Hope that we are never too old to grow and evolve ...



“You will die in the Department of Corrections.” Those are the words I spoke as a trial judge in 1997 when I sentenced Bobby Bostic to a total of 241 years in prison for his role in two armed robberies he committed when he was just 16 years old.

Bostic and an 18-year-old friend robbed a group of six people who were delivering Christmas presents to a needy family in St. Louis. Two shots were fired. A bullet grazed one person, but no one was seriously injured.

I am now retired, and I deeply regret what I did. Scientists have discovered so much about brain development in the more than 20 years since I sentenced Bostic. What I learned too late is that young people’s brains are not static; they are in the process of maturing. Kids his age are unable to assess risks and consequences like an adult would. Overwhelming scientific research shows that children lack maturity and a sense of responsibility compared with adults because they are still growing. But for the same reason, they also have greater capacity for reform.

That’s perhaps not surprising. As a society, we recognize that children and teens cannot and do not function as adults. That’s why below a certain age you cannot vote, join the military, serve on a jury or buy cigarettes or alcohol.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/i-sentenced-a-teen-to-die-in-prison-i-regret-it/2018/02/13/20e731ba-103a-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html


I do hope his sentence will be overturned if he shows that he has been able to grow into a better person, in spite of his situation

That is great you realize that! Now what are you going to do for the Future...
Roy

It's sad that prison isn't designed to reform, but to keep them away from the public... I'm guessing since he went to prison so early in life, he won't be able to function in society if he gets out... Most people who went to prison as kids commit crimes to go back to the only life they know...

It has always been a tough sell, to get people to support actual PROBLEM SOLVING, in many aspects of life. The prison system is the worst, because we are usually very angry at the people we send there, and any suggestion that we should do anything but make them feel bad for what they did to us, is difficult to get most people to see past.

We call it the "correctional system," as a sort of cover story to please the segment of the population that DOES want people who commit crimes to be reformed. But it's VERY common for eager politicians to play on peoples fear and anger at "bad guys," and to cut spending on reform, and JUST give prison terms. And underpay the guards, and establish horrible, badly built and often horribly deteriorating prisons.

Good god I hope not.
That would make life horrible.
I mean how could I really determine if I grew or evolved unless I compared myself to other people? If I didn't then I could just cut down jerking off from 1 hour to 59 minutes and simply tell myself I grew and evolved.
And if I didn't grow and evolve as much as most other people then something is wrong with me or I need to grow and evolve my ability to grow and evolve.
And maybe my entire life is just attempting to grow and evolve, never appreciate anything, never appreciate what I have, only what I could grow and evolve into, and constantly regret past decisions because I hadn't grown or evolved past what influenced them earlier.

Constant and perpetual growing and evolving would be a nightmare.

I mean I'd hate to be on my death bed and have a sudden epiphany that grows and evolves me opening up a whole new world and be faced with endless possibility right before I die.
That seems horrible.
It would be like my mom giving me a birthday present on her deathbed that I put away in the closet and forget and on my death bed I start to open it up and it was something that I was looking for my entire life.

I hope I live long enough that I stop caring about growing and evolving and can appreciate and enjoy what I've got for what it is and what it took to get rather than just seeing things as the next step in my growth and evolution.


So what?
As a society, we recognize that adults cannot and do not function as adults.
How much of the internet is porn? How many times have you read in the forums someone wanting a sammich or eats cats? Have you read any comments section? Seen twitter? Facebook bullying? Teachers banging students? Driven in rush hour traffic? Invading Iraq for WMD's? Obamacare? Self help books regarding getting in touch with your inner child? How many people on disability and welfare? How many dictators in the world? How many do nothing to protect their communities and culture wanting constant change and experience and safe spaces and believe hate speech is a different category from free speech?


And you can't get a job.
...But you can be forced to go to government funded and mandated compulsory education camps and work on "learning" in an institution that is extremely prison like (more like white collar prison rather than hannibal lecter soap dropping prison, but still).


IMO that's the point.
Social ostracization.
How many times have you read where people are worried about what others think, lie to loved ones because they're afraid of being judged, bullying, not belonging, scared no one will ever love them, never find someone, bowing to peer pressure.
That's one of the most powerful motivators for behavioral change.
People stranded on deserted islands tend to commit suicide because they're lonely.
Isolation tends to push people towards the come to jesus moment where they're so miserable they are willing to do anything, adapt long term behavioral change.
There's a reason why people with extreme social anxiety, depression, and schizoid personality disorder tend to self isolate.

Isolation and ostracization is just as powerful of motivator as starvation, water deprivation, and fear of imminent death.
It leaves a lasting impression.

IMO prisons aren't really effective and are generally pointless when they have "gen pop" and shared cells where all the convicts just form a separate society, culture, and groups, rather than have any motivation to fit in with the larger one outside.


The only groups, society, and culture they know.

Prisons would be a great place to test AI's.
Prisoners completely isolated and have to interact with an AI according to certain guidelines of behavior in order to get a response and food and self education materials.

Well said!!!

