The best thing about the Hell Site is that prominent media people post passionate missives that can be undercut with 3 seconds of Googling. Actually this is a very bad thing, because prominent media people are constitutionally allergic to admitting they’re wrong. It’s like quality no. 1 in a pundit, especially the online kind who rule over their realm of not very smart fans without a major newsroom to catch inaccuracies.
Perhaps meaningful progress would be made if we first answered the question, what is the purpose of prison? Is it rehabilitation? Is it meant as punishment? Perhaps it's a combination of both? What should it resemble if done correctly? Who is responsible for answering these questions? Institutions relentlessly face the dilemma of ambiguity as societies evolve, what is their teleological principle (oftentimes forgotten), and should it evolve alongside society? A dangerous question with high stakes, since evolution means a possible error in grafting with the environment and therefore death, but stagnation also means the possibility of environmental change without appropriate evolutionary response and therefore death.
Some of this is a naming problem. "Prison abolition" doesn't imply any alternative. I guess "Prison reform" is too loaded? Too overused? Not as catchy? This is why I'm not in marketing.
I think there are too many variables to say that the Norwegian system would work here in the US. Job training and investing in prisoners on the front end would probably lower recidivism and should he pursued but to say we would get the same results is fatuous. If you sent the population of Newark NJ to Norway, the country would collapse.
Perhaps meaningful progress would be made if we first answered the question, what is the purpose of prison? Is it rehabilitation? Is it meant as punishment? Perhaps it's a combination of both? What should it resemble if done correctly? Who is responsible for answering these questions? Institutions relentlessly face the dilemma of ambiguity as societies evolve, what is their teleological principle (oftentimes forgotten), and should it evolve alongside society? A dangerous question with high stakes, since evolution means a possible error in grafting with the environment and therefore death, but stagnation also means the possibility of environmental change without appropriate evolutionary response and therefore death.
Some of this is a naming problem. "Prison abolition" doesn't imply any alternative. I guess "Prison reform" is too loaded? Too overused? Not as catchy? This is why I'm not in marketing.
I think there are too many variables to say that the Norwegian system would work here in the US. Job training and investing in prisoners on the front end would probably lower recidivism and should he pursued but to say we would get the same results is fatuous. If you sent the population of Newark NJ to Norway, the country would collapse.