RE: STEEMIT Openmic Week 106 - Gente (ORIGINAL) - Benjamín Mora
I fully agree with what you mentioned about alternatives because we also have an open prison here in my country. I got the chance to visit that prison and you can never tell it is a prison if you were not told beforehand. It is a very wide farm where prisoners are not in prison but are free to till the farm for as long as they can. While talking to one of the locals there, he was saying that there are even many of the prisoners who do not want to be freed from there so they stayed. However, those are for lighter crimes or those who have served long enough that their sentence has been lightened.
How about heinous crimes? How about repeat offenders? Are we also going to put them in something like the open jail? While I agree that indeed punishment may cause more harm than good, I am still not in the position to fully oppose it when I do not have any proposed alternative. As they say, "If you oppose something then give a valid and reasonable alternative. If you can't give an alternative, you have to go with it."
Wow great example of alternatives you gave there!
I think that the most important thing to do is to understand that prision is torture, is slavery, is sadic, AND it spreads violence and makes the situation worse.
If that fact enters in peoples minds, changes and options will start reaching those minds. What we have today is the opposite, people moslty think that jail is fair, that we must punish, so peace changes are always (almost always) interrupted.
The most serious crimes are the most difficult to think of, especially when it's not the first offender's crime, and when the offender is some kind psyco with no empathy. But we can choose to leave THOSE cases untill we come to a wise solution. Prisions are overcowded, and more than 90 per cent of prisioners are there because of lighter crimes, so alternative solutions for lighter crimes will also help "hard criminals" to live in better conditions.
Maybe in 100 years of alternative experiences we will come to an alternative solution for harder crimes, and if we dont, the world will be better anyway.
So, i insist in the fact that it's a long way, and that real changes come from the inside, so what i plan to do is to pay atention to my thougts and feelings, to think critically, to be opened to unlearn old constumes and to try new ones, to read, to debate, to write and compose.
Its a big peasure to speak with you! thanks =)
Leave the cases of heinous crimes? Now, that is something I can not agree on. I had few opportunities to visit prison cells for outreach activities and I can say that the prisoners are not being tortured, maybe at least in those places we visited. Assuming that there are those who are being tortured, I would be sorry for them but I would rather have them tortured in jail rather than letting them on the loose and cause more damage to innocent lives.
When i said "we can choose to leave THOSE cases untill we come to a wise solution" i meant to keep sending to prision until we find a wise solution that doesn't involve danger to other citizens nor torture and inhuman punishments. First thing is to focus in lighter crimes, i insist. Changes in lighter crimes first.
Okay, that's what I can agree on. 😊