* Paper 4
Author 3: Arkadiusz Malinowski
...Burger and Chinlund share the common belief that prison is the inevitable means of incapacitation in the pursuit of rehabilitation (Burger23; Chinlund27); likewise, Chinlund makes the astute observation that it’s a “legitimate expectation” of society that prisoners are less likely to commit crimes when released from prison, otherwise, imprisonment would just be a monumental waste of money compared to execution (27). Bound by this inevitability and its resulting expectations, Burger and Chinlund offer the rehabilitative programs that each author believes will be economically efficient, ethically sound, and above all, effective in rehabilitating the target (Burger22; Chinlund27).
Burger suggests that criminals be induced into a rehabilitative program with a system of rewards and punishments mimicking the system we see in normal social conditions (24). Chinlund, on the other hand, doesn’t have confidence in rehabilitative programs under “forced” conditions (28). Although in agreement with Burger that prisoners are “maladjusted people” who lack the most basic intellectual and social skills required to survive in today’s society, Chinlund claims, “only inmates who participate on a voluntary basis can gain from the [rehabilitative] program” (Burger23; Chinlund28). Where Burger sees the need to coax the prisoner into rehabilitation by appealing to their human nature (avoidance of pain and pursuit of pleasure)(24), Chinlund sees an error in judgment.
This error in judgment, Chinlund might say, can be attributed to Burger’s lack of faith in prisoners to know what’s good for them. It’s understandable that Burger should feel this way, especially if he is convinced the maladjustment of criminals is due to a list of social factors (the nurture as opposed to nature approach)(Burger23), but Chinlund argues that only the truly motivated will be effectively “resocialized” into society (Chinlund28). Thus, to Chinlund, many of the criminals who are induced into rehabilitative programs with benefits other than the prospect of rehabilitation are a waste of time and money (28). The means by which the authors expect the maladjustments to be fixed only widens the gap between their ideologies...
...Davis is the odd woman out in this triumvirate of corrections because she doesn’t believe that the prisoners are the criminals. In her argument, it is the prison establishment that is guilty of crimes against humanity, and prisons act as a medium for the continuation of the oppression of minorities and political dissidents (39). Davis utilizes statistics to defend her claim by noting the immensely disproportionate amount of minorities in prison in respect to minorities living in the country (39). It’s interesting that Davis writes, “One has a greater chance of going to jail or prison if one is a young black man than if one is actually a law-breaker,” implying that young black men do no commit crimes with any more frequency than other races (45). Burger might respond to this by drawing the connection between poverty and his own theory on the origins of crime. He would argue that the reason so many minorities are in prison is because they lack the self-esteem, moral values, and/or education to live a law-abiding life (23). It’s also commonly known that children living in poverty would not acquire sufficient amounts of many if any of these valuable skills. Put two and two together and the result shouldn’t be surprising. Burger, consequently, might ask Davis to consider a more “conventional” approach to the real problem, perhaps consisting of changing public policy or appealing to the beginning of the problem. We have, after all, seen Burger take this approach to his problem with corrections (Burger23). Nevertheless, Davis writes that race and class are separate targets “in conjunction with punishment,” so even the wealthy minorities have to be wary, the poor minorities even more so (45). Even if Davis agreed with Burger’s reasoning, she would not abandon her abolitionist views for policy change because Davis seeks to abolish that which she thinks is the foundation of the racist establishment, which, when destroyed, will bring down the rest of the structure (46). This is clear when one considers the fact that Davis doesn’t focus her attention on the abolition of the ways in which minorities are corralled into prisons, such as the old and modern Black Codes (41) and racial profiling (45), but the prisons themselves. Indeed, if the prisons are removed from the equation, the means are soon to follow (45).
Convinced of the idea that the vast majority of inmates are innocent of any real crime (Davis41), it’s not that unreasonable that Davis asks for abolition. Chinlund, however, remarks on the secondary value of prison that is separation. Chinlund would say that it is inhumane to let criminals run around, because society would tear the criminal apart (27)! He notes that prison is a preferable punishment compared to the “extra-legal vigilante action” of society, serving the dual purpose of protecting society from the criminal and the criminal from society (who knows which one we should be more afraid of) (27). Here, Davis might use the inherent ability for society to deter and punish criminals on its own as a viable correctional philosophy; after all, she does remind us that the relationship between race and punishment is more consistent than crime and punishment (Davis45, 46)...