Proportionality, and the Philosophical Justifications for Penal Reform

THE ETHICS OF INCARCERATION PRACTICES—ABOLITION, PROPORTIONALITY, AND THE PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATIONS FOR PENAL REFORM MODULE 7 Research Paper Summer 2023 ASU-Tempe Campus I. Introduction: Rethinking the Ethics of Incarceration Practices The imprisonment is not only a legal matter but has several social and ethical issues in questions of fairness, reformation, and inmates’ rights’ infringement. This is because while some people believe that imprisonment maintains order in the society, others are of the view that it creates on the systems of oppression. Gilliard (2018) thus notes that in analyzing the effects of modern imprisonment one has to assess them in terms of lifelong effects. Thus, instead of helping people become better, confinement works more like a punitive measure that makes people remain in socially excluded positions. The safety of the public is an issue that cannot be compromised but there are cases where the laws fail to address the negative effect of a long sentence. This means that these systems are seen as serving justice whether they do so in real terms or just perpetuating exclusion. According to Garland (2019), legal arrangements call for incarceration to restore order; however, this negatively impacts minorities. The moral argument is that one probed to question whether a penal system mainly serve as a reformatory objective or retributive one. These ethical concerns will have to be responded by moving away from the retributive justice model exclusively towards the restorative justice that will incorporate both values. Criminal justice systems argue that imprisonment is one of the measures of handling crime, and though ethical discussions show a more profound aspect of imprisonment. In Gilliard (2018), the author seeks to establish how imprisonment has changed from being a corrective measure to being a technique of regulation. Rehabilitation is perhaps more of an anticipation while punitive policies are the realities of the matter, which hampers the chances of reformation. Imprisonment for deviance is one of the parts of justice system that aim at reducing criminality through detainment; however, it has other impacts within its scope. According to Garland (2019), there is evidence that imprisonment also affects the socially disadvantaged groups making the disadvantage worse among them. Thus, the question arises in regard to which the modern punitive systems are more compliance with the principles of moral responsibility or they further develop the degradation of the system. The ethical considerations of punitive models can be a claim that they do not effectively decrease crime or exacerbate social inequality. There is, therefore, a need to review the current institution with a view of transforming them to rehabilitation institutions while not compromising the safety of the public. Achieving these goals has to be done preserving human dignity which is a critical aspect in the society. There are two ethic models when it comes to imprisonment and these are the abolitionism and the proportionality. He further went on to say that imprisonment prolongs social inequality in a society thus making it irrelevant institutions. According to Breems (2019), her critique of the prison system reforms the prisons into instruments that perpetrate race and economic domination other than being a solution to the problem of crime. On the other hand, von Hirsch argues on proportional punishment to mean that measured punishment is a way of emphasizing on justice. Based on the discussion of the relevant literature, it can be argued that proportionality brings order in the kind of sentencing so that it does not address punitive measures strictly. The abolitionist view put forward the question whether it is possible to have justice where there is not any justice. It also objected to the argument that punitive confinement is good for teaching people not to misbehave or disobey the law. What proportionality requires is that ethical imprisonment is relative to changes in sentencing and rehabilitation programs (Breems, 2019). If measures that contribute to reforming the aspects of the sentencing to make it proper and lessen the excesses of the carceral system, then the carceral system is it justified. This is a difficult question for the scholars and policymakers because it is not clearly defined whether the precariously employed precarious workers should be reformed or eliminated. There are two types of evaluation regarding the use of incarceration that focuses on the right to punish and assess whether it can be made to conform to today’s standards. Although proportionality provides an assurance of reasonable and fairly proportional measures when determining the degree of a punishment, the prejudice of the existing systems cannot be completely eliminated. Other methods of delivering justice include restorative and transformative justice which do not involve the conventional punitive measures but rather, aims at fixing the broken relationship between the offender and the victim, and ensuring that the offender accept responsibility to reduce the chances of repeating the crime again (Surprenant, 2017). As for many of them are convinced that they can ensure citizens’ security and cope with severe crimes. In their current article, Bersot and Arrigo (2011) are concerned with the general ethical dilemma of imprisonment with specific focus on the psychological outcome of imprisonment and physical chaining of prisoners in prisons. As much as the rate at which incarceration as a form of punishment has reduced as the main style of correction this simply means that punitive model correction is still rife in the legal and social systems. These can only be addressed by changing a certain policy on the penal system and introduce new principles in penology in order that the justice will be served and the prisoners will be reformed. II. The Historical Construction of