What is the purpose of private prisons? Making profit?
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It's not a convincing argument because we can add "making profit" to the end of any business. What's the purpose of dentistry? Making profit? The profit motive does not invalidate the usefulness of the service.
Prison serves several purposes to varying degrees of effectiveness. Prison acts as a deterrent, it prevents further criminal acts, it rehabilitates, and it fulfills the vengeful desires of people. The last purpose sounds terrible, and it is. We shouldn't delight in the tragedy of others regardless of how deserved it is, yet we do.
As far as rehabilitation goes, I'd say most US prisons fail this because we're more concerned with retribution than rehabilitation. Granted, rehabilitation is extremely difficult, but I think that's why we choose retribution, because it's the easiest to administer and is instantly gratifying.
What both criminals and society ignores is that if a criminal is going to be released from prison someday, they will need to be be accepted by society, and feel like they have something meaningful to contribute. There has to be a path for redemption.