Who? Why? How? What? Where? and When? Part I

First ask yourself why and how did they end up in prisons. Most cases, it's due to economics and social, political, or drugs. Nana i ke kumu; look to the source of the problems. There are some that are innocent and some that are guilty that are incarcerated. The system is to keep the penal system profitable and thriving. U.S. society uses it as a band-aid and not for rehabilitation. It's a panacea to remove those that don't comply to their colonial rules and to get rid of unacceptable people off their streets which includes the mentally -challenged, as well as, those that break the laws that seriously affect the public's welfare. There is a holistic method in problem-solving to reduce the prison population and to rehabilitate those incarcerated and the prevention so it doesn't get to that extreme whereby someone has to be locked up. These are all separate issues that have to be tackled and dealt with as a whole. We're asking: Why are the offenses committed? What created the situations? What are the causes? How do we prevent over-using prisons? How do we rehabilitate? How do we prevent repeated offenses? What is our responsibility? How can we help? Are we doing enough? What is their worth? Is there a positive end to this? What would you suggest?

What would induce someone to resort to crime? Often there is a case of hopelessness, lack of confidence, victimization with no recourse to justice and protection, reaction to actions committed against one's person. Thus many reasons come into play whereby someone doesn't make a good choice of action whether that person is right or wrong and must suffer the consequence of their actions. There are white-collar and blue-collar crimes that are committed and in the justice system, the white-collared criminals almost never gets prison time; while the blue-collar criminal will almost certain receive prison time. It deals with the haves and the have nots. The rich affluent and the poor or modest industrious worker trying to protect their rights and that of others. There are also political prisoners who are incarcerated just to get them out of they way and incapacitated in a form to subdue them. Our Hawai'i prisoners can fit the whole spectrum of why they are imprisoned. Some equate prison life to military life as a means of survival; after all, what options do they have?

It would be good to do a more indepth study as to what triggers the prisoners to be incarcerated and what kind of life they would have once freed. There are ways to prevent them from being incarcerated in the first place; but we should be looking at the dynamics and what creates desperate actions on many levels. The other questions is should they be incarcerated? There is a lot of room for discussion and the fact of double-standards that are applied.

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Tane December 6, 2008 at 8:58pm

What would induce someone to resort to crime? Often there is a case of hopelessness, lack of confidence, victimization with no recourse to justice and protection, reaction to actions committed against one's person. Thus many reasons come into play whereby someone doesn't make a good choice of action whether that person is right or wrong and must suffer the consequence of their actions. There are white-collar and blue-collar crimes that are committed and in the justice system, the white-collared criminals almost never gets prison time; while the blue-collar criminal will almost certain receive prison time. It deals with the haves and the have nots. The rich affluent and the poor or modest industrious worker trying to protect their rights and that of others. There are also political prisoners who are incarcerated just to get them out of they way and incapacitated in a form to subdue them. Our Hawai'i prisoners can fit the whole spectrum of why they are imprisoned. Some equate prison life to military life as a means of survival; after all, what options do they have?

It would be good to do a more indepth study as to what triggers the prisoners to be incarcerated and what kind of life they would have once freed. There are ways to prevent them from being incarcerated in the first place; but we should be looking at the dynamics and what creates desperate actions on many levels. The other questions is should they be incarcerated? There is a lot of room for discussion and the fact of double-standards that are applied.

This reply was deleted.

Na Ohana

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