We disagree. That doesn't mean I'm "driving the wrong end of the nail," it just means we place different weight on certain values. My opinions are offered in good faith (most of the time, on rare occasion I am contrary in the hopes of making people critically evaluate their positions) and are almost always based in reason and logic. I simply don't believe that it's moral to deny some people basic rights that I enjoy. Sorry you don't see it that way. To be honest, I sometimes have to remind myself that your positions (and a few others on this board) are thoughtfully held and not just the reactionary default that they sometimes reflect.
I like to think we're mostly all above the level of the folks who are Republicans because daddy was a Republican, are Democrats because daddy was a Democrat, or otherwise hold opinions only because that's what they grew up with.
Anyway, back closer to the topic: you're right, it wouldn't be that easy, although tossing people in SuperMax for the remainder of their sentence might be some deterrent to violent behavior on the inside. Combine that with a nice carrot and we might have something.
Surely we can agree that the current situation is untenable. Violence in prison is increasing recidivism rates which is driving the cost of the criminal justice system to an unsustainable level.
I probably shouldn't put words in your mouth, but I'm assuming you've not been a victim of a violent crime, nor anyone particularly close to you. Otherwise, I think you'd have a different view on punishment.
Who do you have in prison? Criminals. They engage in criminal behavior because many of them have social and mental problems which simply are not curable, or they have addictions which are another form of mental illness which is treatable, however many addicts never choose to make that change. You cannot change another person, the desire to change has to come from within.
In prison, you have anti-social personalities, manipulative personalities, sociopaths, psychopaths, schizophrenics, etc. I'm not spouting off adjectives, these are real diagnoses of large portions of the violent offenders in prison. They don't play well on the outside so they sure as heck don't play well on the inside. These are the people whom have not responded to any sort of of intervention or treatment in the past, that is why they are there.
My best friend's brother has spent the majority of his adult life in and out of prison. One of my cycling teammates spent nine years in prison for drug dealing (the first fellow I mentioned is still a worthless piece of crap and simply biding his time until he does something else to get sent back. The second one has flourished, has a great job, nice home, and nice wife and won't be a repeat offender). The biggest difference is example 1 doesn't give a smile and he's a sociopath. Example 2 wanted to change and didn't want to lose his freedom again. He's a total flaming conservative as well and believes in harsh punishment for wrong-doers. From discussions with both of them, I've got a pretty good understanding of how the "social" system works inside the walls and not from a filtered hyperbole standpoint.
As far as reported rapes, how many men want to report they have been raped? It's not a sexual gratification issue near as much as humiliation and domination as is usually the case in heterosexual rapes. If you isolated all prisoners to prevent prisoner on prisoner crimes, you would increase the costs of incarceration. That and you'd be seeing a myriad of lawsuits due to the isolation which would be required. FWIW, I've never met an ex-con who admits to have been raped. That always happened to other people.
Quite honestly, there are a lot of people who will tell you that the horrors of prison are as good a deterrent effect as there is against crime. Just so you know my thoughts are not lock-step Republican on this: I'm anti-death penalty. I think that's too easy a sentence for one thing, a couple of other reasons are the incredibly high costs for death row inmates (to enjoy endless appeals, the additional security of death row, single celling) and the number of wrongly convicted men and women on death row. I became a convert after reading John Grisham's "An Innocent Man" and Dennis Fritz book (one of the subjects of Grisham's book). I believe as a national average, each death row prisoner costs taxpayers five times what a general population inmate costs per year in a maximum security prison.
I believe your intentions are good in your arguments, I simply don't think you have quite as much insight as to why liberties are stripped from those who violate other's liberties and who many of the violent offenders are.