Carceral Institutions and Their Ethical Implications The history of these carceral institutions may be said to have evolved from early punitive forms to the modern structured prison systems. Many years ago the measure of punishment included physical retaliation, banishment or imprisonment for a relatively short period. Penal practice during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave emphasis on confinement as a mode of correction through penitentiary. Ellis (2021) believes that early prisons were aimed to civilize the discipline through watching and ordering the conduct to ensure that the state retained control over the vulnerable groups of people. This was in sync with other changes happening in society such as industrialization as well as expansion of bureaucratization. The use of modern prison came to existence as others were trying to manage people through order and confinement rather than flogging. According to Barabas (2022), incarceration expanded the apparatuses of authority to include legal and political structures or frameworks of discipline. Slowly, the penal systems became defined institutions which controlled labor, served to perpetuate social stratification and brutality, and sanctified state interference in the private lives of citizens. In consideration of the history the use of imprisonment prompts some ethical concern about the composition of justice. According to Engstrom and Van Ginneken (2022), ethical reflection is constructed by prison architecture itself to prescribe the lives of those incarcerated. Knowledge of them is critical for a more expansive analysis of the effects of imprisonment in the current society. The traditional function of prisons follows three main objectives which include disciplinary control and racial segregation and economic management instead of rehabilitation. The social caste system went unchecked when penitentiaries of old favored marginalized populations as their primary targets which remains an active practice in modern incarceration. The development of carceral systems occurred during economic changes which primarily aimed to discipline populations considered surplus labor according to Ellis (2021). The economic control of prisons becomes apparent through the utilization of prison labor and prison privatization which enables profitability to influence penal management systems. The institutional reality of racism operated during incarceration development to establish discriminatory racial patterns in legal systems. The research of Elias and Paradies (2021) shows that prison institutions have maintained discriminatory practices against racial minorities through biased enforcement and biased sentencing procedures leading to social marginalization. Modern prisons display structural assumptions which uphold social gaps instead of providing transformational programs for inmates. Morgan (2021) explains that legal systems that manage prisons tend to hide their power dynamics through imprisonment by making it appear as a neutral justice tool. The historical function of prisons creates ethical problems because it challenges whether corrections achieve their stated role in public security or maintain unjust institutional practices. According to Engstrom and Van Ginneken (2022), the designers of ethical prisons need to consider both social and psychological consequences of incarceration who question whether detention systems truly serve justice. Angela Davis examines the history of incarceration starting from slavery and she states that prisons maintain racial dominance through institutional mechanisms above justice systems. She reveals the abolition of slavery prompted racial control to shift toward criminalization combined with forced labor systems. The penal system took over the responsibilities of slavery according to Barabas (2022) by adopting legal procedures to target Black communities through discriminatory measures. The convict lease system operated as a permanent method to provide free labor while preserving racial position control. Modern economic and political systems maintain racial control through their use of imprisonment as part of the prison-industrial complex. In the modern incarceration systems, the officially imposed sentencing enhancements and mandatory minimum laws lead to unfair results against the racial minorities as pointed out by Elias and Paradies (2021). The approach used by Davis produces ethical issues to do with neutral treatment in the incarceration system. Based on the information by Morgan (2021), understanding racist oppression in the past results in the need for punitive system change. Due to their links with slavery and prison it was possible to define a number of significant ethical issues concerning the current legitimacy of public institutions. The presented pattern of minorities’ discrimination within the criminal justice system is also inapplicable to the ethical principles of justice in imprisonment in such cases. On the other hand, Von Hirsch asserts an opposing approach by suggesting that proportional punishment should be used as a framework in the framework of penal theory. He identifies that imprisonment should be proportional to the crime committed and not as a way of punishing people. As pointed out by Ellis (2021), this principle was developed due to previous injustices in which punitive measures were applied randomly or highly harsh. Proportional punishment is intended to restore justice in punishment and make legal consequences of an individual’s misconduct proportional to the crime committed. As Engstrom and Van Ginneken (2022, 182) note, ethical prison architecture enshrines these principles in that the treatment of prisoners and the availability of opportunities for rehabilitation are also taken into account in carceral environments. Although proportional punishment seems right in theory, it does not overcome the issues of structural racism inherent in the penal system. In their discussion, Elias and Paradies (2021) explain how this idea