Difference Between A Jail And A State Reformatory?

[jfkbengals]

(01-19-2019, 04:47 PM)grampahol Wrote: And on the same hand we expect people who have spent 10 years locked up in such an environment to be able to just turn it off once released.
Part of the problem (in my mind anyway) is we've made prison and punishment out of mind, out of sight by putting prisons so far away from population centers which makes it extremely difficult for family and friends (and attorneys) to visit inmates which in turn allows us to keep prison populations to remain ever increasing. 
Not that it'll ever happen, but imagine if every prison build had to be right downtown where everyone was acutely aware of them. We might start thinking of crime and punishment quite differently.  After all it's not AS IF 1000s break out of prison every single day to terrorize the local citizenry. 

There was a prison in the center of Richmond when we first moved here from Cincy.  There was an electric chair there, so when the did execute someone the lights around the area dimmed.  Anyone who was around the prison new exactly what had just transpired.  I don't know how well of a deterrent that was, but it definitely could give you the creeps.

The prison break comment reminds me of something George Carlin once said, that the safest place to be was close to a prison.  What was his reasoning?  They aren't going to stick around.  The whole idea of breaking out of prison is to get as far away from the prison as possible!