For centuries, philosophers have attempted to justify society’s right to deprive some of its members of their liberty “in the interest of justice.” Some have argued that punishment deters future crime. Others have maintained that it restores a moral balance upset by wrongdoing. Still others have viewed prison as an opportunity to reform the offender, to return him to society a better man than when he entered its custody. Despite their profound disagreements, these competing schools of thought share one important assumption: that punishment serves some purpose beyond the mere infliction of suffering. That assumption, I believe, deserves closer scrutiny.

If prison is justified because it protects society, rehabilitates offenders, deters future crime, and/or restores justice, then it must ultimately be judged by whether it accomplishes those ends. If it instead returns men to society more damaged, more alienated, and no better equipped to live lawful lives than when they entered, then prison is not simply failing administratively. It is failing philosophically. I know this because I lived there.

For a time, I ceased being David. I became an inmate number, a cell assignment, another body counted every morning and every evening. During those years I had ample opportunity to observe not merely the people incarcerated around me, but the institution itself. I arrived with opinions. I left with convictions (pun intended).

If prison is justified because it protects society, rehabilitates offenders, deters future crime, and/or restores justice, then it must ultimately be judged by whether it accomplishes those ends. 

This is not an argument against punishment. Societies have every right to protect themselves from those who would do them harm. Dangerous people sometimes need to be removed from the public, both to prevent further victimization and to affirm that certain conduct simply cannot be tolerated. I have never believed otherwise.

But, I do question whether the institution we call prison bears any meaningful relationship to the philosophical justifications offered in its defence.

Plato believed punishment should ultimately improve the soul of the wrongdoer. Jeremy Bentham argued that punishment is itself an evil and can only be justified if it prevents a greater one. Michel Foucault questioned whether prisons were ever primarily about rehabilitation at all, suggesting instead that they function as instruments of discipline, conformity, and social control. They disagreed about almost everything.

Curiously, each offers us a different standard by which to judge the modern prison. My own experience suggests it struggles to satisfy any of them.

When I first entered prison, I assumed rehabilitation was more than a slogan. I believed there would be serious efforts to understand why people offend and equally serious attempts to reduce the likelihood that they would do so again. It seemed a reasonable expectation. If society was …