I was skimming through a reddit thread about this yesterday and it was really depressing to see how many assholes there are out there who think prisons should exist to torture inmates. Half the comment section wasn’t even pretending to believe the system is meant to rehabilitate people at all. They’re just openly applauding inhumane living conditions and looking for blood regardless of the offense. These same people would be screeching to the heavens if they were treated half as poorly as they’d like others to be treated by the system.
I was in a jury pool in Texas in December. After the attorneys finished with their questions, the judge himself had each of us answer the following question:
What is the purpose of incarceration?
A. Punishment
B. Rehabilitation
C. Deterrence
Every single one one of us who answered anything other than punishment, including answers that said some combination of the three, were dismissed by the judge.
The cruelty is a feature.
Incidentally, the case was a guy who robbed a convenience store. He had a gun, no shots were fired, no injury, no death, got away with two hundred dollars.
He was found guilty and sentenced to fifty nine years.
