Mr. Shinohara will DRASTICALLY reform the prison system. How well would the following plan work? What side effects will there be?

Asked by EgaoNoGenki (1164) December 20th, 2009

In “Perfecting the Past,” our protagonist will abolish the death penalty 109 years in the past! Moreover, instead of letting prisoners rot in their cells 23 hours a day, they will ALL be put to work (unless physically ill or incapacitated.)

A federal penal colony will open in Liberia; after Mr. Shinohara pays off their National Debt and gives them a generous surplus, the Liberian government will gladly welcome the unwelcome imports. The WORST criminals will be sent here to construct roads, schools, sewers, water mains, and ALL aspects of 1st-world infrastructure in this 3rd-world country.

Once the exported American prison labor “perfects” Liberia with the infrastructure it needs to be a 1st-world country, they’ll work in neighboring countries – Sierra Leone, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast, in mobile prison camps (but kept together with the “chain gang” method).

Back home, he will close down the underperforming excess prisons and set limits to how many prisons and jails there are. (When prisons overcrowd, inmates are sent to the emptiest prisons, no matter how far away they are. Or, depending on the jurisdiction’s decision, the worst inmates get sent to Liberia to ease the overcrowding.)

Some are in Liberia for life, while others will serve time there, and be ordered not to return to America when their sentences are up. (Of course others may be allowed to return to America.) So many former prisoners will settle, and Liberia will become like Australia for America. (Australia was a former penal colony of Britain.)

I was able to find an outline of this prison reform plan in an outline document I made for this novel months ago. Here is the copy/paste:

——- BEGIN OUTLINE——-

6) On Taka’s train trip to Washington, DC, he will write up a proposal for a vast and enormous overhaul to the legal & prison system.
a) Entirely abolish the death penalty; anyone on death row will have their sentences commuted to Life.
i) Time, money, and labor should not be wasted on an execution; put these inmates to work.
b) Strictly reducing the presence of state prisons
i) Only one state prison per 50,000 square miles in any given state
(1) If states are smaller than 50,000 square miles, combine the square-mileage of a neighboring state and repeatedly do so if necessary until the total reaches or exceeds 50,000 square miles. Thereby make that prison a “State-Regional Prison”
(a) A few states in New England are smaller than 50,000 square miles. If four of their states’ square-mileages exceed 50,000 square miles, the prison can be named “New England Quad-State Regional Prison.”
(b) Other situations will cause for aptly applied names. Examples are “Bi-state, Tri-State,” etc.
(2) If there are already more state prisons than the allotted amount in a given state, the number of prisons beyond the allotment must be torn down or sold/repurposed into different institutions and prisoners moved to the remaining prisons.
ii) Existing prisons are allowed to expand their perimeters– build up and/or widen out.
iii) If a new prison shall be built elsewhere in the state and the maximum allotment has already been reached, tear down or sell/repurpose an older prison first.
iv) If separate prisons are needed for separate demographic groups (e.g. women and juveniles), then place them in a separate section of the entire prison compound; fenced/walled off from the other parts of the prison.
(1) If maximum allotment has not been reached, the state is free to construct prisons for different demographic groups as necessary.
c) Addressing Overcrowding
i) If state prisons start to overcrowd, transfer prisoners that you see most fit for transfer, to another state prison that does not currently suffer an overcrowding problem, as long as it is of the appropriate demographics.
ii) If a transfer is not possible, release only the criminals who committed the least serious non-violent crimes and/or have the lightest sentences.
(1) Examples are overdrawn check convictions, fraud convictions, and any other conviction that did not involve physical or threats of physical harm to another human being.
(a) I will soon institute mandatory financial rehabilitation camps for anyone who committed financial crimes
(i) So that financial criminals can avoid prison in the first place.
(ii) Also learn how to better manage and conduct their finances.
(iii) And most of all, prevent prison overcrowding.
(iv) Other, similar camps will be initiated for other non-violent criminals whose crimes match the camps’ purpose and operations.
(If their crime was still serious enough, it may merit regular prison time, even if it does not involve violence.)
iii) If neither is possible, and/or the overcrowding still persists despite these measures, transfer the worst criminals and/or those with the longest sentences to either the nearest federal prison, or one of the two federal penal colonies – in Alaska or Liberia.
(1) (I will later negotiate with and offer an economic boost for Liberia in exchange for their acceptance.)
(2) Transfer them to where their labor is needed the most.
d) Reducing federal prisons
i) Only one federal prison for every five states
(1) Territories are included in the count.
ii) Just like state prisons, federal prisons may expand upward and outward, but no new prisons may be built beyond the current allotment.
e) Reducing military prisons
i) Only one military prison can be built for every 250,000 servicemen in each branch of the military.
ii) POW prisons are to be annexed to an existing military prison if the allotment has been reached. If not, they can be built separately.
f) Reducing county jails
i) Any county with 2,500 square miles or more can have a county jail.
(1) Counties with less than 2,500 square miles can combine with neighboring counties to make county-regional jails.
(a) Cimarron and Texas County, on the panhandle of Oklahoma, which both have less than 2,500 square miles each, can jointly construct an “Outer Panhandle County-Regional Jail” (or “Outer Panhandle Regional Jail” if they prefer. Note that jails and prisons are on different levels.)
g) Reducing city jails
i) Any city with a population of 50,000 or more may have city jails.
ii) Any settlements under 50,000 people are limited to jail cells in the police stations.
iii) In either case, only one jail cell for every 1,000 people before a tax penalty.
(1) For every jail cell over the allotment, an additional 5% tax will be surcharged over the cost of the additional cell, and cumulates thereafter.
(a) Therefore, building two jail cells over the allotment will incur an extra 10% tax for each, three cells will incur 15% for each, four will add 20%, 5 = 25%, and so on.
iv) If the jails come close to overcrowding, like all the other categories of jails and prisons, either release the pettiest offenders, or transfer the worst offenders to a higher level of incarceration.

——- END OUTLINE——-

Sorry, copy/pastes of outlines don’t transfer too well to Fluther’s Question Details.

1. What is your opinion on the plan to ship off the worst criminals to Liberia? (and Alaska, I guess…)

2. Anyway, Shinohara’s philosophy here is that all the inmates are potential useful labor, so none should ever be wasted with executions.

3. His closing down and limiting the # of prisons in America is part of an elaborate plan to use free (well, low- or no-cost) labor to turn the 3rd world into the 1st world.

4. How does Shinohara’s reform of the prison system compare to the prison system of today?

5. How do you like the shipping away of the worst of the overcrowd, to other countries?

6. What unforeseen “side effects” might Liberia get for receiving American prison labor to build the country’s infrastructure?

7. Is this excess prison labor best spent in Liberia, or Alaska? Why? (Remember, only the worst of the worst inmates are to get shipped to remote penal colonies like these.)

8. Is there any potential for this prison reform to backfire, as is? If so, how?

9. What revisions do you suggest for this prison reform?

10. Do you agree that shipping off the worst criminals to these remote prison colonies will make America a safer nation?

11. What do you suppose Liberia will be like 50 years after it receives the first American prisoners? (It’ll become the “Australia of Africa,” won’t it?)

12. In our reality, prisons are plagued with cost overruns and budget deficits. Do you believe this reform will save considerably on the budget, and may even help it?

13. What problems do you find with the concept of “mobile prison camps” from 1900 on? (After all, they need to build lengths of roads, pipes, and power/phone lines.)

14. Should the imported prisoners work alongside the native Liberian prison population?

Well, I just hope that this Shinoharan prison reform will truly make America a better country than it is now!