Link didn't come through
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-overtime-german-prison-or-disneyland/
I hope that's the article you wanted

It's here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-germany-prisons-crime-and-punishment/

Nice idea but 60-minutes is missing the point here...

In the US the point is "punishment" and merely being sent to prison is not seen as enough punishment. (if simply serving time was the point in the US, then US prison conditions might be as good as German prison conditions) However in the US the dangerous conditions are intended as additional punishment, It is intended to pile punishment on top of time served.

Therefore being raped, bullied and beaten, being turned out, being pc'd or even killed by prisoners or guards, dying for lack of medical care, despair over over-crowed, noisy, bug infested conditions, the hopelessness of just being in prison,of crazy- long sentences and being 'buried alive by a malicious, ambitious prosecutor, well the over-crowding, the bad food, and the solitary confinement are intentional. "Bad conditions" are intentional "extra" punishment, a sort of 'silent' beef carried out by the "system",inflicted with impunity upon prisoners aka "heinousness criminals" Prison Rape becomes a just a media spectacle cheered on by tax-payers, stone throwers and dedicated revenge seekers alike. (Remember the reaction to the stories about Jarred the Subway guy being beaten up / raped after he was sent to prison?) " Serves him right." was the verdict. "He can expect even worse" the papers said

The idea in the US is not restorative or transformative justice which the 60-Minutes piece depicts as the point of imprisonment in Germany (as seen in interviews with German prison officials).. Well, the 60-minutes clip shows what is (theoretically) possible ( Maybe the holocaust changed attitudes in Germany about the dangers to the morals of an entire society?) But simply serving time isn't the point in US prisons where prisons are not actually meant to simply confine but prison conditions are intended as added punishment for the "scum of the earth.'

Maybe US courts once recognized "conditions in prison" were cruel and unusual punishment (like the electric chair) added to a prisoners sentence. They once found them unconstitutional but not now. No judge/ no court/ no revenge seeker winces as, after years on death row men sentenced to death are injected with "experimental" drugs which cause men to die, slowly, tortuously groaning and gasping for hours as the state "legally" tortures them to death while carrying out their 'legal' death sentence. But, who cares if men on death row die slow painful deaths from the poisonous concoctions which ( eventually) "put them to death" Even death is not punishment enough in the US. Who cares if "those people" suffer horribly before actually dying? "Serves them right." Right?

60 Minutes missed the point. The point is to punish and if inflicting a torturous death upon men sentenced to die isn't cruel and unusual, how can over-crowding or any other "prison condition" be immoral or self defeating either? Serves them right. Right?

Now that one-strike/ mandatory minimums for 'low-level criminals' are about to empty the prisons 'Sexual Predators' are the next money makers the Prison industrial Complex Business Plan sees on the horizon. Direct petition of juvenile sex offenders (no matter how young or immature the "offender) are the current heinous criminals deserving not only of long sentences but punishment while in prison..."Onece a child predator always a child predator...the gospel according to John Walsh) " Protecting our Children" is the new War Cry. Sex Offenders fill the bill as the most dangerous super- predators of all. and if they experience 'bad' conditions in prison, Serves them right. Right!

Or does it?

I quit watching 60 minutes years ago because they only report a problem with no solutions.

just like nbc's dateline every episode is about murders and nothing else gets old after a wile ! I've never seen an episode about nothing else but that

Well this 60 minutes episode does show what might be if the US had a different attitude toward punishment and 60 Minutes does show one warden who is at least trying to do some things a little differently. I will give him and 60 minutes that but as you can tell I am pretty cynical about "prison reform" actually changing the prison-guard-mentality. Mostly I see their "motto" as comply or die. fast or slow, US Prison 'conditions' are meant to squeeze the individuality out of prisoners and their families. . Just saying.

And, yes, rickybennett, dateline is just same 'plot' different faces over and over.. Unfortunately even though 'prison reform' may set free a few men sent to prison on mandatory minimums during the 'war on drugs" (and I am happy for that) It will still be same prison different faces all over again. Now my solution for real 'prison reform"? Just take every prisoner's picture and lock the picture up in their cell and let the actual human being slip out the back door and go live his life on the outside while the guards stay inside guarding and collecting the pictures of the 'virtual' prisoners while the guards stick around waiting for pension time to arrive.

When addressing prison reform, it is important to differentiate between prison reform and sentencing reform. They are totally different animals.

Prison reform will not happen in America for a very long time. Inadequate medical treatment, very few programs for rehabilitation, unsafe conditions for inmates vulnerable to physical harm in the general population of a prison, poor living conditions, and a sense of abject indifference toward the inmate and his family will continue. I don't see any changes to the conditions of prisons in America for a very long time and maybe never.

People simply do not care how inmates are treated until it happens to them, a loved one, or a family member. You see the same process in sex offender registration in that nobody cares or sees the harshness or the unfairness until it hits home.

The American people and the German people have completely different mindsets regarding inmates, their families, and those convicted of a crime. The attitude in Germany---and many other countries---is more of forgiveness whereas the attitude in America is an attitude of punishment and retribution.

German has learned that nobody---neither the prisoner nor society----benefits from a prison system that creates so much hardship for inmates and their families. America will never learn for several reasons but the main reason is that there is too much hate in this country with no end in sight.

Sentencing reform, on the other hand, is coming and will continue. These reforms, shorter sentences, programs for those convicted in lieu of prison--drug courts--and fewer mandatory minimums are not the result of the politicians who want to show mercy, but from a more simple reason----the government is just running out of money and out of prisons to place all its prisoners.