is negated as those belonging to the marginalized groups are punished more severely for equivalent offenses. According to Barabas (2022), there is a problem in the fact that von Hirsch does not consider historical and racial aspects of imprisonment in his model of distributive justice. Thus, if proportionality cannot address systemic imbalances, then the means’ moral permissibility is in doubt. Discussions about proportionality are not only relevant to the question of a fair sanction but to the general question of whether or not imprisonment can be justified within a certain power relations context. Although the beginnings of prisons are traced back to early civilizations, the purpose of prisons begins to pose various questions with regards to modern society. If incarceration was conceptualised as a tool for oppression and not justice, then the ethicality of the concept is still uncertain. As stated by Barabas (2022), today’s prisons continue to fulfill the goals of earlier prisons as places for economic utilization and control of race. This continuity indicates that, other than prison reform, other conditions in the prison can be of no avail in solving problems. According to Elias and Paradies (2021), therefore, ethical questions cannot be only about how the prison should be designed but questions about whether prisons are needed at all. Attempts aimed at prison tenderization do not dissolve the moral dilemmas entailed by the idea of imprisonment. In their view, which mirrors Morgan’s (2021) tenets, efforts to reduce imprisonment should be made more vigorously where the imprisonment does not play a rehabilitative role. The continued presence of structural injustices in carceral setting s draws skepticism on the possibility of such platforms to operate as impartial institutions of justice. As Engstrom & Van Ginneken (2022) noted, ethical prison architecture should respond to the principles of dignity and rehabilitation but such reform is a small step if the imprisonment as such is unfair. Hence, historical construction of carceral institutions brings into question their ethical viability in contemporary society. III. The Prison-Industrial Complex and the Economics of Mass Incarceration The prison-industrial complex as economic and political institution affects the growth of the prison system in relation to economics and politics beyond the framework of criminal justice system. This makes it a prison industrial complex which comprises of private companies, government agencies, and other financial beneficiaries that have an interest in maintaining prisons and seeing them expand. Zhang (2024) affirms that modern imprisonment has reformed rural economy through expanding incarceration as an economic tool. Focusing on this phenomenon, the notion of racial capitalism should be regarded as crucial, as incarceration affects the members of minorities and generates income for particular businesses. Specifically, Nieves (2023) approaches racism as entailing structural economic factors and notes that incarceration is a way to preserve the racial caste system within the discourse on public safety. As noted earlier, despite the argument that prisons serve the purpose of rehabilitating offenders or serving as a deterrent to other individuals, prisons also have a number of economic roles that blur the objectives of the prisons. The ethical consideration of the incarceration process needs to address how the financial aspects perpetuate and enhance the penal decisions as opposed to justice and public safety. Points of analysis of mass imprisonment reveal that private prisons and prison labor are major economic systems that perpetrate mass imprisonment. This has led to emergence of forprofit organizations that run correctional facilities and whose profitability depends on high rates of imprisonment. In their article published in 2021, Klein and Lima outline that the privatization of prisons erases the concept of imprisonment transforming it into a business venture where reduction of costs tends to negatively impact the prisoners. Apart from institutional revenues and profit, there is a link between the prison-industrial complex and larger economic systems and economy. In his paper Shelby (2022) notes that there are pertinent reasons why prison industries are advantageous to corporations, such as the practice of paying the prisoners wages far below those of workers outside incarceration and subjecting the prisoners to more or less indentured servitude. Such an economic dependency on this type of labor maintains those policies that perpetuate high rates of imprisonment, raising moral questions about a system that incorporates human incarceration into capital. Such continued reliance of private prison contracts and corporate partnerships entails that financial considerations tend to come before efforts towards reformative measures for the prisoners. Davis also sees the mass incarceration of African Americans as a system of profit and not crime fighting. She provides evidence that the normal prison as a part of the prison industrial complex is not efficient in deterring crime as it mainly focuses on its own sustainability through the system of financing and political influence. In Brusco (2023), the author explains the prison as a microcosm of economic and environmental injustice, advancing the state’s policies of oppression while perpetuating socio-economic disparities in the society. Frauley (2021) builds on this idea, arguing that the growth of imprisonment is connected with neoliberal doctrines focusing on rationalization of the economy rather than the fairness of punishment. The process of commodification of imprisonment is not limited to locking people up and creating a profitable chain, starting from the system of imprisonment with a payment for a bail bond to surveillance technologies that yield profits through punishment. This social justice issue remains an ethical issue since prisoners are mainly from the lowest strata of the society. An approach based on