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Inkarmaceration
Making explicit the principles of reciprocal altruism that have passed criminals by | |
It has been said that increased levels of crime result from the alienation felt by individuals living in a society of strangers. It has also been said that criminality (or virtue, for that matter) is sometimes as much a matter of habit as morality.
I don't wish to debate those two notions; I would like
to debate the feasability of the following...
All prisoners have a computerised score reflecting their behaviour, which I shall call 'karma' - in analogy with, rather than direct reference to, the religious term.
Prisoners enter prison with a negative 'karma' score, dependent on the severity of their crime. Every prisoner has the ability to increase or decrease the karma of each other prisoner as they interact with them, although such karma rating is covert, for a variety of reasons. Importantly, the extent to which a karma score is increased or decreased is a function of the karma score of the increaser/decreaser. Prison staff intervene in the system acting as a increaser/decreaser with very high karma, rewarding prosocial behaviour such as attending courses, and punishing misbehaviour. Still with me? Various controls would have to be implemented to prevent karma vendettas, karma boosting partnerships or karma boosting rings, etc. For example, the effect of repeated karma ratings of one individual by another would decay rapidly with time. Wonderful computer software would pick up suspect karma rating patterns for staff to bust any karma boosting gangs. Perhaps (low-karma) prisoners could be asked to explain the reason for each karma rating at the end of each day with spurious ratings dropped.
It would be hoped that the above would provide a system to rate the effect of social interactions in the prison environment. The aim of such a system would be to promote an environment in which virtue is a measure of status, rather than physical strength or associations with feared individuals. As long as corruption in prison staff is avoided, their objective and powerful karma-rating influence would ensure that power in the system would stay with those whose behaviour was favoured by the prison authority.
To give the karma rating meaning, it should be used to provide benefits to the prisoners. I would not be so bold as to suggest that a high karma rating should be sufficient grounds for release, although it could be taken into account. It could also be taken into account for transfers to lower security prisons (e.g. a "SPAR system prison"). It could be used to provide benefits to prisoners - better cells, better food, hot showers, privacy, televisions, etc... However in this case there is perhaps a risk that prisoners will rationalise their good behaviour in terms of their subsequent rewards. I am not sure how much of a problem this would be. Either way, it would probably be a good idea to group prisoners by karma score, to create communities with norms of prosocial behaviour and encourage a progression from low karma to the sort of behaviour accepted on 'the outside'.
Halfbakery: SPAR System
SPAR_20system
[radicalllama, Jul 16 2008]
Halfbakery: Car-Ma
Car-Ma
Inkarmaceration for cars, sort of. [radicalllama, Jul 16 2008]
(?) Prison tycoon... wow.
http://www.prisonty.../pages/screens.htm#
Related? I wonder if they rate the prisoners' behavior.. [daseva, Jul 16 2008]
similar, but in college
https://community-s.../wiki/MeowMeowBeenz
[pertinax, Nov 22 2023]
[link]
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It is called positive re-enforcement. |
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This would work better as a SIMS add-on. |
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Bun for everything that makes prisons actually be usefull to the prisoners. |
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But what is wrong with Karma gangs? Assuming they do have to do good to get better karma rating. Organised karma sounds a lot better then organised crime. They might even stick to it once released and cities will be swarming with karma gangs. Just think of it: gangs of young people running around and helping people, selling karma on the streetcorner. Commercialise karma, after all they sold passages to heaven in the middle ages. |
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I don't understand the rating mechanism. Is this supposed to be explict (does everybody get a little remote on which to press + and - buttons?), or does someone watch everything and make notes? |
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I'm not sure I understand the rating mechanism either, but I was thinking more of the former than the latter, i.e. everyone has small remotes attached to their persons. I'm still unsure on whether ratings should be in the open (i.e. pointing a remote at someone) or covert (buttons in their shoes?). Each would have consequences... getting knifed in the showers because you weren't happy with Big Willie's responsiveness to your request for the salt... or else a generation of ex-convicts who are peculiarly sensitive to small movements of people's feet. I'm drawn to covert rating because, whilst it would give less immediate feedback about positive and negative behaviour, the uncertainty about what rating was going on could provide a stronger psychological pressure, and one more akin to the emotion of guilt. |
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Either way, the system might be improved if it were connected to the CCTV - karma ratings placing a tag on the CCTV footage for either the prisoner or an external validator to later approve or even quantify the ratings given. This could cut down abuse of the system. |
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Also, agreed that I'm not trying to stop benevolent karma gangs; just guys who sit around giving each other good karma ratings whilst not in fact getting each other cups of tea or complimenting each other's hair... |
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What happens to those prisoners who don't believe in Karma? After all belief in Karma is religious, so this system would force a unity of religious beliefs and force many who commit crimes to forsake their belief in God to accept this one.
