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Tri Continental Film Festival 2008 July 25 - 30, 2008 Goa, India http://www.moviesgoa.org/page/tri_continental/ http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricon/schedule_2008.pdf --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:06:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Gilbert Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Despite?America spending $ 40,000 to $ 60,000 / prisoner / year, the downside to imprisonment as a solution to the crime problem are: > 1. Penalizes the prisoner's family, as Miguel rightly pointed. 2. The prisoner's dependents have to be financially supported by society. 3. Society is penalized by the cost of incarceration, as well as from above. 4. Prisoners are victimized by prison violence, gang crime, rape?etc. 5. The prisoner may leave prison?with a worse psycho-behavioral?situation. 6. The above leads to family difficulties, including?domestic violence?and divorce. 7.?If a prisoner escapes, the neighboring communities are placed at increase risks. 8. Intentional or Unintentional lapse in administering justice / punishment. > Mario observes: > On the other hand, the upside is that society is protected from the prisoner while he or she is incarcerated and hopefully, rehabilitated, and the current penal system is how society has decided to address the problem of crime. > To begin with, in America, the legal system does distinguish between non-violent criminals where incarceration times are lower and less punitive, and violent criminals where incarceration is mandatory and life sentences and death sentences are possible. > Secondly, every accused person is considered innocent until proven guilty and provided with a legal defense, at society's cost if necessary, to ensure that their constitutional rights are preserved. > While it is admirable that those who typically have never been victimized and brutalized by such a criminal, nor their family members, have so much empathy and sympathy for the criminal and his or her family, and piss and moan about the downside for society, the counterpoint to this is that shouldn't the criminal have thought of the downside for them and their families before committing the crime? > I have not been victimized but I have friends who have been and the violation of their property and their selves scars them and their families forever. > Regarding Item 2, society would only support the prisoners's family if they meet the same guidelines for financial support as anyone else. Most families do not qualify for such support. Many prisoners must make restitution to their victims. > I find Item 3 quite amusing given that most of society supports the penal system, for their own safety. Regarding Item 5 above, many also leave prison with an education and vocational skills and vow never to return. > Item 7 is also quite hilarious, that we should not incarcerate a prisoner because they MAY escape and put us at risk. Is this compared with not incarcerating them and DEFINITELY putting ourselves at risk? The whole point of incarcerating them is to save us from the risk they pose while we hope they rehabilitate themselves as most do. > There is an appeals process, at society's cost, for addressing Item 8. > In America's "Can do" society, we decide what we need to do as a society, and do not concern ourselves too much with the cost as our society has been able to generate the revenue by either earning it, or borrowing it from investors only too eager to lend it to us. The critics count and publish the costs to try and influence policy. This never works as worrying about how to get what we need done is considered un-American by most Americans. > It is curious that no one ever talked about the cost when we were helping save Europe and Asia during WW-II or containing the old Soviet Union and its publicly stated goal of world domination during the long Cold War, or when we decided to put a man on the moon. >