The American prison system practices amoralist treatment of inmates? No way.
So, what would you do? The state has to signal its disapproval of the actions of criminals (in a way that is easy for everybody to understand), thus, naturally, prisons must be unpleasant places to be. Far from being a violation or dereliction of duty, these prisons are in fact performing to a tee the role that prisons should perform; that is, to be hard, nasty places of punishment and suffering for the inmates.
Not all inmates are alike. Not all of them are there for the most heinous offenses that you're probably envisioning (rape, murder, child molestation, etc.). For the purpose of this conversation this is assuming, of course, that everyone who is in prison is there because they deserve to be there -and that law enforcement caught the right man in every one of those cases. Prisons should be places of punishment for those inmates who are truly forsaken, certainly, but for those inmates who can be redeemed, rehabilitation as well.
So is this really the right way to go about it? Especially considering that many prisoners are there for nothing more serious than drug offenses?
