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Levels of security

How is the classification of high, medium and minimum security prison established? What are the differences and what type of criminals go to them? Just a question i was trying to find answers to... --IfTrueElseFalse (talk) 08:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Voting rights

Aren't voting also restricted for Prisoners in the US in several states? Which would be unique in any democratic Country.

No it wouldn't..? If you have a source saying prisoners in some parts of the US *are* allowed to vote, do share it. Leushenko (talk) 16:01, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Home Office Report

There is a newer version of the Home Office Report with all the figures. The one linked to here is the 4th ed. There is a 5th ed. I don't know if that is the latest, but at least it is newer than this one. I don't know how to update the references and upload the new pdf. ass.

When I got a cop to arrest him, he said I attacked him. Fortunately, the woman was still there (she also wanted him arrested for a similar assault). The cop looked at the three of us, she and I had injuries and he weighed as much as both of us put together, and refused to arrest me, but when I went to court, summoned as a witness, the 300-pound ex-marine thug told the baliff that I had assaulted him, and I was arrested in court and jailed! Everyone was confused, because it was so strange, and jail was a profoundly educational experience.

When I went before the judge, I was released, and at least one other prisoner was CLEARLY innocent, and even the judge said so, but prisoners in some jails, at least are treated VERY badly. I'm writing from a small southern city with a HUGE jail they're paid by the state to keep full up, and 7 people have been found hanging by their necks, some, probably lynched. (A cop here told me they were going to hang a man in his cell to prevent the embarassment of a trial, since there were videotapes of the cops having shot one of his hostages -- basically turned her into hamburger.) 2 or 3 days after a cop told me they were going to kill him in his cell, the newspapers said he was "found" hanging in his cell (North of town).

Accusation NOT = guilt. Duhhh. Why have courts, or even laws? Why not just go back to vigilante "justice" and lynchings?

152.9.34.72: Hello, regarding your "Jail" entry. I completely agree with you, regarding the difference between the two terms. They should be distinguished by different entries. But what you've been writing so far will just get deleted as a rant and serve no purpose. Please write something better, a real entry for Jail, and will be become a valuable and instructive article for everyone. -- Decumanus 20:57, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Since there is a considerable overlap in the terms, I would leave them in one section, with explanations as to the differences between prisons, penitentiaries, jails, etc. Note that jails are both used for those not convicted (or not even charged) and those convicted and serving short sentences. StuRat 02:55, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Not forgoetting gaol, which is used mostly in the UK and Australia as another name for a prison. -- Longhair | Talk 03:08, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

slang terms

The first paragraph lists a number of slang terms for prison. I think this is valuable information and should be expanded. How about a section listing all the slang terms for prison? -- Spleeman 06:31, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

History of prisons

How about a history on imprisonment, and how widely it was used throughout written history. - Jerryseinfeld 14:28, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Crime and punishment is a wide, very controversial and deeply politicised area, and so too are discussions of prisons, prison systems, the concepts and practices of imprisonment; and the sanction of custody set against other non-custodial sanctions and against the capital sanction, a death sentence. Some of these issues are discussed in the by country descriptions, below.

Actually, none of these issues are discussed in the article, or elsewhere, as far as I can tell. History, theory, and studies on the effectiveness of imprisonment, probation, and psychiatric care as punishments are touched on in criminal justice from 10,000 feet. Sounds like a collaboration of the week possibility. Tempshill 18:35, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm thinking of adding a link to stanford prison experiment to the 'see also' section, but I'm hesitating because of the validity of the experiment, i.e. subjects were not professional guards or real criminals.--Janarius 03:03, 15 July 2005 (UTC) DO IT MAKE THE LINK!!!!!

Generally, it's considered that the Zimbardo prison experiment is a great look into psychology, but has little to offer specifically to prisons. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.185.10.3 (talk) 17:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

Incidentally, there is no history of imprisonment section, nor is it adequately covered anywhere else. This certainly should be remedied.