Janet is correct. Anyone who has been through the system for several years will attest that the day-to-day living conditions are geared to additional punishment. I will not go so far as to say the poor living conditions are intentional in all cases, but are because of an indifference to the prisoner and his family. Most of the shortcomings regarding the physical aspects of prison due to overcrowding are due to a lack of resources, but I do agree that the emotional aspects----the degrading of the inmate and constantly telling the inmate he or she is worthless---is intentional.

Much of the criminal justice system and penal system is oriented toward money and politics. Most of the problems in our prisons are due to overcrowding. When we take the profit motive and the politics out of our prison system, then we will be well on our way to true reform.

rewdiazepam

Rew you are right, there will not be any change for a very long time. Some of the reasons are more obvious, some of them are not so obvious. As a country our citizens have not seen the same things that have happened in Germany. There were world wars fought on those soils, they learned some things during that time too. But that has to do with all of it, the sentencing, the laws, the way they are applied and all of that. Where the treatment of those prisoners produced of the system that is not yet wise enough comes into play is when the money takes over. Profits drive everything. It's one of the few things that Wisconsin does right, they have not sold out yet to the commercial prison system. Granted their treatment of prisoners isn't great, but it is better than some things I have heard come out of the federal system or some of those southern states. There are some shocking things that go on in some places.

Now if we could just have "gross proprietorial misconduct reform' (aka open prosecutors to prosecution and make it so being a DA wasn't the road to political ambition?) Our past State attorney General is running not just on tough on crime (that might be concerning to budget conscious tax payers...no, she is running on "tough on sex offenders' bragging that she made the Sex Offender Registry larger, broader and :"saved our children" from SO's and human trafficking Now there is a savvy politician on her way to the US Senate in time to support all kinds of 'heinous' laws!
then I hope someday sentencing reform will include sex offenders and stop the direct petition of youngsters to adult courts and then on to prisons where the conditions are, to say the least, not like those in Germany?

Good point about the difference in "prison reform" and "sentencing reform" I had just kind of lumped both issues all together....

The line above should read: gross prosecutorial misconduct reform. Guess I agreed to the wrong spell check solution there?

I am (still) a little jaundiced about reform since I an=m in the process of clearing out boxes of papers from when I moved down from Oregon so my husband would have an "acceptable" parole package and be released from his NV' home away from home.

I came across a bunch of Justice Matters news letters sent to me from the (now defunct?) Western Prison Project .

The articles are discouragingly the same "message" as we are telling (each other) now.

There is even a copy of a "Government Study Commission on corrections sent out by NV Cure which says...in part... this is an opportunity for those of us who have, have had or been a loved one incarcerated in NV to voice your opinion as a stakeholder....

Thus we vow to soldier on...planning to repeat and repeat testimony before another legislative body, another 'set' of politicians in the (still) fond hope that sentencing reform and maybe even prison reform might someday trickle down (like the blessed rain from 'heaven's elite) while politicians everywhere are set to release a few to save $$ but keep the prisons full by morphing words like Dangerous baby raper/ pedophile/ forever dangerous into "Super-predator" aka sex offender and maintain life sentences and full prisons too now that they have special SO yards prepared and Civil commitment "Facilities" lined up and for profit private contractors waiting with their hands out ...I agree, Reform of both prisons and sentencing is indeed as necessary as it ever was...just give e a minute to put away all these news letters from past advocacy and face the future with a smiling face (and greet the next ever younger Parole officer poking around in my refrigerator and asking stupid vapid questions proving he knows nothing except that he expects a raise because he supervises all these super-predators on the registry...in order to protect children ...ARHG!!!!!

In the end, the American people are responsible for the sad state of prisons and our criminal justice system. They are the voters who clamored for more laws, mandatory minimums, longer prison sentences, and a system which offers no chance for rehabilitation.

The politicians are just giving their constituents what they want in order to continue to be elected and re-elected. Now that prisons are costing so much, LEA---law enforcement--has become militarized, and the entire system is on life support people cannot figure out what happened.
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We caused this mess. We allowed the media to control our emotions and to instill fear in us. The majority wanted politicians to be "tough on crime" and that is exactly what they have done. More laws, more felony convictions, longer prison terms, and a whole lot of injustice is what we now have.

We as citizens allowed the same politicians who were elected and re-elected year after year as a "tough on crime" candidates to enact all these laws that contribute to the sad state we now find ourselves. But we encouraged the laws, asked for them to be enacted, praised the politicians when the laws were passed, and now we see the consequences.

If you create a Frankenstein monster, you can't be real surprised if he eats the village.

rewdiazepam

Rew you are hitting the nail on the head again... We the People are to blame... lock stock and barrel. Along with doing all the things you have mentioned.

Over the last 30+ years they have dumbed down the children. If you aren't sure you should believe me, go ask any of them 35 and under, Who is Lenin? You can also ask another favorite of mine, Who is Marx? Then when they are just about to get really irritated with you for all these seemingly stupid questions ask them, What was the holocaust and who were the first victims of the Final solution? (because they weren't Jews, they were the mentally ill and political dissidents of the time) Those who choose to ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

There is only one person that can fix this... we must look inward, that person is you, me, and all of our voting citizens in this country. We the People can fix this, it is going to hurt like most things that result in change, but we will all be better for it. Unfortunately, I don't think as a country we'll get there until we are on the verge of revolution and we just aren't there yet.