Sweden Is Closing Many Prisons Due to Lack of Prisoners 752
rtoz writes "Sweden is taking steps to close many prisons due to lack of prisoners. This year alone, four prisons and a detention center got closed in Sweden. The percentage of the population in Sweden prison is significantly lower than in most other countries. ... Though the Swedish Government is taking steps to close the prisons, the crime rate in Sweden has increased slightly. It seems they are planning to take steps for preventing crime rather than focusing on jailing people involved in criminal activities."
Tragic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those damn socialist! (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember when... (Score:5, Insightful)
All those precious moments of a Cold War youth, and all I have to show for them is that I saw them go down the memory hole.
Re:Repulsive! Government Waste! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Start jailing the rapists (Score:1, Insightful)
Quoting newsmax? Way to discredit yourself.
Re:Start jailing the rapists (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not my fault the vast majority of yellow press will avoid reporting on anything that goes contrary to the politically correct narrative.
Re:Tragic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:5, Insightful)
Drug use is not the problem, nor is it something that needs to be prevented. In fact, you get rid of the bullshit, it practically prevents itself.
The vast majority of all drug use is not harmful to society. Let's face some facts here. Alcohol is far more dangerous to health and safety than most drugs have ever been combined. Let's also be realistic and set aside marijuana into another category; Use and Distribution. Only its distribution is associated with crimes beyond the act of distribution itself. Crimes associated with use are less prevalent and damaging than crimes associated with alcohol. IIRC, several campuses have outright admitted they wished there was more weed usage than alcohol usage for that same reason.
An artificial economy created by prohibition is responsible for the crimes. If an addict could get meth/heroin/coke cheaply at a pharmacy along with the opportunity for help that would eliminate most of the problems.
We never did learn any lessons from prohibition of alcohol did we?
Re:false dichotomy in summary (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Start jailing the rapists (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, right, IT'S A CONSPIRACY! Come back when you have a source more credible than Newsmax.
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:2, Insightful)
He's clearly referring to heavy drugs. Meth addicts will do stupid things for their next fix.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:5, Insightful)
California has a problem with overcrowded prisons. Sweden has a problem with prisons being unoccupied.
I sense an opportunity for a good capitalist.
No, keep your filth right where it is.
What the US should be doing is disarming its law ENFORCEMENT agency and let it become again a police force.
What the US should be doing is let less and less people go to prison. And those that go, shoudl go to be rehabilitated into civil society. In other words the US should be inspired by european moral values and not the shitty "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" bullshit ideology that underlies its entire judicial system. Designed only to put people into prison for minor deeds.
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait. So, prohibition is bad. But the one drug that is no longer prohibited is now the worst offender of all? Me thinks you need to rethink that argument.
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:5, Insightful)
He's clearly referring to heavy drugs. Meth addicts will do stupid things for their next fix.
That's the whole point. If the "stupid" thing a meth addict has to do is panhandle for 20 minutes, walk to Walgreens, by a little baggie and kit, that's far less damaging to society.
All of those "stupid" things are completely eliminated when you get rid of drug prohibition.
Do you need to stupid things, pay exorbitant amounts of money, enable organized crime, slink in the shadows, etc. to get some fucking beer? Or do you go down to the liquor store, slap down a few bucks, and get fucked up in your own home peaceably?
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry to double post here, but if meth was available at a pharmacy, maybe the worst stupid thing to happen would be a meth addict shoplifting some drugs. By shoplifting I mean grabbing it from the pharmacist when they open the cupboard that has it stocked. Same way spray paint is protected these days (and that is truly stupid).
If it was legal and cheap, than there would be no place for a "criminal" to go and get it outside of legal means. Jay and Silent Bob would not make a living on the corner handing shit out anymore. I just don't see the stupid things that can be done anymore to obtain it in a society where it's legalized.
You know what is far more fucking addictive than meth? FOOD. Food is outright the most addictive substance known to man with horrifying withdrawal symptoms that are always fatal.
