You’re a prison abolitionist. You’re in a high stakes discussion where you have to answer seriously and be convincing.
Someone asks you : “yeah, but what are we to do with people breaking the law, then? What will you replace prisons with ?”
What will you answer?
Edit : Thanks a lot for your answer, they were very interesting and reflecting different ways to frame a world without prisons.
Except from one or two edgelord hot takes, of course.
Id say: prisons dont work, cost a lot and does huge damage. They also often work as a gateway to heavier crime. I dont need a replacement for that. “Nothing” would still be an improvement. This is the short answer
When that is said, what do we do about crime? Id say that depends, what kind of crime? There are so many different motivations for doing crime, there should be just as many solutions: removing poverty, proper sex education, confiscating the money from the rich, remove the reasons people are doing crime in the first place
We also do a lot of alternatives today: fines, mental hospitals, community service, guidance, conflict counseling, anger management courses, sometimes a serious conversation with the police, childcare help, detox institutions, and a lot more
They have three things in common: they work, they are a lot cheaper and they dont for the same mental damage as torture/prison
And then there are those under 1% og criminals that is totally lost, that need to be locked up. But only until we get a society where they dont get lost…
If those are valid substitutes for prison and they do exist, then why does prison still get the bulk of the offenders? I’m all for your idea but reality seems to be proving those solutions do not apply to most cases of criminal justice
What reality? Prisons doesnt work. Even just abolishing them without alternatives would be better for solving crime Why prisons get the bulk of the offenders? Light be something wrong with the system then. Just like how tons of people starve to death each day while EU and USA burns food to keep high prices Something happening of not a good reason to continue doing it
I almost feel like I’m being contrarian by asking this, though it isn’t my intent: your alternatives sound great at first blush, but how do you intend that those alternatives are enforced? Does that lead into your estimated >1% of offenders?