Question

Do you thing we need more prisons? Is that an effective way to deal with the crime problem? What else might be done? Hirschi's recommendations are controversial because he opposes the popular practice of building more prisons. What do you thing? If we don't lock up today's offenders swiftly and surely, how can we satisfy society's demand for retribution? Do you think that New York City's new crime approach and Hirschi's suggestions attack the broader conditions that breed crime, such as poverty, racial prejudice, and weak families? Why or why not? Does lethal injection illustrate the "medicalization of death"? How or how not? Does lethal injection "sugar coat" capital punishment by making suffering less apparent? Is lethal injection more humane? Why or why not?

Answer 1

• I personally think prisons are a good thing, but I don’t think that we need more.It is effective to deal with crime problems but there are more things we can do. We can, like Hirschi said, start with helping children before they commit crimes. People are afraid of prisons, so maybe they can have inmates talk to children and give them a little slice of the prison life. Another thing that can be done is having more after school programs that don’t require much money, so low income families can participate and keep out of trouble.
• I agree with Hirschi’s recommendations. More prisons wont solve the problem of crime, it just gives criminals more places to stay AFTER they commit the crime.
• I never really thought about what we can do instead. I do think we should still lock people up, but maybe make prison a harsher place to be. Inmates have college educations and healthcare in there, maybe it shouldn’t be that rewarding.
  
• I think that Hirschi’s suggestions are correct when it comes to the broader conditions.Certain social and physical characteristics of urban neighborhoods contribute to high crime rates. These characteristics include poverty, dilapidation, population density, and population turnover.
• Poverty and other community conditions give rise to certain subcultures through which adolescents acquire values that promote deviant behavior. Albert Cohen wrote that lack of success in school leads lower-class boys to join gangs whose value system promotes and rewards delinquency.
• I think that the lethal injection does not illustrate the medicalization of death because no medication condition is being treated. I think this is more deserving of people who are actually dying.
• I personally think that lethal injections “sugar coat” capital punishment. The way I think about it is that a criminal can have someone in their captivity for years. They can slowly torture them and do everything in their power to drain them mentally and physically. Why not repay the criminal with the same punishment in jail? Giving them the lethal injection is the “easy” way out in thesense that they get to just die easily without any torture or time to think about the crimes they have committed.