Originally published at: These are some of the scariest prisons in history | Boing Boing
…
For me, the image linked in the BoingBoing article and all the things I’ve learned about Nordic systems reforming (most?) criminals rather than leaving them to rot tells me that there is a systemic torture-fetish built into a lot of these places.
4 Likes
But how do make sure they’re suffering enough in those cells? /s
1 Like
1 Like
I kind of think Anders Breivik should suffer. Not just not do it again.
Having one’s freedom taken away already is a form of suffering.
Beyond that, if the point of incarceration is reform, doesn’t further suffering instead foster recidivism?
9 Likes
I read Papillon when I was maybe 11 or 12. It certainly made me never want to be imprisoned by the French. There are doubts about the veracity of the story of course.
I guess it might depend on the sort and degree of impingement – there’s a question of proportion.
I’m sure it does (and this is not to say current systems are working – or that I have any idea about what might work better. Western law and order is an awful awful mess).
But I’m not sure reform is the only point of legal redress. Don’t we all agree that people who knowingly doing evil (again, e.g. Anders Breivik) deserve to have something bad done to them in the same way that heroically selfless people deserve to be honoured?
How does revenge serve society? What purpose does it serve with regards to society? And who gets to decide what deserves “revenge”? Justice is not the same as revenge.
Who gets to decide what is “evil”? And why should we build our entire criminal justice systems around edge cases like this… Why let people like him dictate the terms. This kind of revenge mindset is precisely what he wishes to see in the world, so why give it to him?
8 Likes
No. Or at least, not as part of the criminal justice system.
I would rather see a justice system that brings comfort and recompensation to the victims of crimes, and do whatever can be done to make sure that offender cannot do it again.
My Id is another matter, it wants to see the “punishment” stuff, but luckily I am more than my Id. As are most of us,
8 Likes
Perhaps. But I don’t think the government should be doing that. And certainly not in my name with my money.
The thing is - not only is the government wrong about who was guilty not infrequently- there’s people in government who think some of us deserve that just because they hate people like us. Ain’t no way I’m going to support giving the government the power to torture.
11 Likes
8 Likes
Hallelujah.
And to amend my first comment, even my Id doesn’t want to see bad stuff done to people who’ve done evil, it just wants to see bad stuff happen to them. But not inflicted by their peers, bc then that’s a fellow human doing evil.
Like, if you run a red light, maybe you stub your toe later. If you sneeze without covering your face, you step on a Lego in the dark later. And on up from there. 
5 Likes
Hardly ever, in my experience.
6 Likes
That may be one of the few things we can all agree on 
2 Likes
I don’t, and that is consistent with social anarchist belief.
4 Likes
That list escalates quickly!
3 Likes
That’s one version of Hell, in my mind; a whole world made of Legos and zero shoes or any kind of protective footwear.
4 Likes
Indeed, I may have gone a bit overboard in the Karma department. And so focused on feet. 
Maybe some interim ones are, in no particular order: a gnat flying into your eye, a splinter in a finger, water in your ear, all building up to the Lego.
1 Like