In the History section: Prisons can be stressful and depressing being away from their family, unless they killed them. Anyone have ideas what this is supposed to mean? OttoMäkelä (talk) 13:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

liberties

"A prison is a place in which people are confined and deprived of a range of liberties"

Please expand on this sentence. What liberties? In which jurisdictions? I am specifically curious about what happens to personal belongings while the owner is in jail. I've heard of people earning money in jail, etc. - Omegatron 23:48, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

---

Military Prisons

Thinking about starting a separate article for military prison. Opinions? --Jpbrenna 00:19, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yup Absolutely should be done. Plenty for an article; worth starting a stub and seeing where it gets to. --Tagishsimon (talk)

---

Anarchist Black Cross link

I'm just interested as to why the link to ABC was removed... it looks as it belongs there Beta_M , | (Ë-Mail)

Political Prison

I'm not trying to sound biased here or anything, but shouldn't the listing of Guantanamo Bay be moved to Military Prison? It fits the definition given by this article much better. The installation is maintained by the US Military as a base for "unlawful combatants", just as the definition under the Military Prison subheading says.

neutrality dispute 03 May 2005

I would like the statement "70% of imprisonments are drug related" proven with factual evidence from official sources such as BJS reports or UCR data.

This is not a neutrality dispute, this is a factual inquiry. If you want to dispute this fact, use {{disputed}} not {{npov}}. I removed both your tag and the figure, as a little research seems to show that this figure is inflated if it is taken to mean all federal, state, and local prisoners at any given time, as it would seem. The true figure seems closer to a third but I don't yet have a source that I am confident in to cite an alternate figure. NTK 05:24, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Visiting

Is there a name for the type of phone that inmates use to talk to visitors? --VolatileChemical 00:29, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, cell phone.

jail Vs prison

As an employee of a county jail I can tell you that there is a real difference between jail and prison. A jail is simply where accused persons are brought after arrest to await trial or arraignment on their charges. Most jails have a significant daily turnover of inmates. Prison is far more longterm. Prison is the facility for housing convicted persons after their trials. Todays prison systems are so overcrowded that they often release offenders after only a percentage of their origional sentence has been served. Regardless, neither is a place you want to go!

Psychology of prison

I have two thoughts on improving this article. One is the question of punishment versus rehabilitation. The US is very ambigous on which to go with but some countries scare people out of doing crime by having horrible prisons where people are routinely beaten. Other countries attempt to educate and improve prisoners so they can reenter society.

The second item is the psychology of jail. Why is being behind bars a punishment? This section should include the famous psychology study (which ironically i can't remember the name of). Where civilians were imprisoned in a university basement and other civilians were the gaurds and they actually became their positions. Vicarious 10:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The Stanford prison experiment? -- Longhair | Talk 11:02, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

That was it, thanks. Although we have a full article on it we should have some of the resulting implications about jails in this article. Vicarious 13:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no ambiguity in the US about the role of the prison. It is not about rehabilitation, only punishment. And prisons dont scare people from committing crime or do they affect the crime rate. And those horrible prisons you talk about are American prisons where 100 000 men will be raped this year (if not gang raped and on a regular basis).

Wrong. There are many attempts at rehabilitation, such as education in prison. This serves no punishment function. As for affecting the crime rate, they do by "removal from society". That is, while locked up, most prisoners find it impossible to commit crimes against those outside of the prison (with a few exceptions, like phone fraud). If all prisoners were released and it was announced that nobody would ever be imprisoned again, the crime rates would most definitely increase. StuRat 18:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Prison Population

this section also contains the sentence

New Zealand has the second highest prison population per capita amongst developed countries, with 169 prisoners per 100,000.

The remark has no source, and appears out of context. suggests that it is only true if one regards Chile, Singapore, Israel, and most of central and eastern Europe and many others not to be developed. While I guess this is another discussion, the factoid appears unhelpful without substantiation. 125.236.184.109 00:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

this section contains the sentence

No data is available for North Korea(followed by two external links).

