The Purpose of Prison: Simone Weil’s view
I recently read a book by Simone Weil that discussed the roots
of West Civ. (“The Need for Roots”) She had some great observations
about prison and its cultural function or lack thereof.
Basically I think the roots idea she relates is as follows:
There are several forms of formal education in our culture, designed
for various people. School (for brainy or factory folk), military (for those
who need more structure), prison (for the impulsive and confused).
They’re each equally needed and not to be regretted. This is where
we get the cultural roots of respect and decorum of the courtroom.
It’s supposed to show criminals that their crime is on trial but their
humanity is respected and it’s a first step in reform even if the verdict
goes against them.
In school when you make a mistake you go back to the chalkboard.
Students are ready to pay for mistakes with work, effort and further training.
Prison is more of a major ‘time out’ for mistakes. It’s coarser, but a person
is allowed to pay with their time, the only thing which someone has who
is not ready to pay with any other currency. But the purpose of each
institution is the same. Eventual education of the population. It’s no surprise
that most criminals are teens-20’s. It’s a learning part of life. The question is
how well do we work with the needs of various types today?
For prison to have its correct function and for it to reflect society,
serving time cannot be held against a person. Especially, Weil says, for
the interest of security. Obviously, if you brand a person, the problem
of recidivism will be avoided. But from effects, not causes. If a culture
is healthy, and prison run right, a person can be brought back into culture.
Problems in culture and prison are the main causes of recidivism.
Recidivism would then be like a canary in a coal mine. It’s as good a test
of a culture as any to set prisoners free after prison. Actually, every
cultural element works that way. When one is off, you have bigger cultural illness.
Of course you can always use *force* to cover up the problems and ‘fix’
specific problems, but then they grow even faster in a general way.
The flip side is that truly dealing with one general problem will rescue
hundreds of specific cultural ailments.
To be true to our roots, we can’t just say ‘Let’s get rid of criminals.’
Crime is separate from the person. Our only option, in our culture,
is to fight the crime but bring the people back as soon as possible.
For instance, if more people knew why we have the culture we do and
how it works, that would be a general improvement. They would tend
to put power/money down a few notches from their usurped places
and lift civics up a few notches. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they
know the facts of our culture from taking a history class, but that they
*understand* our culture. Obviously, it would still be an imperfect
society. And far more effect happens when leaders do this. The culture overall
then becomes more rooted and reasonable in a general way.
It seems like people don’t realize the extent that using FORCE is admitting
failure of their culture.
A culture needs only a few symbolic laws to thrive. A diseased population
can have millions of laws and only decline faster by any cultural standard.
(Obviously, people can be safe, healthy and secure in a prison state, but they
might not have culture.)
