Punishment: A Failed Social Experiment

Punishment: A Failed Social Experiment

2011, Society  -   48 Comments
8.00
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Ratings: 8.00/10 from 17 users.

Punishment: A Failed Social ExperimentPunishment: A Failed Social Experiment provides a detailed, critical analysis of the current legal and justice system generally in operation across the world whilst also providing potential solutions which work on preventing crime and creating a much more socially sustainable society.

The documentary film is currently in production, consisting of interviews with various academics, social activists and campaigners all of whom provide information on where we're going wrong when we treat offenders, and what we could head towards in regards to the solutions available.

It must be recognized that in order for change to occur in the system of punishment and justice, wider societal and cultural issues need to be addressed - as this documentary film recognizes that there are inherent flaws in our current social system.

Although most sources of information originate from the United Kingdom, it is reasonable to state that the topics examined will apply to many other nations.

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David
David
7 months ago

Why has this been removed from YouTube?

Odd Sigve Tendenes Tengesdal
Odd Sigve Tendenes Tengesdal
11 years ago

I`m proud of what we have accomplished in Norway when it comes to our prison system. Only 20% of inmates re offend. That can`t be said about America witch has 50%

Jezmond John Farren
Jezmond John Farren
11 years ago

Talking about prison policy from a detached standpoint overlooks the fact that the general public plays a massive part in proliferating the criminality they hate and fear. If we open our eyes we will soon realise that capitalism fuels a lack of resposibility for the future and past by allowing a free-market, negligent of greed, sexual promiscuity and violence.

When we quit employing soldiors to prolong our false sense of security, band together beyond vested interest and criminalise weapons and violence all together; then it will become clear that the real criminals are those who prolong sepratism in order to capitalise on suffering. It may sound far affetched to envision a world where armies and weapons were merely relics of barbarism but consider this, if this initiative was taken, then criminal violence would be alot easier to tell apart from political violence because all violence would be criminal. The industrial military complex needs to die.

The military and police services could then be used to passify and if need be contain violent offenders. If you still battle to envision a gun-free form of social security check out some of the scientific break throughs with millitary passification devices. You've seen this stuff in the movies and as with many sci-fi films like 2000 Leaugues Under the Sea (sub-marine pre-empt), fiction can easily become fact when enough people believe in an idea.

Initially all the patriots and macho-hunters with sexual inadequicy complexs would feel a bit sad but hey you gotta evolve sometime right. There is one thing I can guarentee though and thats that many of the people running military and prison institutions today would be the first to be constrained as their addiction to power and violent control would finally be exposed. Exercising physical force doesn't make you strong, acknowledging the forces of human nature and balancing them from within, now thats strength.

Robert Fairhurst
Robert Fairhurst
11 years ago

far too much talking head with that Scottish professor. Got bored of him pretty quickly

Zoidberg 1201
Zoidberg 1201
11 years ago

I've always believed that you can't simultaneously punish and rehabilitate.
positive reinforcement (incentives) has been shown to be a considerably more effective leash than punishments.

Frankly what most recidivists seem to lack is a stake in society.

Society emphasizes won't the can't do and have, not what they can.

Jezmond John Farren
Jezmond John Farren
12 years ago

I am a firm believer in communal psychology. If people are only ever treated as individuals with individual problems then the number of solutions will always be marginalised but when the community is studied, understood and treated as a whole, then violence and crime can be more sucessfully prevented.

I am not saying that crime is purely deterministic but just think for a moment what contributes to child abuse both mental and physical- pressure on the part of parents who cannot maintain their own lives, let alone children. What causes this pressure? -Belief in economic progress as the primary means to maintain social security. Endless dismissal and undermining of any one or anything exposing, this negligent abortion of justice.

The employment industry is all about production and profit, never the enrichment or sustainability of society. Security forces essentially prioritise the safety of banks, corporations and not suprisingly goverment operations. The political system inadvertantly conceals this mechanism as part of its struggle to maintain the illusion of authority. This confusion ultimately serves to exploit the inherant cohesion, creativity and ingenuity that vitalises human nature.

Frozen terror pollutes the hearts of 'civil-self-servants' just as much as the criminals they right off as evil. Murderers and rapists often begin with their own suffering of injustice during childhood, then if offered help they might choose to work towards change. Ironically cappitalist disciplinarians suffer from a criminal form of ignorance that is never considered long enough to be accounted for, let alone amended.

