>
>
> Another thing. Sionce when did "prison" become synonymous with "torturous
> punishment"? I don't recollect anybody here arguing that people who are
> incarcerated should be brutalized. The only person here who has made
> anything like a case that prison should serve the function of revenge is
> andie. Everybody else has argued that dangerous people should be kept away
> from society at large.
>
There it is. Your response collapses all the differentiations made during the conversation about the number of not-dangerous criminals put away for eons under torturous conditions who would not be put away in other places, it elides the whole discussion of how there's basically no prisons in the US that aren't a torturous (remember, many folks on the list have suggested that losing your freedom, living with criminals far "worse" then you, and experiencing constant indignities is torturous - even if its not electroshock, rape or waterboarding) or violent experience (remember, many folks have [properly] expanded the definition of violence to verbal threats) that basically ensure recidivism and it misses the clearly retributive nature of a number of Doug's (and maybe some others' - I'd have to check) posts.