Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Think Pink?

You tell me: Could it really be a crime deterrent to force jail inmates to wear pink coveralls and sleep in a pink jail? ("Mason County's pink duds have inmates vowing to reform," Houston Chronicle, Oct. 10)

Or is it just mean-spirited and silly?

What a shallow culture we live in if people really care more about about emasculating fashions than actually losing their freedom. It seems unlikely to me that would make much of an impact.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast at 7:12 AM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Straigt out of the Joe Arpallo book on crime deterrence.

10/10/2006 12:31:00 PM
Anonymous said...

In more barbaric lands, convicts are often forced to dress in drag and put on cabaret skits for their penal overlords' amusement. And they never get to watch the Warden's daughter wash the old Mustang in a string bikini.

God Bless America!

10/10/2006 04:34:00 PM
Joe G said...

Stupid comments aside...

Why is it superficial? Your commentary reveals a failure to think it through.

How would your average ag. assault convict react to being clothed in jeans and a white beater, and clothed with people dressed the same? Contrariwise, how would that same person react to being put in a pink fuzzy one-piece?

What people see and do affects how they behave. Take away their dignity - in a non-violent, humiliating-but-not-dehumanizing way, and suddenly you have different outcomes.

And note the change in recidivism. You may be willing to be hard, to do the time, to get props for being willing to go down, but nobody wants to go back to being embarassed.

What a clever - albeit inarticulately defended - alternative means of behavior modification.

And in answer to 800 lb gorilla's sally:

Let's turn that around. What if we arrested Rove and put him a jail cell for treason (intentionally harming the state by conspiring to blow a NOC's identity in order to further a political agenda. Death? Well, I'd settle for life in prison... in pink), and put alongside him...

Hastert (endangering the welfare of minors; other crimes as I think of them. Obstruction?)
Cheney (well, impeach him first, and then get him on something. Lies under oath? Conspiracy to commit war under false pretenses?)
Bush (too many to count. Criminal negligence. Negligent homicide. Treason. Violation of his oath.)
...
but we weren't being political in this thread, were we?

10/13/2006 02:25:00 PM

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