Did you forget to lock your front door? Take heart, at least you didn't forget to lock the cell doors of prison inmates, like what happened to the warden of Norrätlje prison in Sweden:
Via Criggo and Miss Cellania
Did you forget to lock your front door? Take heart, at least you didn't forget to lock the cell doors of prison inmates, like what happened to the warden of Norrätlje prison in Sweden:
Via Criggo and Miss Cellania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fika_(coffee_break)
Since the purpose of prison is to keep criminals away from the general public only crimes that would make you a threat to society are punished by prison time.
For more crimes the prisoners are taught a skill, get a free education and live in a dorm like setting where they leave the prison to go to their daily job. They are monitored and have to check in when they get to work to make sure they didn't have time to stop off for a bank robbery or something..... and get this... they have to pay for their own food and lodging out of their wages.... so they are not drain on society.
But basically prisoners get a new lease on life, learn skills and how to be a productive member of society so when they get out they don't want to go back to a life of crime.
Violent criminals are put on a island where they pretty much govern themselves and grow their own food. Once a month their families can come out to visit them and have a BBQ. They have a pretty nice life and are kept away from the public (which is the reason for prison in the first place)
Now flip over to the US where we lock up people for just about any crime regardless if it makes you a threat to the public at large. So we have prisons full of non violent offenders locked up with violent scumbags (so we ensure that non violent criminals become violent and hostile). They don't really learn anything or do anything productive and are a drain on the taxpayers. Then they get out of jail and noone will hire them so they are forced back into a life of crime hence why we have a ridiculous failure rate when it comes to rehabilitating inmates.
We house non violent criminals at 30k each for years just to have them end up back in prison again and again. It is insanity.