Yet, I don't see a pandemic of homeless people going insane and stabbing people to go and get food. They seem to get by with the homeless shelters, food pantries, and existing charities/foundations just fine.
I know that if I saw a homeless person crying and literally going insane with hunger approach me that my only option available to me would be to feed him/her. It's the only option.
end of scarcity (Score:3, Insightful)
right?
I understand what you're saying and i'm starting to become more sure about an idea that's been around for awhile...
I think the economic concept of ***scarcity*** itself is being rendered statistically irrelevant because of technology
technology is solving so many of our problems that we really don't **need** to work as much as we used to...
at least theoretically...right? or WTF else do we bother making and using these flaming gadgets?
look at food production...technology can become so efficient that it can always keep pace with demand...what then? wouldn't it be a crime **NOT** to give food freely?
we have the technology as humans to feed and clothe every living human in perpetuity now...strip away the B.S. and it is true
people talk of things like "divide and conquer" and "artificial scarcity" or "making a market" all the time, but I think we all need to reconsider **how much we are being held back as a species**
it has gotten really, really bad, IMHO...
**WHAT IF WE DON'T NEED TO WORK AS HARD ANYMORE???**
would your boss tell you that? what about the company that profits from the scarcity a particular technology solves?
technology has worked...it is solving most of our immediate problems...scarcity for the most basic essentials of human existence is no longer a evolutionary factor in modern countries to survival for most...the food is there...
as the trope goes, the problem is "human error" in this system...
Better than McDonalds or Walmart (Score:5, Insightful)
Swedish prisoners have a better life in general than people in the USA in a minimum wage job. They get better housing, food and work hours, plus they get education, health care and all, so they have a chance to stay out of prison once their punishment is over. Bonus: they get to keep their voting rights after they are out, so they are still part of the democratic process that is the base of the laws that put them in prison in the first place.
Maybe it's time the USA starts looking at how Sweden gets this accomplished and use that as an inspiration to improve. If even the prisoners there have it better than over a quarter of the free people in the USA, you'd say there should be improvements to be found.
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm sure it's because they have free childcare, and not because don't they send in a SWAT team every time someone lights up a joint.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:5, Insightful)
there is a difference between a police officer with a ford sedan, a pistol or 2 with a couple of extra clips, taser, baton, pepper spray and bullet-proof vest, and a police officer with an armoured personnel carrier, machine gun, hand grenades and storm trooper outfit
Re:fixed that for you... (Score:3, Insightful)
capitalism is extremely efficient at profiting from human misery
government is extremely efficient at creating human misery
Argument against prohibition still makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
But the one drug that is no longer prohibited is now the worst offender of all? Me thinks you need to rethink that argument.
It still makes sense if you look at it in the context of that as bad as alcohol is now, as bad as it was before prohibition, the net effects of it's prohibition on society was worse. Alcohol poisonings went up. Hell, our own government caused a number of deaths by deliberately poisoning alcohol in a weird "Drinking is bad! Let's make it worse! by deliberately poisoning it and maybe people will stop!" line of thinking. You vastly empowered organized crime(the 'mobs' of the day, 'gangs' today), got violence on the street, incredible incentives for police to become corrupt, the shift from 'officer of the peace' to 'law enforcement', etc...
My support for legalizing drugs is pure harm mitigation, not harm prevention. Because prevention isn't working even at huge expense.
Re:Kind of the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of the continental European countries are more tightly bound in the human spirit and sense of identity and culture than the USA.
The USA suffers from "what's in it for me?" freeloaders and "what's in it for me?" capitalists and "what's in it for me?" politicians --- all of which miss grander and greater human concepts.
Although people in the USA generally have a lot of freedom and very little oversight
pros and cons, everyone wants the cake and eat it too
Re:Start jailing the rapists (Score:2, Insightful)
CNN? More credible than Newsmax? Uhm. Yes. And that says a lot about Newsmax.
