Big Argument About Prisoners' Rights Splits The Loose Women | Loose Women 

I can see both sides of the argument here but ultimately I'm with Janet and Ruth!

I'm more concerned about the rights of the victims of the crimes and the families of the victims. Because maybe in the eyes of the law, once the criminal has served their time, it's all over, the victim and their families have to live with that forever.

It is only just to punish people vindictively - as though they could and should have chosen differently - if they actually had the capability to choose. As a reductionist, I think people's behavior comes from biology, upbringing, and environment: these are what make me "me", and you "you". We have no evidence for a no magic "free will" switch within, separate and "above" our personality, flip-flopping "freely" so that we pick action A in a situation one day, but action B tomorrow, and so on. If we did it we wouldn't have any consistent personality. While each person is responsible for their actions, behavior is never a true "choice", only ever the outworking of how the world around us meets our developed personality (biology and past environment). What that means for prison is that threat of punishment helps deter others, predisposing them against similar behavior (it changes the environment). Imprisonment also keeps society safe from people known to do harm (removes their opportunity to repeat that behavior). But inflicting suffering for vindictive reasons (wanting to see people who've done bad things suffer, just because they did something bad) - which Penny and Martine seem to want - isn't just justifiable. In a just and intelligent society, any suffering caused by punishment can only be a side-effect of punishment, not it's main intention. Prison's main intention should instead be to reduce all further suffering: that means trying to change people's inclinations for the better while in prison (skills so they have non-crime ways to make a living, coping strategies to handle their feelings and desires differently, and so on). And yet, if imprisonment is to work as a deterrent it can't be pleasant...