'Proud Ambitious Fear'

Wake up world we are all responsible for each other!

Ch H
Ch H
12 years ago

An unfocused and in the end meandering treatment of a hugely important problem.

The film's major insight was that when a criminal legal system emphasizes moral condemnation, then of course punishment sounds like the right response. But it's a response that doesn't help anybody.

The film thus opens up the question of what the purpose of the criminal legal system should be, and what structures would achieve that outcome. But it doesn't offer any answers.

The film does offer one staggering fact: In the United States, prison guards with twenty years' service have an average life expectancy of only 58 years. In Britain, prison guards die on average within two years of their retirement date.

Such a stunning mortality rate among the guards seems to prove that a system of punishment punishes everybody---not just the punished, but also the punishers. Nor can a punishment mindset be good for the citizenry. It feeds a sense of self-satisfaction and vengeance that leeches into other areas of our lives & makes for bad policy.

KsDevil
KsDevil
12 years ago

People are basicly lazy. It's easier to make quick assessments and use solutions of convienience. There's just so much to know and understand so we shluf off the whole mess onto others and self-justfy our decision is correct. If mistakes are made, well, someone else made it, not you. We are jsut too tired to deal with society. Let the human race sleep it's way to extinction. All these annoying thinkers do is try to keep us awake with their realizations of truth. we know our world is a mess. Just roll over and let it all end.
Then there are the rest of us who actually want us all to survive and work toward an improved world.

IR8PIR8
IR8PIR8
12 years ago

@ geamala- I take it you have never been incarcerated for an infraction of the law...No DUI's or anything like that? If not then you are indeed lucky. I had the misfortune to be incarcerated after having a nervous breakdown and thought that the solution might be at the bottom of a bottle....I didn't find it there...Go figure. But during my incarceration I was attacked twice and put in the hospital once just for the mere fact that I wasn't as big as most of the population there and an easy target. The guy that put me in the hospital didn't know me as all he was doing was trying to fight extradition to another state and thought he could do so by getting another charge. It didn't work for him but left me in a state where I will kill rather than be incarcerated again. Not only do I fear closed spaces I feel uncomfortable in open spaces due to being locked up for 7 months. The system does not work and the only thing career inmates learn is new ways to terrorize society. Like Jimmy Buffet said " Don't talk about the Islands if you've never seen them"

geamala
geamala
12 years ago

I'd like to see what these guys would think if they had their children abducted, raped and murdered. I can't believe that guy would try to assert that punishment is simply a revenge motive by a cruel and unjust government. I mean get ****** real!! I recently watched Louis Theroux's Weird Weekend in the US prison system. Some of the people in these prisons are utter animals who care not in the slightest for others and see anyone but themselves as potential prey. There is a reason they are locked up, It's because they are incapable of not harming innocent people. This "doco" was ******* garbage. I'd like to see these m***** spend a night in jail. see how they feel after seeing the kind of people who are thankfully locked up.

robertallen1
robertallen1
12 years ago

A very boring, poorly put together documentary, consisting of a series of "experts" caviling against the criminal justice system over a background of newsreels and harp music and offering no constructive solutions.

Benjamin Clarkson
Benjamin Clarkson
12 years ago

I hate most docs on this site because they are all radical leftist sludge. This one is balanced and an excellent look into the issues. 10/10

Judy Lehrman
Judy Lehrman
12 years ago

Incarceration isn't just for a punishment, it's to remove them from others, especially in cases of violence, but for many other reasons also. To remove them from opportunities to repeat the crime. Why some people think of it only as punishment is beyond me.

Ray Stewart
Ray Stewart
12 years ago

I loved this doc, Its in-depth look and analysis is very well put together. I am what you might call a History Buff but I am also in to docs that puts society under the microscope (to quote a famous man). 10/10

dmxi
dmxi
12 years ago

i'm using a quote in my own words:
'' you can judge a society by it's treatment of their incarcerated.''

Brandon Costa
Brandon Costa
12 years ago

I really wanted to like this doc, but what a yawner. I agree with it though. Id like to see more docs on the subject. I believe society really needs to wake up on the subject of crime and punishment. Not enough attention is given to the root causes of criminal behavior. It was very interesting to note the low life expectancy of CO's after retirement.