Skalduggery

Seriously, “Why have prisons?” Knowing what the goals for incarcerating law breakers are should help to define the strategic and tactical policy that is carried out behind prison walls. Though I plan on discussing the Oregon Department of Corrections’ (ODOC) Oregon Accountability Model (OAM), let’s leave the OAM out of this particular discussion for the moment. Again, “Why have prisons?” If we are at least moderately honest with ourselves, then often enough this is a question for which we rarely seek specific answers. But those answers are most often the defining determinants of how politicians, policy makers, and management (policy wonks) create the strategic policy which correctional practitioners struggle to turn into tactical policy.

Unfortunately, this is often a political question that has too many possible answers. In fact, this myriad of possible answers is one of the most glaring problems with developing effective, coherent, and reasonably operational policy. Oh, and let’s leave out the matter of the price tag and effective training.

Why bring this up? Because I think a general discussion of the most common answers to the question, “Why have prisons?” at least starts not only corrections practitioners, but the general public, in a reasonable discussion of the purpose and goals of Oregon’s prisons (more to the point, the purpose and goals of ODOC). As a start, here are four of the most common reasons/answers to the question.

1. Retribution – punishment, “just desserts,” getting what one deserves for a crime committed
2. Rehabilitation – to change or alter inmates through treatment or education to make them productive citizens upon release
3. Deterrence – this is generally understood to mean the punishment of criminals as an example in order to discourage others from committing crimes.
4. Incapacitation – prevent criminals from committing more crimes by locking them up and isolating them from society

Knowing these, I’d be most interested in what others think the answer(s) to the question is/are. Without referring to the OAM, I’m interested in what Oregonians believe the purpose of the corrections element of our criminal justice system actually is. Whether by email (the link at right) or by comment, please, let me know what you think. Until next time,

Cheers!

I’ve got this small readership, and as it turns out, one of the readers is one of my daughters. As it happens, she also shares a few traits with me… Mathematics and the hard sciences generally came easier to me than language arts and soft/social sciences. Later in life, these difficulties caused me to pursue additional education in language arts and the soft sciences. My daughter pretty much loathes reading – she’s an “I’ll wait for the movie” kind of girl – and I mean that in the best possible way. The girl that has become a young woman is extraordinarily smart! She is a brilliant pop culture observer/guru. I think for Fathers’ Day she read one of my posts and left a comment that I thought worth sharing:

so i read ‘men without chests’. lots of big words i didn’t know and many points that went over my head, but i read the whole thing!

Why worth sharing? Because in her characteristically kind (there might be some sarcasm in both of our comments) way, I think she’s letting me know why I have a small readership. Part of it is the subject matter, and the other is the vocabulary. I think I’m writing like an old man 😉 People claim to like good old William Shakespeare, but most detest actually having to read him – not that I’m claiming to write like the bard himself – just that some might not like having to read my posts… so they don’t. So kiddo, I think I’ll work on aiming at a broader audience, but I’m a snob I guess, I’m keeping most of the vocabulary 😉 I actually do like reading the bard!

Thanks for your comments kiddo!

Cheers!