Also, Crutchy? I looked at your comments. You're a racist, and a genderist. In the last week you spouted the "women are asking for it with those clothes" line, and in THIS discussion, you felt it necessary to bust out the N word.
Perhaps you should think about your attitudes and your life.
Re:Kind of the point (Score:5, Insightful)
[i] Sweden has shown the ability to rehabilitate around twice as effectively as the USA(20% recedivism vs 60% here, ergo 80% effective vs 40%)[/i]
I think an important point being overlooked in this discussion is an analysis of the conditions that drove the inmates to crime in the first place. How many crimes are committed by someone trying to callously shortcut the rules of society vs. someone down on their luck or just trying to survive? Perhaps there's nothing particularly special about the rehabilitation methods performed by the prisons, but instead, Sweden's done a top job of addressing the underlying issues.
Also - and I have to bring it up - stupid-ass drug laws. If we can't legalize the mostly harmless recreational drugs out there, can we PLEASE stop locking people up for minor drug offenses, and instead fine them, like traffic violations (which are actually, you know, dangerous) and other civil infractions? Fines would actually help regulate the 'problem' while RAISING MONEY instead of needlessly locking up harmless people (destroying their lives in the process) which then becomes a gigantic drain on society due to the fact that we've now made them effectively wards of the state. It's fucking idiotic, man. Catch a guy smoking a joint? Slap him with a $150 ticket. No criminal record established, just show up and pay your fine and everything is golden. Don't slam his face into the pavement and seize his house and pull his children into state custody and ruin his reputation for the rest of his life, ensuring that when he finally gets out of prison, he'll turn to crime, because you've eliminated any and all chances that he'll magically fall into being a useful member of society after you've branded him for life. Nobody wants to hire the guy that just spent months in lockup on drug charges. The system we have here now does not 'rehabilitate' anyone. It brands them with a criminal record that they can never live down, often for minor charges. OF COURSE they turn to crime - even if what they were doing was harmless and not immoral in any way. They were convicted and served sentences and were told by everyone that they were a criminal and did criminal things. Why wouldn't they turn to crime when released? Everyone thinks they're a criminal anyway.
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the difference is that Europeans do not go overboard, in every aspect. In general we do not have a lot of drug addicts and we surely do not throw them in jail after their 3rd strike. We also try to help them out as far as we can with treatments and support so they generally do not have to fall back to crime to 'just get by'.
You can go to a doctors and they will make sure you get the treatment you need.
Reminds me of the 'If Breaking Bad happened in Canada' pic. Which is not to say we don't have problems, we just try to make sure our jails are full of murderers and thugs and the like, not some poor kid that had a tough break.
And mind you, we also treat our prisoners differently and hold then in a different environment.
I think that fixing the crime and prison problem in the US and many other countries is not just a question of laws and regulations, but about changing your society as a whole.
Re:Start jailing the rapists (Score:2, Insightful)
Two logical fallacies in a single line of text, and you are 5 Insightful?
The Strawman and the Genetic fallacy - well played.
Re:Kind of the point (Score:0, Insightful)
The US suffers a "inefficiency of scale" problem -- the idea of acting like a citizen.
Many of the continental European countries are more tightly bound in the human spirit and sense of identity and culture than the USA.
And yet the US states share a common language, a common culture, a common history and more or less the same political ideology. Yeah yeah democrats and republicans. When you go deeper than the names they are just minor variants on the same theme. And the conclusion is that the europeans are more unified than the americans. Not so not so. There is more diversity in europe than you'll ever find in the US. Hell you'll find more political diversity within a single european country than in whole of the US.
The USA suffers from "what's in it for me?" freeloaders and "what's in it for me?" capitalists and "what's in it for me?" politicians --- all of which miss grander and greater human concepts.
Although people in the USA generally have a lot of freedom and very little oversight ... and we don't get micromanaged like what happens in European countries ...
pros and cons, everyone wants the cake and eat it too ...
