Another big problem of the prison system in general, is the political conflict between those that think it should rehabilitate, and those that think it should punish. Keeping the public safe is often a kind of bolt on afterthought to these.
Punishment is really ineffective, or at best inefficient, at achieving any socially beneficial goals, so rehabilitation makes a lot more sense to me. And when you consider that, the best means of achieving this would not resemble prison as we know it. Timothy Leary claimed to have great results at rehabilitation by taking prisoners through a psychologist guided LSD session for example.
So that leaves the danger to society issue. In this case I would suggest that rather than prison they would require some form of mental health care. This might be secure in the case of violent sociopathy. But this would not be prison because they are not being punished. Again, if someone is either permanently sociopathic, or suffering temporary issues that make them dangerous, then punishment will only make that worse. No, they would not be serving a sentence either. Nor should such a hospital make its patients work. They would be free then when the doctor(s) sign them off as ready. But it should be rare for anyone to end up in that situation, certainly far less than are currently interred.
wow, I feel like you exactly described how I would make an alternative for prison. You also presented my point about punishment vs rehabilitation much clearer than i did in the post. I also heard about LSD having done miracle like work in psychotherapy. Maybe so good the deep state needed to ban it. ;)
I don't really got much to add, thank you for the great comment!
I think I will use some of your idea to make a blueprint for an alternative to prison as my next post.
Isn't Shadowrun some really complex RPG? following you btw :3
I'm not sure how complex shadowrun gets. I've only played the turn based computer games to tell the truth. Dragonfall and Returns. I have the Hong Kong one also, but haven't played it yet.
I saw a short review of it and I remember being a little bit confused. Does it have good tactical and RPG-depth? It reminded me a little of Jagged Alliance, but I forgot to ever look deeper into Shadowrun.
It is fairly good tactical. Not as good as xcom graphically, but has more varied character skills and a storyline with much more depth. Gets quite emotional at times, especially in Dragonfall. Also has a few moments of totally offbeat humour. Also the game plays quite differently depending on what skills you give your character.