Prison Reform

So it seems that all of our politicians are in favour of Prison Reform(TM), and they’ve all got ideas on what needs to be done. McDowell has his plans for super-prisons. The Greens are criticising him. Fine Gael are, as usual, calling for tougher sentences and 24 hour policing. Fianna Fail are just happy that a PD has the Justice portfolio, but they agree with everybody else about everything.

The problem with all of these policies is that they fail to address the real problems of our penal system. There is no point putting a shiny new coat of paint of a house whose foundations are structurally unsound. We can build state of the prisons with en-suite cells and x-ray machines, but the fact is that the assumptions on which our prison system are based are faulty. Irish prisons do not work.

The law should be about behaviour government, and so our prisons should be run along the principles of applied behaviourism. If an individual performs a behaviour that infringes upon another individuals right to make an informed choice, then the law should step in and take action to ensure that such a behaviour is not performed again.

As it stands, we send people to prison as a punishment. However, prison is not effective as a punishment. People learn by association or by experiencing or observing a consequence that results from an action. The delay between the performance of the undesirable behaviour and the administration of the punishment is too long for prison to work as any sort of punishment. If you wish to effectively punish a behaviour so that it is less likely to occur again, then you must administer the punishment soon after the behaviour occurs.

Prison should not be used as a punishment, if for no other reason that it does not work. Instead it should be used a learning setting in which alternative and incompatible behaviour are reinforced. The purpose of prison should be to eliminate deviant behaviours from an offenders repertoire, but that is not enough. The behaviour will not be extinguished until you provide them with an alternative desirable behaviour to perform to achieve the same ends.

In practical terms, this means that if you catch a thief, the purpose of his detention should be to teach him alternative methods of earning a living. This may grate with some people who rather prison were a strict regime of torture, but revenge has no place within the legal system. This is simply the best method available for eliminating deviant behaviours. Punishment, in the form of presenting an painful stimulus or the removal of a pleasant one, can prove useful, but is nowhere near as effective.

As it stands, we send people to prison for fixed periods of time. This is ineffectual and impractical. An individual should be placed in prison until the deviant behaviours in question have been eliminated from their behaviour repertoire and the alternative behaviours have been sufficiently reinforced. There is no point in letting a murderer out of prison if it is probable that they will re-offend and there is no point keeping some poor kid in prison for twenty years when there is no danger that they will kill again.

Perhaps, you don’t agree? Well everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Applied Behaviour Analysis has proved effective in a wide variety of situations. There is a large body of research on record documenting its efficiency. If it can be used to bring children suffering from a largely genetic condition like autism up to the point where they can function normally in society, then getting criminals to stop breaking the law should not be a problem.

Longer, harsher sentences do not work. Unpaid, unrewarding labour does not work. Forcing people to live in torturous conditions does not work. If the purpose of our prisons is to prevent crime, and not just a legal way for us to act out our desire for vengeance, then if our brave politicians are serious about getting crime figures down and actually protecting the public, it is time for a new approach.