crabapple & letter from kid

[boxofdelights]

Here's the crab-apple today.


I got email from my kid who is studying to be a nurse:

I'm listening to an interview with a nurse who works in a correctional facility in Canada.

I've always had the opinion (based on little information) that prison is an ineffective tool for handling people who act inappropriately and the term "correctional facility" is essentially false advertising. My idealistic view is that prisons should be more focused on educating & rehabilitating people, giving them the tools to avoid committing crimes in the future.

When kids act inappropriately, does time-out work? Do they learn anything from it? Are they less likely to act that way again, or are they just going to be sneakier about it next time? Does punishment actually lead to better behavior?

That last question opens it up so wide I don't know where to start.

Comments

[sasha_feather]

There is probably research on that question. It's way outside of my field though.

Your kid may be interested in learning about prison abolition.

[sovay]

Here's the crab-apple today.

That's lovely.

That last question opens it up so wide I don't know where to start.

I have no suggestions except a research list.

[randomdreams]

You could start by talking about the group of people who think prisons are punishment, the group of people who think prisons should be about getting people to change and prepare them for their release, and the group of people who think that prisons are there to keep some people away from the rest of us, and how power struggles between those groups have created what we have now.

[sonia]

And then there are the people for whom prisons are a profit center, and the people for whom prisons are a tool to extend slavery for Black people. (Maybe/hopefully countries besides the US aren't experiencing those.)

[sonia]

When kids act inappropriately, does time-out work?
Ideally a time-out is a chance for the kid to regulate their nervous system, rather than a punishment.

I do not have citations to hand, but I believe there has been a lot of research about how positive feedback works much better to change behavior than negative feedback. I like the book "Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor which is partly about clicker training and partly about positive feedback in general.

[boxofdelights]

So here's my first answer:

It's a really big question. I have a friend who was a nurse in a jail in Michigan for a while, and it sounded like she had almost no power or resources to give people the help they needed. But Michigan is a weird place these days; its government is dedicated to making the world more Hunger Games.

The first piece of an answer I've got is this article: https://www.denverpost.com/2018/04/13/serious-brain-injuries-colorado-injuries/

"Through a project that began five years ago, researchers have screened 4,100 people in jail, on probation or assigned to drug courts in Denver and five other counties to find out how many have traumatic brain injury — an impairment that could impact the likelihood of their return to the criminal justice system. The results were stark: 54 percent had a history of serious brain injury, compared with 8 percent of the general population.

“This is a picture of the most vulnerable segment of our entire community population,” said Dr. Kim Gorgens, a clinical professor of psychology at the University of Denver, which runs the project along with the traumatic brain injury division at Colorado Department of Human Services. “This is not a group of serial murderers or notable psychopaths. This is the standard, average, typical probationer or jail inmate.”

The initial screen used by researchers is a list of questions about previous head injuries, concussions, car accidents, assaults or partner abuse that involved blows to the head. Researchers aren’t counting people who’ve had their “bell rung” playing sports or were concussed after a fall. They’re concerned with the more serious injuries — those who’ve been knocked unconscious for 30 minutes or more or been in a coma; people who lost consciousness before age 15; and those who have sustained multiple blows to the head, perhaps because of domestic violence.

Those with a history of brain injury detected on the initial questionnaire were offered a more scientific, neuropsychology screen that tests memory and reaction time. Among the 1,200 who took that test, nearly all were found to have the impairment."

[redbird]

Wrt the last question, my impression (not a parent, not official research) is that yes, time-outs work, but they way they work is short term. Not "you've been bad, your punishment is that you have to sit in your room alone until bedtime" but "take half an hour, sit away from whatever was upsetting or exciting you, and hopefully calm down."

