Hi everyone, I think that every person has his right to live in a society no matter even if he was a prisoner in his early life. Most of the prisoners are racial or ethnic minorities and have difficulty in re-entering the society as they are faced with poverty and this leads to crime for which they are re-arrested are convicted and re-incarcerated and this adds a burden on the government in respect of tax-payers. What are your views on this?

Going to be quite a controversial topic, I’m sure.

As a liberal, I believe a great deal of the reason for criminal behavior lies in social conditions, and that altering these conditions to reduce the behavior should be the first priority. However, I also believe that there is such a thing as human nature, and that anti-social activity, mostly on the part of young men, is inherent in this, so I don’t have a utopian conviction crime will ever be eliminated completely. I also believe that we incarcerate way too many people, in a discriminatory fashion, and that the old biblical notion of “justice” as synonymous with “retribution” is barbaric nonsense.  All of that said, however, I think incarceration will always be necessary to some extent as a deterrant and to confine people who simply cannot be trusted not to harm others. I think we can do a lot better than we are doing to manipulate social conditions and make the system more functional and equitable, but I don’t think we can simply say incarceration is bad and causes all the problems so we shouldn’t lock people up.

Stephan Pinker’s Blank Slate has some really interesting and cogent commentary on the implications of better understanding of human behvaioral biology for this kind of social polciy issue. It’s complicated, and I certainly don’t claim to have the solution, but I think you sound like you think there is absolutely no justification for incarceration, and I can’t agree with that.

I agree with Brennen. I’ll only add that I am not sure what a person’s right has to do with any of this. Every person has the right to be rich but most people are not. Life is a lottery that begins long before we are born.

I think some people should never be let out of prison.  Child killers and child molesters fall in this category.  And if caught in the act, I truly believe they should be killed on the spot (by either police or private citizen) in an effort to prevent them from committing their horrid crimes including the current one and any that evidence shows they are also very likely to commit again in the future. 

By committing certain crimes criminals have chosen to give up certain rights they once had.  I have a right to possess a gun.  But if I use that gun to murder innocent people, if I were ever to get out of prison, I highly doubt the ACLU would be fighting for my right to own a gun again.  I doubt even the NRA would say I should ever have a right to own a gun again.

This is a very good issue to discuss about as it is concerned with the human race and deals with the real problems faced in the society. The Second Chance Act is taken in this way and hope that it brings a new dawn for the people. I believe you can also express your views on this on savetheleft which is good place to know your comments on such issues.

I’m still trying to get my voting rights back after re-entering society. I agree with the above post which stated something about some prisoners never should be released - child killers and child molesters.

Since this question will probably be asked, “What did you do?”

Answer: 2nd degree assault, convicted in 2006, completed probation and rehabilitations.