I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t send people to jail for more than 3 months if they’re not going for their entire lives. I don’t want people coming out of a place like that into my suburban neighborhood.
I don't think I agree with this, but it has made me think about the problem differently.
We don't send somebody to the hospital for "30 days", or "1 year". We don't do it when putting somebody under the care of a psychiatrist either. We deal with the patient until they're recovered.
Perhaps this should be the approach we take with prisoners. They're in prison until a professional determines they're rehabilitated and ready to reintegrate back into the rest of society. With—potentially—minimum and maximum durations to ensure some safety rails on the system.
I have to admit I don't know what this looks like, and I don't mean to gloss over the fact that there are incredibly difficult questions this raises that don't have good answers (what does it mean for a murderer to be "rehabilitated"?), but I do wonder if at least considering the problem from this perspective might prove helpful.
Of course, but that's the whole problem we should be addressing. We need to stop thinking about prison being the adult version of sitting in time-out and start thinking about it in terms of rehabilitation so that released prisoners can better reintegrate.
This is interesting. Is the 3 months number something arbitrary? Are there major groups advocating this? Beyond limiting the harm if prison, short stints could make gangs harder to form in non-lifer prisons.
Sure, send the rapists and murderers and child molesters to life without parole. The rest of the violent criminals to Singapore style whipping which is actually far more humane than prison.