As the page is not about korea and only 3 countries are referenced at all - surely it would be better to represent the lack of info by ommiting the sentence. Or perhaps there is a more political agenda for its inclusion. DavidP 13:37, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, take it out. StuRat

The incarceration statistics for US prisoners statistics needs to reflect the most recent historical data from the Bureau of Justice..accordingly,

"On December 31, 2004 --

-- 2,135,901 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails -- an increase of 2.6% from yearend 2003, less than the average annual growth of 3.4% since yearend 1995.

-- there were an estimated 486 prison inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents -- up from 411 at yearend 1995. -- the number of women under the jurisdiction of State or Federal prison authorities increased 4.0% from yearend 2003, reaching 104,848 and the number of men rose 1.8%, totaling 1,391,781."

Source: BOJ, "Summary of Findings,Prison Statistics", Bureau of Justice Statistics

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ MGSBoca 13:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I ll tell you what the population is. Its full of my people, black people. This page has more info the MLK and Nelson Mandle put together. Why "We all know that prison is full of blood thirsty black people". If it was full whites this page will be non exsitent. - BlackBrotherX7

I have a hunch you've not visited any prisons in Utah. V-Man737 07:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Black people don't go to Utah. All yo mountain people scare black people, plus its too cold. We kick it in the south and Calfornia. You ever been to a Calfornia prison. Its all blacks and why? Because of tha LAPD. Its the white people gang - BlackBrotherX7

What! Mountain people scare plack people? Why is that? I don't smell that bad, I think. ^_^ V-Man737 00:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

No its not the smell, Black people love the smell of nature. Black people just are afraid of mountain people beacuse of Donar Party and Deliverance. Also black people don't like the cold. We like it nice an warm like Califorina, the South, Jamacia, and Africa. - BlackBrotherX7

Breakouts

Lots of famous prison breakouts need to be put in. - Anonymus

• ... that is probalby Cowra breakout in Australia (1944) Scriberius 11:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
• Could somebody establish an article, please (see de:Gefängnisausbruch)? Scriberius 11:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Cultural References

The Green Mile? This is more about capital punishment than prison life, if it WERE warranted, we might also include "DEAD MAN WALKING", Also, It looks like someone just slipped it in there rather crudely, who had no clue how to edit. I'm Removing. If you want to put it back, holler.

The Shawshank Redemption: does anyone know if prison actually does have this particular individual (such as Red) who can get stuff? how does it work? and where the money come from? ~~

prisons as for profit work camps

It seems to me vital to include mention that many prisons (private as well as state run) exist in order to make a profit on the labour prisoners.

Any discussion should also mention how having a prison system that makes money instead of costing money makes it in the interest of the government to imprison as many people as possible, instead of as few as possible. StuRat 22:44, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Also, if that is said then providing statisics as to the staggering overrepresentation of black people and native people among the prison population would be important. 27 February 2006

