I have been hearing over and over again just how full the prisons are becoming. As if this is not bad enough, through various parts of the world, there are behaviors that culturally support imprisonment. Phrases indicating that you are not a real man until you have been jailed at least once, and celebrating someone's return from jail are only a few examples. But wouldn't this sort of behavior defy the concept upon which jails were built in the first place?
What is the history behind jail? I don't know, but I would guess that it was intended to be the adult form of "time out". You make a mistake, and you get locked up to think about it so you won't do it again. Then isolation wasn't enough, so various ways of humiliation, strenuous work, torture, and post-jail obstacles were created to give jailing a more powerful stand. Even that didn't work.
Jail now is so diluted as a form of discipline that people take pride in being jailed. So what is the purpose? And why exactly are all these people qualifying for prison time? Is this a problem in legal systems? Is it time to update our laws and reconsider imprisonment as a punishment tool? And what would you do instead? What is an effective method of punishment these days?
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