April 14, 2010
Crime and Punishment Department
Kill Them Because It's Easier?
From Bill Otis at the slightly disturbing Crime & Consequences blog, here's a pro-death penalty argument that I just can't get enough of:
Recently I noted that prison security -- or, more precisely, the inevitable fallibility thereof -- puts the lie to abolitionist claims that LWOP will keep us as safe as the death penalty. In-prison murder, erroneous release, and escape are among the lethal problems we can expect (and already have, for that matter).
In other words, let's execute more criminals because the people who run our prisons are incompetent.
(The linked story, on the other hand, is rather amusing. It includes sheep.)
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"Slightly disturbing" - REALLY-I quit reading this one a long time ago. This one is for those who really do not care about anything but reaffirming their beliefs about "criminals".
It's remarkable how many posts they put out without really saying much. As far as I can tell, the sum total of their intellectual contribution is "More executions."
Our prisons would be a hell of a lot safer if we made guards personally responsible for anything that happens on their watch -- if a prisoner is raped or beaten on your shift, you (not the taxpayers who fund your salary) are in DEEP trouble.
I think of it this way: when I was a high-school teacher I was, in fact, personally responsible for whatever happened in my classroom. If a 200-pound, 6' 3" student beat up a classmate, my 106-pound, 5' 3" self was expected to stop this, and if not, I could well have been sued by the victim.
Yet I had handicaps the prison guards did not: I certainly could not have any weapon or nightstick or Taser; I didn't even have the legal right to lay a finger on students -- even if I were physically capable of restraining them, I was legally forbidden to do so! And, finally, my classroom was NEVER locked from the outside -- if a student were being beaten up, he at least had the possibility of running away, unlike a prison inmate locked in a cell. Point is, it was effectively impossible for my teacher self to prevent violence, yet I was required to do it anyway; by contrast, prison guards DO have the legal and physical ability to prevent violence, but no legal obligation to do so! Prison guards should be expected, at minimum, to have the same safety responsibility toward the inmates in their care that high-school teachers have toward the inmates in THEIR care.
I don't know about holding guards personally responsible, but someone needs to be held responsible. It seems like a basic rule of civilized conduct: When you take away someone's ability to take care of themselves -- by, say, depriving them of their freedom to leave or defend themselves or get help -- then you become responsible for their welfare.
The guards are the only ones who COULD be held responsible; they're the ones actually there. And if guards knew they WOULD be held responsible for inmate safety, then those vile prison-guard unions would fight for keeping prison populations at manageable levels, rather than fight to outlaw as many things as possible so as to ensure a steady supply of new inmates.
Far easier, I think, for the vile prison guard unions to keep laws from being passed to hold prison guards responsible in the first place.
And if guards knew they WOULD be held responsible for inmate safety, then those vile prison-guard unions would fight for keeping prison populations at manageable levels
I doubt it. They'd more likely fight for more solitary confinement, thus making their jobs easier. They'd fight for easier work overall, not less work overall. With the job easier, they'd then fight for MORE work requiring more eventual union members. No different than teachers unions. Teachers unions fight for smaller class sizes, not fewer students overall. Heck, teachers unions prefer more compulsory education, not a manageable amount.
By the way, I'm in favor of the death penalty.
But only for government employees.
Teachers unions fight for smaller class sizes, not fewer students overall.
Not sure that analogy works, though -- given the way our educational system is setup, the number of students isn't something teacher's unions can really control. The number of first-graders in your town IS going to be about identical to the number of six-year-olds in your town, and vice versa. Unless you're talking about changing the dropout age to reduce the number of high-school students, I can't think of any teacher's union action analogous to prison guards trying to make more things illegal to increase the number of criminals.