I don't see how that follows. If governments make a profit off everyone in prison, why would that provide any incentive to arrest fewer whites than minorities ? And conversiely, if governments lose money on everyone in prison, why would that provide any incentive to arrest fewer whites than minorities ? StuRat 08:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Because given that there is a situation where people are being held captive as a labour force for the profit of the government and the private corporations that they work with, and that this provides an incentive to imprison as many people as possible, it's important to look at the demographics of this population in order to understand how this has come to exist and understand the systemic issues that are at it's roots. It is directly relevant, and not co-incidental that this imprisonment and forced labour for government profit consists largely of people that already face systemic oppression and that people that have the privilege of money, light skin, etc are vastly underrepresented in the prison populace. For clarity, this could be referred to as a contemporary form of slavery. Quixote go 19:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe the only effect here is discrimination against the poor. Poor people can't afford a decent lawyer and often don't know their rights, so get convicted on flimsy evidence, whereas the rich can hire lawyers who will bring even the strongest evidence into doubt. Since minorities are poorer, this means they do more time in prison. Wealthy minorities, like OJ Simpson, however, can get off despite overwhelming evidence against them. And whether the prison is profitable or not has no effect on this. StuRat 05:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that wealth (and class) are major factors in state targetting. But as soon as it is acknowleged that it is in the financial interest of the state to lock people up, and when we acknowlege that there is great disparity between who gets imprisoned for what so called crime, then you have to start looking at the demographics of who they are choosing to arrest and who they are choosing to imprison. The fact is that in Canada and the US black people and native people are vastly overrepresented in the prison population and that one factor in this is that the state relies economically on the labour of those they imprison, and that there is racial targetting (as well as income based) in order to create and expand this workforce and keep people segregated from the outside populace.Quixote go 01:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Most prisons in the US and Canada cost the taxpayers money, they don't make money. I don't personally know of any exceptions, although I suppose it might be possible. If you have an example, please let me know. StuRat 18:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with what has been said above.. This Wiki page is missing some very important points that should be included. Firstly it does need to point out that a large % of people in prisons are minorities. This is more of a point about poverty not racism, clearly poorer people with less opportunity and choices in life are going to stand a greater chance of turning to crime. A great example of this is the US system which currently has over 2 million people in their prisons and jails, of which over 1 million are black.

The other point is regards the prisons being profitable to tax payers. I do not think this is the case its likely that all prisons cost tax payers money,. However it can be argued that the country is saving money by having them in prison rather than on the streets costing even more for police / law enforcement. While it may not be profitable to tax payers, use of prison labour is very useful to businesses, who can use cheap labour in the local area rather than having to import from countries such as china.

While this only relates to US prisons and should be gone into in greater detail on the US prison page, It should be mentioned here as well, as the US will not be the only country with this form of policy.

http://www.nationalcia.org/video/Cutting_low.wmv (This is a promotional video by the National Correctional Industry Association for the US. It includes how it can be profitable for businesses to invest in local correctional facilities. )

I am against this form of exploitation for profit to businesses, and I consider this close to slavery and find the above video almost sickening at the way it talks about using prison labour. It also shows the US does have a motive towards being tough on crime and sending people to prison for long periods of time. Now I understand that we need to avoid just stating opinions, But this page should state some information about prison labour with out taking sides.

19:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Prisons are 98% minorities

“CRIME AND WEALTH” “Upper-Class Crime”

The sorts of crimes ignored by newspapers in their bulk and persistence are what the late Professor Edwin H. Sutherland (1883-1950) …called “white collar crime.” … As a sociologist Sutherland was impressed as long ago as 1925 with the fact that more than 98 percent of the prison population came from the lower socio-economic classes; less than 2 percent came from the upper classes… Why do some well-to-do lawbreakers land in prison and not others? Sutherland after much inquiry noticed that the laws are written and administered with different emphases. …were implemented with much more severe sanctions than other crimes.

Most offenses open to members of the upper socio-economic class other than those traditionally proscribed, as he found, were dealt with by special administrative tribunals. The offenses were mostly variants of fraud or conspiracy. Where they were committed against the broad public they called for relatively light penalties, seldom prison terms. Verdicts against the offender were often carefully phrased so as to be nonstigmatic. But the crimes accessible to the lower classes, involving violence or direct theft or some of each, called for penalties that were physically severe and were intensely stigmatic in their language, some so stigmatic that the victims themselves could not use it—e.g., rape and blackmail.

