Does Incarceration Work?

Question

Do you think that Incarceration works? Does it make you a different person?

Answer 1

for the most part, no.

recidivism rates are through the roof.

Answer 2

Incarceration doesnt work,they let them out and do more heinous crimes,kill them all and quit burdening the taxpayers!

Answer 3

If incarceration is combined with some sort of rehabilitation, it can be very effective. The idea is to remove a criminal deviant from their bad environment then make better behavior more reinforcing. Very few incarceration facilities actually do anything close to this though. Instead, they scare them, punish them, abuse them, then release them back into a less reinforcing environment than before with very few resources or employment opportunities. Without resources or employment, there is only incentive to commit more crime. In other words, no: the current incarceration system does not work.

Answer 4

Incarceration works against criminals committing crimes like spanking works against kids crying.  It's a penalty that exacerbates the criminal's problems.  Gangs run prisons, so criminals are hardened, brutalized and introduced to more criminals.

Answer 5

I think its a tangential question at best to the real dilema. Seemingly there is a racialized movement in the last few decades which is leading to incredibly disproportiante prison populations. Its not like any one group in particular is causing any of these, but a number of social factors are leading to a situation that is becoming very difficult to understand or overcome if such a thing is possible.

This why i think the question is only really tangential to the issue. It shouldnt be is incarceration working as much as the question should be, why on earth has the demographics of prison populations shifted in such a way that we have created a social problem out of it.

Answer 6

Some it does, some it doesn't. There are those who cannot make it on the outside after being locked up so long.

Answer 7

no, they are treated too well in prison. no incentive to stayout of it.

Answer 8

a lot of the time no. people go in for mimor charges and come out knowing how to commit more crimes, and some people come out angrier and worse.

Answer 9

Yes, if the prison is good and not a hellhole.