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Building Prisons Without Walls Using GPS Devices
Hugh Pickens writes "Graeme Wood writes in the Atlantic that increasingly GPS devices are looking like an appealing alternative to conventional incarceration, as it becomes ever clearer that traditional prison has become more or less synonymous with failed prison. 'By almost any metric, our practice of locking large numbers of people behind bars has proved at best ineffective and at worst a national disgrace,' writes Wood. But new devices such as ExacuTrack suggest a revolutionary possibility: that we might do away with the current, expensive array of guards and cells and fences, in favor of a regimen of close, constant surveillance on the outside and swift, certain punishment for any deviations from an established, legally unobjectionable routine. 'The potential upside is enormous. Not only might such a system save billions of dollars annually, it could theoretically produce far better outcomes, training convicts to become law-abiders rather than more-ruthless lawbreakers,' adds Wood. 'The ultimate result could be lower crime rates, at a reduced cost, and with considerably less inhumanity in the bargain.'"
The main thing is that prison is the absolute best way western societies have to turn Mr. "Sold a little bit of weed to his friends" into Mr. "Stabbed some dudes in the neck in a bar" or Mr. "Habitual burglar". Prisons have an unwavering ability to turn non-violent offenders into more violent ones, which are then released into society. You asking "where's the punishment" would make sense if prison worked perfectly from society's point of view. It doesn't. The first question that should be asked is how we can make prison into the deterrent it should be, while at the same time ensuring that society doesn't lose a great chunk of its money-making public into violent offenders.
The punishment is that your schedule is controlled 100% by the prison. Yes, you could steal from shops or sell drugs, but as you can be placed at the scene rather easily, and would be sent back to prison for any infraction, I doubt anyone would do it. The same goes for selling drugs.
Not just Denmark.
GP is just exaggerating, probably to reinforce his personal world-view.
Hit up google for recidivism and rehabilitation and you'll find papers like this one that show non-punitive rehabilitation programs can achieve a 25% reduction in recidivism.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It's been awhile since Sociology, but Milgram and the Stanford Prison Experiments come to mind. People in power will often abuse their authority unless they will get caught. Period.