Even when a member of the upper socio-economic class was found guilty of a stigmatic crime and was about to be sentenced, there was a marked difference in language of the judge. Often in the case of a culprit of the lower classes the judge administered a savage tongue-lashing, while the defendant hung his head and his family sobbed, terrorized. But when upper-class culprits had been convicted in criminal court of using the mails to defraud the general public, the judge (as quoted by Sutherland) typically said: “You are men of affairs, of experience, of refinement and culture, of excellent reputation and standing in the business and social world.” They were in fact, as the judicial process had just disclosed, CRIMINALS. This difference in attitudes of judges is often pronounced. Severely reprehending toward members of the lower classes, the judges became wistful, melancholy, or sadly philosophical when sentencing men of the upper class.

When Sutherland inquired closely he found, contrary to the established supposition, that many members of the upper classes did commit offenses for which the government held them accountable. But in most cases special arrangements had been made to handle them with kid gloves and in many cases to administer by way of punishment a slap on the wrist…

“The thesis of this book , stated positively,” says Sutherland, “is that persons of the upper socio-economic class engage in much criminal behavior; that this criminal behavior differs from the criminal behavior of the lower socio-economic class principally in the administrative procedures which are used in dealing with the offenders; and that variations in administrative procedures are not significant from the point of view of causation of crime. Today tuberculosis is treated by streptomycin; but the causes of tuberculosis were no different when it was treated by poultices and blood-letting.”

White-collar crime, as Sutherland makes clear, is far more costly than crimes customarily regarded as constituting the “crime problem.” The crimes mostly by the propertied and wealthy in the course of managing their property include embezzlement; most big fraud; restraint of trade; misrepresentation in advertising and in the sale of securities; infringements of patents, trademarks and copyrights; industrial espionage; illegal labor practices; violations of war regulations; violation of trust; secret rebates and kickbacks; commercial and political bribery; wash sales; misleading balance sheets; false claims; dilution of products; prohibited forms of monopoly; income-tax falsification; adulteration of food and drugs; padding of expense accounts; use of substandard materials; rigging markets; price-fixing; mislabeling; false weights and measurements; internal corporate manipulation; etc., etc. Except for tax fraud the ordinary man is never in a position to commit these crimes… The “white collar criminals are by far the most dangerous to society of any type of criminals from the point of view of effects on private property and social institutions.” From Ferdinand Lundberg, "The Rich and the Super-Rich" 1968. Can you use that? Stars4change (talk) 04:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

There are a few problems with this information. What country are we talking about? What minorities are we talking about? And the references are extremely out of date (1925, 1949, and 1968). --JeffJ (talk) 10:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

It's all about America. I know it's out of date. If anyone has similar current info please provide it. Thank you. Stars4change (talk) 04:21, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Other Countries "Realistic" Figures as Well?

According to the last statistics by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (October 2005, "Prisoners in 2004), the "rate of incarceration in prison at yearend 2004 was 486 sentenced inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents". However, if one adds the jail population to that number one comes up with the more realistic figure of 724 inmates per 100,000 residents.

The chart lists 724 inmates per 100,000 residents, not 486. Do the numbers for the other countries on the list also factor the jail population into the general resident population?

MSTCrow 08:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Women in Prison (in the United States)

This section is written with poor grammar and zero citations to the "facts" it lists. If I was more knowledgeable on the subject I'd do it myself, but hopefully there can be some discussion on the matter. Such questions could include:

1. Why only in the US? If the article has a section dedicated to this (and I believe it should), should it not also mention other countries?

2. Are there any positives? It seems the article currently is heavily slanted towards villifying men on most accounts with regard to female prisoners.

And so on.

I too am not knowledgeable about the prison system - but this section reads like someone's blog. I'm going to ask an administrator's opinion on deleting the whole section. Simesa 02:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Deleted.Timothy Usher 05:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It definitely wasn't up to scratch, but it did raise some valid points. I'd like to see a section on the same topic done properly with citations. Women in prisons do indeed face unique challenges and I think deserve some sort of treatment within this article. · Katefan0 /poll 13:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

wtf?

From the Article: "Vietnam has about 50 prisons. The majority of prisoners are Vietnamese."

why is this even in here?