The US suffers from the same disease that the Soviets suffered from. They think their country, their ideology is people's paradise. And in doing so they effectively cut out any dissenting voice from ever having the possibily of changing the country.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:4, Insightful)
However, in Norway the population is, by and large, loyal to the government, believe it or not. In fact, that is how it is in most of Europe, AFAIK. Even if we don't agree with the government's policies, we still trust and respect them.
That's because your government actually represents you reasonably well. And that, in turn, is because you keep it in check.
Americans believe that any government is bad government, but that's because all they ever saw is bad government. They don't realize that a strong government can do a great many things for its citizens so long as the citizens keep it in check and make it focus its power towards their needs.
Re:fixed that for you... (Score:4, Insightful)
capitalism is extremely efficient at profiting from human misery
humans are extremely efficient at creating human misery
/FIFY
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:5, Insightful)
You're behind the times. GCHQ have their own slashdot.
Of course, who knows which one you're reading at the moment...
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:3, Insightful)
basically there's little jurisprudence and it would've been a nice easy way to grab him and get him extradited.
Yeah, the USA has problems, and has fallen far from the ideals of its constitution, but for the moment
The Sweded arrested their own citizens and handed them over to a foriegn power to be tortured. That's pretty damning. The foreign power who tortured them was the US. That's even more damning.
In other news, the shit of all countries stinks. Getting into a pissing contest over who is worse to prove oneself's luck as better is pointless and destructive.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:5, Insightful)
Your observation is that people have always been calling politicians fuckwits, and your conclusion is that people have always been wrong.
I suggest that people have always been right.
It's in the nature of the position: if one must want power to gain power, then only those who want power will be in power. Apart from the very rare altruist - Aneurin Bevan was probably one of the last such politicians in the UK - it is a case of give me sortition or give me fuckwits.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:1, Insightful)
Designed only to put people into prison for minor deeds.
An empty prison gathers no profit. Morality is irrelevant and is nothing but mental masturbation and distraction.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:5, Insightful)
A good proportion of the danger is caused by those drugs being illegal...
When you buy alcohol from a legitimate source, you know that there are laws regulating what can be sold... When you buy illegal drugs from a guy on the street you have no idea how they were produced, or what other chemicals are mixed in with them.
The same thing happens with counterfeit alcohol, you get various industrial alcohols which are intended for industrial use and not human consumption, as well as other noxious chemicals mixed in, and these illegally produced alcohols are often far more dangerous than the regulated shop bought stuff.
If other drugs were legal, there would be legal sources where the ingredients are known and regulated so they would be safer for the users. You'd completely gut the illegal drugs market as there would be significantly less demand and far less profit. The stigma of drug use would be gone, so users would be more likely to seek help, police resources could be diverted to other things, drug prices would be lower so addicts would be less desperate (less likely to commit other crimes and more likely to get help) and there would be tax revenue coming in from the sale of drugs.
Crime rates would be down, not only because drug possession would no longer be illegal but also the crimes *caused* by drugs such as people stealing to fund their habit, and violence between drug dealers.
The only people who wouldn't benefit from such a setup are those who currently profit from selling drugs on the black market.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:4, Insightful)
However, in Norway the population is, by and large, loyal to the government, believe it or not. In fact, that is how it is in most of Europe, AFAIK. Even if we don't agree with the government's policies, we still trust and respect them.
That's because your government actually represents you reasonably well. And that, in turn, is because you keep it in check.
Americans believe that any government is bad government, but that's because all they ever saw is bad government. They don't realize that a strong government can do a great many things for its citizens so long as the citizens keep it in check and make it focus its power towards their needs.
I don't think we have the same idea here. We don't keep our government "in check". Instead, we populate the government with people representative to some degree of the population at large. When the richest 1% are not the ruling class, you get wonderful benefits like a taxation of not only the poor, but also the rich. And that there provides a fantastic boost to the national economy.
