From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Mar 09 1999 - 14:33:11 MST
At 11:32 PM 3/8/99 EST, Glen Finney wrote:
> Another option for future use might be to establish penal colonies for
>repeat violent offenders in other areas of the solar system, such as on the
>dark side of the Moon.
The *what*?!
================
This whole discussion is very creepy to anyone with a passing familiarity
to the 19th C Panopticon theory of imprisonment lambasted so savagely by
Foucault. For all his faults and extravagances, I suspect he was on the
money in finding this sort of dehumanisation utterly vile and
counter-productive (however awful current programs are).
Most serious offenders are deeply fucked up, shaped and deformed by abusive
experiences and operating with extraordinarily limited social repertoires.
Isolation just intensifies this cruel soul death. Foolish and sentimental
as it sounds, what they need is love - maybe Tough Love, but not coldness.
How we manage to provide this I don't even start to know. I suppose the
best way is somehow to intervene early - again, this then becomes a matter
of reviving community, especially among the socially deracinated.
My A2cents.
Damien Broderick
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