"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."-Charles de Gaulle

Hmm.Foster2008 01:12, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

POV?

In the Australia section, "These are extremely unpopular to most hippies". Is this sarcastic POV, or do you actually still call people hippies in all seriousness Down Under? --Illusio80 15:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV - Section 4: Criminal justice goals of the prison system

"This is founded on the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" philosophy."

"By subjecting prisoners to harsh conditions, authorities hope to convince them to avoid future criminal behavior and to exemplify for others the rewards for avoiding such behavior; that is, the fear of punishment will win over whatever pleasure the illegal activity might bring. The deterrence model frequently goes far beyond "an eye for an eye", exacting a more severe punishment than would seem to be indicated by the crime."

"Executions, particularly gruesome ones (such as hanging or beheading), often for petty offenses, are further examples of attempts at deterrence.'' " "Are criminals inherently prone to illegal behaviour, or does crime stem from a failure of social policy?"

These are only a few examples of what is on section 4. These statements looks more like theories than facts to me... This section is in no way neutral, especially the reccuring "critics say that...". And, of course, the critics cited are all negative.

The only thing that I clearly understood there is that the author of this section is against the penitential system.

funding

we sould add how the prisons get their money to take care of the inmates 137.87.66.6 18:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Prison Management

Needs better description of prison design and philosophy. ie. Linear and Podular/Direct Supervision. And it could touch base on Inmate Behavioral Management.

I would suggest a separate article be composed on the subject of Objective Jail Classification as well. It would serve to give the readers an insight to prison workings.

NICIC website link if anyone would like to look into it.

--Epizoan 08:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Prison Design

This entire section seems to apply only to modern prisons, and specifically to Western prisons. Certainly not 'all' prisons have education departments, or refer to units as 'cell's.

Discrepancy in Statistics

There seems to be some problems with the Statistics section, notably in the text it says the US prison population is 486 in every 100,000 people, while in the table at the bottom of the section it says the USA imprisons 740 people for every 100,000 in the populace. Which is correct?

Unclear or POV

In the section describing the reasons for a higher prison population in developed countries, the "gap between the rich and poor" is cited as one. I for one don't see the connection between higher prison population and a larger (albeit higher for all groups) distribution of income. Unless someone can explain it a bit more, I'm going to remove the statement because it seems out of place. Seriously, there is a larger income distribution in developed countries but I don't understand how that contributes to a higher prison population, or is just me? If you can elaborate or cite some source on that, please re-insert the phrase. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.176.209.119 (talk) 00:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Yes, looks like a rather pathetic leftist argument. If you took out all the black people out of the statistics, the number of non-black inhabitants in prison in the USA would be comparable to the rest of the world percentage wise. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.27.158.224 (talk) 09:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

I agree. The gap between rich and poor is generally a lot higher in non-developed countries. A.Z. 02:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Turkish Prisons

Hi

The writing in this section was just awful, with run-ons and sentence fragments. Also no citations. I fixed what I could, but left it tagged.

69.88.88.11 20:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Types - psychiatric

I edited this section. I need to throw in a reference, but it was written in such an incorrect way. Psychiatry isn't used as a punishment, as it seemed to imply. In addition, involuntary commitment is never used to send people to a prison. This is a temporary hold to force a diagnosis or treatment.

Instead, psychiatric units are often housed in prisons. Also, as already written in that section, some psych hospitals to house inmates - either due to sentencing or prison behaviour.

