Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Luxury Rehabilitation

Today’s symposium reminded me of an article I read this summer following the bombings of the government buildings in Oslo and the mass shootings of sixty nine people committed by Anders Behring Breivik. Anders was a right wing extremist and his violent acts were on world news headlines for weeks. He claimed that his actions were “atrocious but necessary” actions. He however denies that he should be held criminally responsible for them.

Breivik obviously violated the justice system and imbalanced if not destroyed a large part of the society in which he lived. Justice was taken away from these victims and as Peter mentioned in class certain acts of injustice will not be balanced because you can’t give someone their life back. Breivik took a total of 77 lives, most of which were young teens. Breivik was a supporter of cultural conservatism and several other groups that aimed at preservation of what they believed was a just society.

Putting aside the violations of justice I wanted to post an article that I read after the attacks. In class Dr. J posed the question of whether or not Aristotle or Plato would send a criminal to a retribution prison or a rehabilitation prison. Aristotle believed in the notion of retribution prison’s with the purpose and foundation based on the philosophy if one person harms another then an equal harm should be put onto them. Plato was in favor of rehabilitation prisons with the purpose and focus of reform for the prisoner.

Rehabilitation prisons are often disputed because of the variance in which they conduct themselves. Some scholars believe that the purpose of rehabilitation is that the criminal should be allowed the chance to rehabilitate their inherent deficiencies. Prisoners may also be given the chance to participate in educational programs, learn proper social behavior, treatment for various drug addictions, and basic vocational training. Plato would agree I believe because all of these opportunities will provide the prisoner with a stress of self-discipline, treating others with respect, and improving upon themselves.

Arguments against the rehabilitation approach are that criminals are inherently prone to illegal behavior or that the prisoner may not be taking responsibility for the crime they committed. Others may say that failures of social policy foster criminal behavior. If rehabilitation does not work then recidivism occurs. This is a growing issue especially in the United States. I agree with Plato and that rehabilitation is the way to go in the criminal system however how can a society reduce recidivism?

To bring this back to Breivik, Norway’s penal system has no capital punishment and the longest jail term permitted is for 21 years. The article attached is a picture of the Norwegian prison Halden located near Oslo, where Breivik could possibly be sent. Do you think that luxury prisons taking rehabilitation to an extreme level could reduce recidivism?

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/26/7173997-prison-in-norway-focuses-on-reform-in-a-comfortable-environment

4 comments:

  1. I think when we look at the retribution versus rehabilitation idea though, it is much more complicated than 'one fixes criminals' and 'one corrects society'. Obviously most people would argue for a combination of the two: where Aristotle's idea of righting a wrong is achieved while Socrates' idea of balancing the person's soul psyche is achieved. This would be the ideal arrangement for criminals and our society, but how exactly would that work?
    For issues like drug addiction, there are easily found solutions in terms of rehabilitation: counseling and health care. However when we go into murkier waters of murder or rape, in instances where someone has habituated his or her being into viciousness, what rehabilitation would be possible, as well as how would the society react if they felt this person was 'let of easy' (or the wrong was not righted).
    Even within our own society, with the guidelines of jail sentences there seems to be an obvious scale of crimes in terms of how much retribution on deserves; for instance, the death penalty can legally be sentenced to someone who has not only murdered others, but as well as certain serious offense rapists.
    With retributive justice in mind in our court systems, I'm not sure how we can easily go towards a more rehab focused penal system. Our society has a very Aristotelian idea of needed the wrong to be righted.

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  2. I agree that our society does combine the two... I may have been a bit vague in my blog post but I was providing the example of an attack that happened outside of our country as well as view criminal justice from a different perspective.

    Obviously if all prisons had rock climbing walls and personal trainers we wouldn't be in class we would be out getting arrested.

    I am curious how you feel about recidivism and if it can be controlled, reduced or eliminated. Or, if it is even an issue we should be concerned with. That was my main question sorry again if it wasn't more clear.

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  3. I think recidivism is easiest to reduce in terms of drug abusers, but it is much more complicated when looking at murderers and rapists. I'm not sure how a person with sociopathic tendencies resulting in violent felonies can be easily 'rehabilitated'. When a government or court system is aware of what a person is able to do and knows how they have harmed society, it would be difficult to simply attempt to 'fix' this person than send him or her back into the general population. I can't help but think about 'Clockwork Orange' in terms of the question: are violent tendencies something one simply has in his or her genetics, or are they taught. And if they are taught, can they be untaught?

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  4. Retribution based prisons that are supported by Aristotle's theory of justice are preferred by the general public because they want to feel as though the criminal has paid for his unjust action, but who's to say that the he won't commit the crime again once released from prison? According to Plato with proper rehabilitation, recidivism will definitely decrease because the person's psyche would be in balance.
    I agree with Andrea that some criminals, such as the drug abuser, would be easier to treat than others; however, with counseling the rapist and murderer could be helped as well. In psychology we learned that most criminal who commit such horrendous crimes were effected by an issue or bad experience at some point during their development. Counseling can target the problem and reverse its effects so that he/she will no longer think in that way or at least be as tempted to commit the crime again.
    Of course retribution must still be carried out even if it is to just please the general public. Without retribution, there would be no incentives to not commit a crime. But deciding the best punishment for the crime is the challenge. If justice is blind, then the punishment for a crime should be set in stone; however, cases with special circumstances and conditions should be looked at individually. Yet with that in mind everyone would claim that their situation was special to get a lesser punishment making the set punishment useless. With the court looking at individual cases, it may become biased and in the process become unjust.

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