The families of those in prison

Hi,

I'm writing the following essay for penology:

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It has been said that when a person is sent to prison it is his/her family which suffers most. Outline the ways in which prisoners' families suffer, discuss whether society should be concerned and suggest ways in which this suffering could be avoided or reduced.

I of course have my own personal opinions on the matter, however, does anyone know of any austrian/libertarian texts which I may be able to cite to give such a view in my essay? It would be a lot more fun to write than just using the articles I've found already. Probably more fun for my lecturers to read to.

Thanks.

Yes, they do - people just stop living sometimes for years; and even more so in case of innocent people wrongly convicted or kept in preventive detention... the pain felt knowing a person you care about is being caged, the feeling of absolute helplessness towards the violence and injustice done, the ways most of society stigmatises to the point of torturing them both the persons in jail and their family, the anger it gives against basically the whole world... it can destroy even the strongest of people 

Society should, indeed, be concerned both about the suffering imposed on innocents and about the fate of the prisoners themselves (whether innocent or not); prison is a form of torture, on the person and on the people near / dear to them. I'd say, they should abolish prisons altogether and find alternative (more compensatory) ways of enforcing the law.

I don't know about any libertarian litterature on the exact topic of your post; but David Friedman has written a few articles on criminal justice and defends replacing jails by monetary sanctions.

 

There are a couple of good chapters in Ethics of Liberty by Rothbard about the criminal justic system. He discusses why imprisoning people makes very little sense as a form of punishment and discusses alternative punishments.

M-la-maudite:

I'd say, they should abolish prisons altogether and find alternative (more compensatory) ways of enforcing the law.

I've heard it theorized that in market anarchy, convicts would be allowed to choose which prison they want.  Prisons would have to compete for inmates (resulting in better conditions for the inmates, while still keeping them away from the rest of us).

Thanks for the help to all of you. Sadly, I only got a brief mention of Rothbard and Friedman's theories in the end, nothing substantial. I still can't find a libertarian work on this exact topic. Maybe that's something for me to do when I'm less over run with essays to write.

Ama gi,

I agree that a free market in jailing facilities would probably guarantee better living conditions to the convicts. Yet, this wouldn't solve the core problems, which are inherent to the concept of imprisonment (some of which i mentioned above), nor the even more dramatic issue of preventive detention of innocents (or people still presumed innocents, in strictly legal terms).

Compensatory mechanisms, on the other hand, do answer the main concerns, and provide benefits (the compensation) to the victims. So, it's a plus-plus scenario, instead of a zero-sum game or a purely negative one.

Well, thanks for the advice everyone- the marks were released today, and my essay, in which I discussed Rothbard's theories amongst other things, scored 73%. The average mark was 56%. I'm pretty happy with it!