Remember, psychiatry is a tool for diagnosis & treatment, although maybe a crappy one. It definitely isn't a penalty or punishment, though. Chupper (talk) 16:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Prisons

If anyone is interested, I have proposed a new Wikiproject concerning prisons here.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 01:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

League of Ex-Con Wikipedians

one in eleven men will be incarcerated in his lifetime

Holy moly, that means there must be plenty with us right now... ☺ OK, sign up below. (Use "~~~", IP address OK too.) (Feel free to change "ex-con" to whatever more proper name is to be used these days.) Jidanni (talk) 13:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Membership roll

1. Jidanni (talk) (as an example to get things rolling, not necessarily an ex-con myself ☺)

Expand history

The history section seems very brief. I don't know enough on the history to expand it, but, for example, Fleet_Prison mentions that prisoners had to pay for their keep in the prison and often had to beg for money to do so. Was this common? I'd guess so... This article fails to mention this. What happened if you didn't pay for your keep? Perhaps someone with some knowledge of the subject can expand the history a bit! EAi (talk) 23:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Rehabilitation

The rehabilitation section references two seperate journal articles where the authors performed a meta-analysis comparing residential to non-residential sentecning and the rate of re-incarceration. The reference is circulaar in the references section and does not provide enough information to preform a journal search. Can anyone extract exactly what two articles are referred to here? The two references are to "Smith et al" and "Andrews and Bonta" Brugger1982 (talk) 22:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Prison configuration should be explained

Floor plans could also be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.118.180.138 (talk) 18:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Jail

"jail" and "prison" are synonymous outside the United States and different inside. There were a section in the jail article that related more to the longer-term incarceration that Americans call "prison", which I have therefore moved here: "Resocialization". It doesn't appear very well written, so feel free to redo or delete; but in any case please don't put it back at jail, as it definitely doesn't belong there. jnestorius 22:31, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Microchip implant (human)

Could we add a link to Microchip implant (human) and RFID? Is there any talk about starting trial use of RFID by implanting the chips in all prisoners to keep track of them? Stars4change (talk) 06:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Jail / Gaol / Prison

The separate Gaol, Jail, and Prison articles have been merged in a manner I consider very unsatisfactory. Also, I don't interpret the preceding AfD discussion as having approved the current structure.

Formerly, there were three three articles:

• "prison" was the generic article
• "jail" was about the U.S. meaning of jail, with a hatlink to "prison" for the meaning elsewhere.
• "gaol" was about the spelling "gaol".

Subsequently:

• "gaol" was redirected to "jail" per WP:NAD, but not merged. The information in "gaol" is thus lost. Not that the information was of high quality, but at least a link to wikt:gaol would have been nice, if not a transwiki.
• "jail" was merged into Prison#Jails in the United States, and a redirect-to-section was added, with a section-hatnote linking to Jail (disambiguation). Now, that's really not good enough.
  • Someone outside the U.S. who types/wikilinks "jail" when they mean "prison" is going to be mighty confused when they get to this section, and the hatnote will not speak to that confusion.
  • The "Jails in the United States" section replaces the previous "Incarceration by country > United States" section, which linked to Incarceration in the United States. Obviously, "Incarceration in the United States" is a subtopic of "Prison" and a parent topic of "Jails in the United States", so this organisation is upside-down.

I propose the following modifications:

• Move Prison#Jails in the United States to Jails in the United States
• Summarize Jails in the United States in Incarceration in the United States#Jails
• Summarize Incarceration in the United States in Prison#United States
• Move Jail (disambiguation) to Jail, and replace the link to Jail with a link to Jails in the United States

jnestorius 19:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Support - A very nice analysis! The above works for me. --JeffJ (talk) 19:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Incarceration

I've just noticed that Incarceration is a separate article; Imprisonment redirects there. I suspect this is to conform to the US perspective, where "Incarceration" is the parent and "Prison" and "Jail" are the children. Since that is no longer the case, I think having separate "Prison" and "Incarceration" articles is unnecessary duplication. There could still be a distinction of articles (e.g. based on Penology vs incarceration statistics vs. prison architecture/design) but I don't think the current names are the basis to do it. To start with I suggest merging the two articles (at either name) and then later work out a logical basis for refactoring out child articles. jnestorius 20:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is appropriate. There are types of incarceration that are not prison (not just in the US, but throughout the world; for example, in the PRC there are about 8 detention/incarceration systems, and that's a conservative count). If the two articles are redundant, that can be rectified by editing Incarceration to have a more worldwide perspective, rather than by merging it here. rʨanaɢ /_contribs 21:02, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

