Time Served or Punishment?

North Miami Beach, Florida 12-26-1999 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
TIME SERVED OR PUNISHMENT?

There is a lot in the news about our national investment in prisons and
prisoners. We applaud getting "tough" with miscreants and call this
justice. But here I wish to examine the use of inappropriate terminology
with respect to prisoners and their sentences.

Do we put people into prison to "serve" sentences? Or, do we put prisoners
into jails as "punishment"? I think we have given up on the notion of
"reformatories". We have learned that few, if any in our prisons, are
"reformed" by the experience.

Nor, I think, do prisons or jails serve as "penitentiaries" - places where
the misguided rethink their pasts and wish to expunge their sins and sin no
more when they are released.

We can build prisons where people serve out their sentences or we can build
institutions where punishment will actually change the person who deserved
being put away from public sight. This last is true, you know. Just think
of the institutions that are built in our country to hide practices we would
rather not see.

We would rather not deal with the dead, the criminal, and aged and those
near death. Dead relatives and friends are handed over to funeral
"directors" who show off their embalming work in "parlors". All is
sanitized and we do not get to touch or to personally send off our loved
ones.

The aged, if we are lucky, are put away from our sight in "rest" homes or
in retirement "managed care" institutions. Nurses, doctors, dieticians, and
scores of volunteers abound - if we are lucky. If we are not, we have to do
all the work others do in these places and our aged demand our attention,
often at the expense of comfort reserved to ourselves.

The "sentenced" reside in institutions crafted for them. I argue that we
do ourselves no favor by having them "serve time". We would feel better and
they might be turned around better if they are punished. I leave the notion
of what that punishment should be to you.
Carol's Evaluation: 7 out of 10.