Prisons do what they are made for, that's all.
Reform should begin at home.

reform cant begin at home if one is taken from home. People cant undo what theyve done, but they can learn and improve, IF they have the opportunity ....

Only if you view masturbation as a negative?

^^^Kinda Agree^^^
A perceptional delusion that the act of removing threats to society can change the antisocial personality to a social one.
But, proof is in the pudding.
While some convicts can be rehabilitated, society refuses to accept it and stigmatizes them to the point that a relapse is likely.
If we really believed a convict was rehabilitated, there would be no parole, no job discrimination or public discrimination.
They would be accepted into society just like you or I.

Right now, people don't know enough about the mind to properly change predilection to antisocial behavior.
There's no fix-all pill that fixes degenerate mindsets.
The only way to actually protect the society is to lock them away, for now.
In the future, that might change.
For now tho, prison is our only option to assure public safety.

I believe for children, it is not as often about predilection as it is about their environment and opportunity, children are a group that are MOST PRONE to being able to 'change', so I think it is shameful when we just throw them away instead of allowing them the opportunity to continue growing, as children will ...

^^^Agree in essence^^^
Reform is kinda reactive. To reform indicates that the defunct behavior is already established and something is done to change it.

If parents teach their children correctly in the first place, reform will not be needed because the defunct traits will not develop in the first place.

Unless one subscribes to the criminal gene theory that makes criminal behavior hereditary. In that case, parents could have their children tested for the gene and use gene therapy to change the genetic disposition. However, despite looking, no criminal gene has been found.

Criminal behavior is not a genetic disorder, it is a learning disorder. There are two ways to handle a learning disorder.
1) Remove the stimuli that teaches the criminal behavior, substituting it with more sociable stimuli
2) Reteach the values that were not taught.

The second way, to reteach, proves ineffective in most cases.
Therefore the only viable recourse is to teach social values from the get go.
Easier said than done.

Who better to learn from than the parent? Since they weren't taught in the home,
they have the opportunity to learn in prison. If they don't, they go back until
they do, or not.

As far as the children are concerned I would lean more towards a military

academy type atmosphere . A little discipline and direction along with

education go a long way.. As far as some of the adults with

lesser offenses I would give them the choice to join the military or go to

jail..For some would it would give them a direction and a job so they

might be less likely to go back to their life of crime and who knows might

stay in ..not to mention for some show them a better way of life rather

than stay in a gang..Its not like they cant get a waiver for some. The

institutes are already there..

^^^agreed^^^
This brings up the personal/government divide issue.

Society knows that unsociable behavior is learned at home (personal environment). Society (government) initiates a set of standards applied to parents (personal) that enforces guidelines to raising their own offspring. (a society protection endeavor)
Society removes the child from the parents authority and places that child under the authority of another guardian that conforms to society's protection imperative.
In theory it makes perfect sense but the proof is in the pudding.
Many times what happens is a backfire of society's intentions.

Criminal behavior is a chain of bad parenting by generation.
The only way it can be removed is for one set of parents to break that chain and start teaching their children to be sociable.

Not all families have a generational chain of bad parenting. Most families do teach their children how to exist within society.
However, when those families encounter children that are being exposed to bad parenting they isolate that child from themselves.

"You can't play with Johnny, he's a bad boy, stay away from him"
"We like Sue, she's a good girl. You can learn a lot from her"

Antisocial behavior is not isolated only by jail and prison. It is isolated in all aspects of life, which reinforces the feelings that result in more antisocial behavior.

"We don't hang with Phil, he's in the loser's club. Hang with us instead."
Peer groups isolate as well.

Here's your kittens

what will they 'learn' from other criminals? Not much for a child to learn there.

I love that idea, being surrounded by others in a humane environment who are more likely to also WANT to reform, and putting their talents to use.

I see it all as bass ackwards.
We are trying to treat a problem instead of preventing it.
Reactive instead of proactive.
Its a chain (pattern) that has to be broken first before the benefits to society can be realized.
Easier said than done.

Our society exist within a set of laws.
Laws which have consequences if you break them.
While prison is a great method to deterrence it doesn't fix the problem, obviously.
There is no "clean" set of instructions on teaching how not to break those laws.
The only instruction of how to live within the laws are taught by parents. But, many parents don't fully understand society or how it works.
They are concerned with personal issues that cloud the teaching process. The child rearing process takes a back seat to day to day struggles. Not to mention the fact that a lot of parents just don't care because they believe some aspect of society wronged them.

Its easy to initiate laws, its another elephant altogether to list definitive behavior guidelines on how not to break them. Its then a slippery mickey to get people to adhere to those guidelines.

Until the chains can be broken, society has only one recourse to criminal behavior...Remove them from society.

A lot of these kids come from broken home,some left with parents who have

to work and can't be there like they want to be others have crack head

parents or abusive alcoholics..their lives become that of escapism and

winding up with the wrong crowd or on the streets selling themselves.In

these cases proactive will not work unless one plans on going into each

individual household and telling mom to put down the crack pipe..all that

is left is reactive...