"There are types of incarceration that are not prison": please expand on this. Are you making a distinction based on the nature of the people detained, the place of detention, or the treatment to which detainees are subject, or simply the name of the system? Clearly, both articles are currently in a rudimentary state, with a lot of overlap. The opening sentence of the Incarceration article is "Incarceration is the detention of a person in gaol or prison." The opening section of the Prison article lists many different types: convicted criminals, suspects awaiting trial, internees, prisoners of war. Currently both articles use the map File:Prisoner population rate UN HDR 2007 2008.PNG. I don't think adding more material to either article will solve the problem of the current overlap of content. jnestorius 22:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on incarceration around the world, I just have the PRC example I mentioned above. As described at Re-education through labor#Re-education through labor and the Chinese penal system (most of which is from pp. 15–23 of the Laogai Research Handbook), there there are numerous forms of incarceration/detention and not all are called, or considered, prisons.

There is also a simpler grammatical difference... a prison is a physical place, incarceration is a concept. There's another way in which the two articles could, and should, diverge. rʨanaɢ /_contribs 23:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Reading the article you linked to, it seems to me that a "Re-education Through Labor camp" is a type of labor camp, which is a type of prison. Different countries may subdivide their penal system in different ways, and use the label "prison" for only part of that; but in a global article, there is no way to find the intersection of what "prison" means in each country. We've already had trouble with the jail-prison distinction, which is US specific. The Panopticon and its descendants are perhaps the default concept of what a physical prison looks like, and maybe we need an article that deals specifically with buildings of that type; but the current Prison article looks nothing like that article. The "grammatical difference" is that incarceration is what is done and a prison is where it is done; but the current prison article is not about the where, it's also about the what and the why. jnestorius 00:55, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Again, RTL is one of eight (or more) types of incarceration. rʨanaɢ /_contribs 12:21, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I heard you the first time. RTL is one of n types of incarceration and RTL camps are one of m types of prison. jnestorius 16:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You heard me the first time, but you don't seem to have understood what I was trying to say. Again, in this example, there are numerous forms of incarceration that are not called prison or considered prison by the international community. RTL is just one of them, so even if you think RTL is a kind of prison (which is is, for all intents and purposes) that still doesn't address the issue of all the others. And this is only one example, from one country. rʨanaɢ /_contribs 19:16, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Currently the start of the Prison article is, more or less, "A prison is a place where people are incarcerated", and the opening of Incarceration is, more or less "Incarceration is putting people in prison". If the US distinguishes "prison" from "jail" or PRC distinguishes prison from RTL, that's not relevant in a global-level article. If the "international community" distinguishes "prison" from some other forms of incarceration, then please fix the tow articles to make that clear; e.g.:

• "A prison is a place where a specific type of incarceration takes place, whose defining characteristics, according to the UN Penology Institute are: ...."
• "Incarceration is the detaining of people in such places as a prison, a foo detention centre, or a bar incarceration place."

jnestorius 21:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's the kind of distinction that I think needs to be made in the articles. The Prison article should be more about the physical places; the Incarceration one should be more about the concept, with things like incarceration rates, reasons for incarceration, history, etc. rʨanaɢ /_contribs 14:27, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Slavery and Prison

This is called "Slavery and Prison", please read it. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/gilmoreprisonslavery.html Stars4change (talk) 04:29, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Also this called "Prison Labor, Slavery & Capitalism in Historical Perspective." http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/hisprislacap.html Stars4change (talk) 04:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you want to add these in "see also"? Private Prison Wackenhut Prison: corporate slavery? http://www.greenleft.org.au/2000/419/22838 Stars4change (talk) 05:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

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