On the other hand, that's connected to the fact that I would occasionally announce that our previous cat was getting a time out and shut him in the bedroom. I did that when he'd gotten over-excited and bitten or scratched me, and the idea was for him to get distracted and for me to stop being angry. Mostly, I'd open the door half an hour later and find him curled up quietly, sometimes even asleep, because he'd forgotten the whole thing. With a human there would probably be a discussion at least to the extent of "you know you're not supposed to bite people" and maybe "how can we stop things getting to that point?"

A "corrections" system that was using that model wouldn't be locking people up for years, or even months: that's "sleep it off in the town jail" and/or a term of probation that includes someone being required to stay away from certain people or places, or to avoid intoxicants.

[telophase]

Po Bronson, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children (2009) has a lot of info on what the science (up to 2008/9ish) says about punishment and behavior. It's been a long time since I read it, but IIRC, like people said above, timeouts are basically to remove kids from the situation and give them a chance to calm down before you talk to them about the situation, they're not punishments in and of themselves and don't work if you use them as punishments.

When it comes to corporal punishment, it turns out that what the science says is that spanking can be effective as a behavior corrective, but only if the adult doesn't do it in anger, and takes the time beforehand to make sure the child understands what the spanking is for.

There's probably more research done since the book was published that reinforces or contradicts it, but it's a place to start.

[siderea]

Does punishment actually lead to better behavior?

Yes. It does.

For some people. In some circumstances.

I worked in "corrections": I am a therapist who treated prison inmates, and I have a keen professional interest in antisocial and violent behavior.

I generally don't bother trying to have conversations about it with people who have no direct experience of this. Pretty much everyone who discusses this in the abstract makes the same very basic mistake – that includes just about every comment above.

There is not one reason people commit crimes. There are multiple reasons. There are people who commit crimes for profit because they see no better economic opportunity. There are people who commit crimes because they are not able to control their violent or otherwise felonious impulses. There are people who commit crimes because they don't want to have to control their violent or otherwise felonious impulses. There are people who commit crimes because people they love or want to impress are engaged in crime. There are people who are so mentally ill they can't tell what they are doing. There are people who commit crimes because they can't manage their emotions. There are people who commit crimes because it brings them great pleasure. There are people who commit crimes out of desperation, particularly the desperation to service their addictions. There are people who commit crimes by accident, but statutory is statutory. There are people who commit crimes because they feel entitled to, to an extent that qualifies as a mental illness.

There isn't one right answer. There can't possibly be one right answer. And just about every discussion about "what should we do about criminals?" seems to me to be an act of denial of the complexity of the problem and the diversity of the human experience – an attempt to reduce the problem to something trivially solvable so it can be gotten rid of, instead of actually engaged with.

And for another thing, I hate questions like, "Does punishment actually lead to better behavior?" because what if the answer is yes? Does that make it okay? Does that make it desirable? Is efficacy the only thing we care about? (Pro tip: how about morality and ethics, do we trouble to care about that, too? How about mental and physical health?) What if it works but only by causing someone irreparable harm? What if it works, but only in 90% of cases, and makes 10% of cases worse?

Discussions of whether things "work" becomes a proxy for the completely distinct question of whether those things are acceptable, desirable, etc.

[ljgeoff]

dedicated to making the world more Hunger Games

Heh.

As Siderea said above, it's so incredibly complex that I don't think anyone can really wrap their heads around it. I worked in the county jail, and one thing that dismayed me is that there was absolutely no treatment for the addicts.

One of the Captains and I talked about putting all the addicts in a jail that was also a treatment facility. It wouldn't work for everyone, but it would work for some at least. Include real medical, dental, and mental health care. Throw in some GED, college courses, and job training. A pipe dream, I know - I mean, that's gonna cost at least as much as a fighting jet, right?

Did I ever tell you that when someone in Michigan goes to jail, the state cuts off their Medicaid/Medicare? So the county has to pay for all of their medical care. And guess what? The county doesn't want to pay for their health care! Sucks to have, say, sickle cell or rotting teeth in county jail. As our doctor said, "Don't come to jail, then!"