In all Christianity, and true Judaism this is contrary to their belief. Many would consider it blasphemous.
It is like forcing God on an atheist, or forcing Jesus on a Jew, or forcing Allah on Christians. |
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Regardless of your karma system, of the 3 studies that I learned were done on prison systems, the singular commonality of them led to the evidence that over 70% of crimes are committed by people with poor relationships with their father.
It didn’t matter about their relationship with their mother or other family, their income or poverty, their race, religion, or education. Across the board of offenders or repeat offenders it was poor relationship with their fathers. |
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So forcing people to believe a new religion wouldn’t correct anything. |
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Sorry, I wasn't clear enough in the original idea (now edited), but the 'karma' of which I speak isn't meant to have any religious connotations. I'm simply using the concept of karma as a shorthand for describing a scoring system based on behaviour. |
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I do think that karma is a useful shorthand because just as (with karma) good and bad deeds shape future experiences, so it is with the non-religious 'karma-score' I am proposing - shaping the quality of prisoner's lives in prison. And just as karma makes one responsible for one's own life, this is what I am hoping my idea would do for the incarcerated. I am not trying to change their beliefs (and certainly not religious beliefs), only their behaviour. |
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On, your other point, I would be interested to read the specific studies to which you refer. However, I think it is an over-simplification to focus exclusively on relationships with fathers. Even if the 70%+ figure is correct, it doesn't prove that the offender's relationship with their father was the cause (direct or indirect) of their offending, as I think you are suggesting. (And even if the relationship with the father was causal, that doesn't necessarily say anything about the effectiveness of a new religion as an intervention.) |
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In any case, though fathers are important, I think the evidence points away the position you present, in which "their relationship with their mother or other family, their income or poverty, their race, religion, or education" is inconsequential. For instance, McCord (1982) carried out a study of the relationship between homes broken by the departure of the biological father and later serious offending. A loving mother turned out to be a protecting factor from the loss of a father. (Specifically, 62% offended in broken homes without affectionate mothers, and 52% from unbroken homes but with parental conflict, versus 22% for those from broken homes but with affectionate mothers.) Similarly, Juby and Farrington (2001) showed that boys who remained with their mother after parental separation had similar delinquency rates to boys from intact, low-conflict families, whereas boys who remained with their father had higher delinquency rates. Many other studies suggest the importance of other independent predictors - see for example Farrington (2005). |
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I wonder if there's a cheat code for infinite karma like on GTA Vice City... |
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[up up down left right down] |
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My father left when I was seven. All I know of morality was learned by knowing something another person was doing was wrong and then not being that way.
I've know no religion. |
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My morality is my own. I do good because that is my bent. |
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No outside influences are needed. |
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As for the idea; Karma scores within prison would rapidly become a form of currency, and you'd be made to pay up unless you can either kick ass, are connected, or have cred of some form or other.
The karma in prison goes unseen. |
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Ask yourself; how are handicapped people treated in prison?.. how about the elderly finishing life sentences? |
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People are people. Men are men. A code gets established and deviation results in punishment. |
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[+] It's too bad I missed this idea when the author was still around.
//the extent to which a karma score is increased or decreased is a function of the karma score of the increaser/decreaser.// This isn't really a good idea. I get that the intent is to devalue the judgement of those who have misjudged in their own circumstances, but to know the risks of one's own circumstances and the values of others is a completely different thing from knowing the benefit or loss of others actions to oneself. So John the axe murderer isn't likely to look kindly upon someone aiming at him with a shiv, and is as likely to appreciate a kindly "good morning" as anyone else.
/rewarding prosocial behaviour such as attending courses// Everyone in prison or a mental institution knows the low value of most of those courses and how they're judged to be "doing good" if they attend anyway. As such attendance is representative not of someone actually wanting to listen to someone yammer about the same thing over and over. Instead it's a mix of: psychopathy (how capable are they of presenting a different persona to the world than their real one); self control (how capable they are of suffering in the near term for future reward); perceived value of being seen as "good" by staff; the value to themselves of their time; and how attendance is rewarded or failure to attend punished.
A working objective measure of someone's willingness to cooperate in society and not eventually rape*, beat, steal from, threaten, or commit some other evil deed given the right circumstances has not been developed.
*fun fact: there are measurable differences in the brains of rapists of both sexes when compared to non-rapists. Also a person almost always needs to both have those changes and be victimized themselves before they will victimize someone else. |
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Everyone knows you rate Bob highly, and find a plausible reason. Doing so is a good way to keep one's knees intact. |
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