I'm Not Going To Spend Much Time On This One.

I just want to gripe a second about the nature of this post I found on TYWKIWDBI. The truth is that in essence, I agree that treating inmates like animals doesn't do a gd thing to "rehabilitate" anyone. All it does is give the lowest common denominator a sense of wicked satisfaction that someone is getting what they deserve. Frankly, I doubt that there are very many truly innocent people serving any real time in prison. The fact is that if you want to push the envelope of legal behavior, eventually you're either going to get caught or you're going to get blamed for something you didn't do even though you've gotten away with other illegal acts more times than you can count.

Before I go on digressing though, I'd like to direct your attention to the article from TYWKIWDBI. It points out how lovely prisons in Norway are and contrasts them to sexual abuse in American prisons. Fine- prisoners in American prisons get sexually abused on a regular basis there's little dispute to that fact. However, I wonder why they contrast living conditions with sexual abuse statistics? It's possible that both of their arguments are true but they're not related.

Norwegian prisons vs. American prisons

About a year and a half ago I wrote a post about Norwegian prisons -

"I don't suppose the prisoners have access to the internet," I say. Leif looks at me. "But of course," he says. And in their cells? "Yes." Leif explains that firewalls have been set up to ensure security is maintained. "But they must be able to access the internet," he says, "to help in their education and also so that they know they are still connected to the world."

This week the Norwegian site nrk has a report on the new Halden prison, the photogallery from which has been reposted at Izismile in an easier-to-view format.  Elusive Moose reports on the conditions faced by the prisoners:

The brand new facilities include a gym, a training room, a sound studio, a chapel, a library, several workshops, a family visiting unit, a football pitch and a school, where inmates will get the opportunity to study and gain a range of professional qualifications aimed at facilitating their release into society.

The cells themselves are bright, and are arranged in small units of 10 and 12 cells, joined to a common living area, where inmates will prepare food and socialise in very much the same way they would in any communal building. All cells have flat screen TVs and en-suite bathrooms, and some kind of view – what’s more, the windows don’t have iron bars.

Now, contrast that to American prisons:

At least 60,500 federal and state prison inmates were sexually abused at their current facility in the preceding year alone, according to a 2007 nationwide study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)...

Disturbingly, many corrections officials continue to deny that sexual abuse is a problem in their facilities. Such indifference is reinforced by misguided public perceptions that prisoner rape is inevitable, or, even worse, a joke...

These comments come from an excellent editorial entitled "It's Time to End the Epidemic of Prisoner Rape."

This annoys me because they  could probably make a very convincing argument that living conditions in American prisons could be improved upon and that by doing so, the inmates would be more likely to be rehabilitated in a meaningful way. The problem though is that they have gotten so used to the idea of disregarding facts and logic with the intent of serving their lunatic ideologies. When they're in a position of making a meaningful and logical argument that would actually improve society as a whole, they have absolutely no idea how to do it.

It's not my nature to help but here's how I'd pose the argument. I'd argue that living conditions in Norway are superior to living conditions in America and then I'd list measurable, quantitative reasons why. Next, I'd demonstrate a higher level of rehabilitation in Norwegian prisons compared to American prisons and I'd show statistics proving this (if it were in fact true). Statistics I would include would be rates of sexual abuse, rates of inmate violence, rates of inmate drug use, rates of gainful employment after inmates are released, rates of crimes committed after inmates are released, and rates of return to prison.

Of course, if they followed my lead, they might accomplish something and then they'd have to worry about accomplishing something else. And that's just not how Liberals operate.