In short, keeping your government "in check" is less important when the government already attempts to work for the nation at large rather than only for those that might fund the next election. Also, it builds one hell of a trusting relation which helps when you need to do unpleasant things like slash the retirement funds or raise the retirement age.
Re:Kind of the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Which is why a lot of Americans would like to see more power returned to state and local governments, so that US states are much more like EU members.
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well sure, if you're dumb enough to pay tax on the money your company is paying you in salary as well as paying income tax on it then you probably are paying a 75% effective tax rate.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a very good reason for that.
People who put themselves forward and offer services as a politician should be the last choice to fill that position.
People of sound mind, kind heart and good will should be extorted into fulfilling that duty, if we are ever to be a success.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:4, Insightful)
What that leads to is that when you get robbed, you'll also get killed. If the punishment is the same whether you live or die, you die. It's one less witness.
Re:Those damn socialist! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it is because of free childcare. When even the poorest people can get access to high quality care for their children, giving them time to work while not letting their children be neglected or miss out on those crucial early years development, it tends to improve their children's life chances greatly. That in turn reduces the chance that those children will turn to crime as an alternative to a law abiding life, because they feel they have some change to make something of themselves and were not abandoned by society.
Re:can they (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:can they (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:5, Insightful)
It's better if cops are held to the same standards as citizens when they kill someone.
Re:can they (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:can they (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem of the US prisons is pretty well exactly that of England before the American Revolution - private prisons that make a profit out of a government that they ask, with inducements, to send a lot of people their way for minor crimes. The only real difference is the US taxpayer is supplying the profits instead of the prisoners paying a lot of it.
This is a problem, but the bigger problem is that the US system is focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation. Rather than trying to bring these people back into society and make them productive and upstanding citizens, we push them to the margins. We make finding a job after prison exceedingly difficult and only the most menial and low-class jobs will accept former criminals. We strip citizens of the right to vote, which devalues them. We have very lengthy sentences (To punish those evildoers!) for fairly harmless crimes, which is devastating to families and pushes people into poverty needlessly. Depending on the crime, we put them on lists and track them for life which makes their post-prison lives difficult.
Sweden, on the other hand, focuses on bringing people who have strayed from the path back into society. Their methods work. However, if anyone in the US wants to employ their methods, they are seen as "soft on crime" at worst. At best, they can't get the funding needed to enact meaningful rehabilitation programs. It is far cheaper (in the short term) and easier to put people in cages compared to education and rehabilitation.
Re:Hey California, I have a solution for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, humans. We have the perfect strategy for getting what we want from democracy: "Don't like it? Stop voting!"
Re: can they (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it more likely prosecution is difficult because there is frequently no evidence and no eyewitnesses, just one persons word against another? In those circumstances it *should* be hard to get a conviction.
We already tried "Hug and Release" (Score:2, Insightful)
We already tried "Hug and Release" back in the 1970s and 80s. Crime rates had been skyrocketing for a long time. Only when the mid 90s hit, and the country returned to retributive punishments with a vengeance did crime rates start falling again.
Citation:
1) http://www.bjs.gov/ucrdata/Search/Crime/State/RunCrimeStatebyState.cfm [bjs.gov] - select "United States-total" from the first list box, "Violent Crime Rates" from the second list box, leave date range from 1960 to 2012, and click the "Get Table" button.
This seems to be a pattern. Prisoners rights advocates hold sway, influence the public to forget the offenders' crimes, just look at how handsome they are, crime starts going up. Innocent people are victimized more and more, then finally, society realizes it must remove criminals from society and aggressively pursue criminals in order to lower crime rates. New York is this issue writ large. Only when it unbelievably elected Giuliani did he institute zero tolerance policies which finally brought the crime rate down. I remember the puzzled social commentators just baffled about how Giuliani's policies could possibly work. Darkly amusing.