materialism creates doubts about its compliance with justice as a concept in the penitentiary system. Punitive measures are not limited to merely a financial model and raise certain ethical issues of justice, responsibility, and the respect for human person. Policies of sentencing foster longer imprisonment terms and enhanced punitive approaches, which may be due to the contribution of financial factors in corrections. According to Klein and Lima (2021), there is a risk of eroding the goals that justify the system since imprisonment can be financially profitable for corporations and governments. With revenue taking precedence over rehabilitation, it becomes easy for the recidivism rate to be high while the systems in place do not support any serious attempts at rehabilitation. According to Nieves (2023) commodification entails that incarcerated people are useful in the economic structures but are also regarded as a nuisance in the society. There is still a close link between financial goals and ethics mostly in the financial control theory because there are still harsh penalty measures rather than the reintroduction programs. This means that to achieve progressive change in relation to decrease punishment, the existing financial foundations of mass incarceration should be questioned. It also includes not only whether or not these incentives can be shifted towards more desirable ends that would contribute to penal reform. Translating punitive economy into a correctional one also means adopting a new perspective on the efficacy of incarceration. Other schools of thought like restorative, economic standards, and community re-entry programs may be regarded as those that can be seen to seek for solutions that are not associated with imprisonment in the effort to spur economic development. Zhang (2024) stated that education, mental health services and employment opportunity must be disseminated to the communities of high incarceration rates for they are some of the factors that contribute to reduction of correctional punitive nature. In the continuation of the discussion of the subject, Fraulein (2021) notes that it is political and economic restructuring that are to be viewed as the fundamental aspects of emerging from the patterns of incarceration driven by profit. According to Fraulein (2021), imprisonment is part of the film as it questions a paradigm that sees imprisonment as one of the major economic strategies, while presenting policies that call for less on imprisonment. Whether such shifts are possible or not are issues, which could only be answered based on political willingness and restructuring of the economic model of mass imprisonment. To address the ethical issues of prison industrial complex, the system of justice of the criminals should reconsider the options for spending and the means of correctional actions and the methods of correction. IV. Punishment, Proportionality, and the Limits of Retributive Justice Von Hirsh’s principle of proportionality as a principle of sentencing has two aspects, which act as a check to excessive punitive measures by matching punishment extremes with the offense extremes. This he argues should not go beyond what the offender deserves but also should not even fall below the required retributive measure. Ryberg (2021) discusses that, language means that proportionality serves as an aegis against disproportionality whereby the punishment is extreme compared to the crime committed. According to Berman (2021), this principle seeks the government restraint by establishing clear measurements on the manner in which offenders are punished, thus avoiding making this as a tool of oppression by the state. The proportionality serves as a moral principle that calls for a response to equate the offender’s wrongdoing and not extra social or political attributes. Critics responded to the argument pointing at the possible absence of essential qualities of punishments if the emphasis is put on the proportionality of the punishment. In the identical study, Bronsther (2021, p. 321) opposes proportional sentencing in remarking that it does not consider the rehabilitative or aversive aims over criminal justice; the author confirms punishment has other purposes as well beyond the retributive theory. The proportionality in delivering the punishment is methodical, but the ethical issue is not fully resolved because of concern on fairness and effectiveness. Different legal systems are still in a quandary of how to address the issue of punishment as a punishment and at the same time consider the aspects of justice and reform. Some believe other factors should take precedence over the proportionality principle which determines punishment based on crime level. Proportionality enhances fairness during sentencing but it does not explicitly promote prisoner rehabilitation or achieve better recidivism rates. According to Husak (2022) the implementation of strict proportionality measures could overlook social factors which lead people to commit crimes including poverty and discrimination. The practical application of proportional sentencing systems produces more discrimination instead of less because it results in higher penalties for marginalized populations following similar criminal acts according to Manikis (2022). Supporters of proportionality base their premise on the notion that sentencing fairness needs exact crime-to-punishment relationships to guarantee unbiased court practices. According to Ryberg (2023) the use of proportionality helps stop severe punishments from arising especially when sentencing practices remain based on subjective evaluations. According to Bronsther (2021) proportional punishment represents a restricted guiding principle because it does not resolve biases that emerge during law enforcement procedures. The debate focuses on punishment functions because certain people favor retributive justice as their primary focus and other stakeholders emphasize crime control together with rehabilitation. Proportional punishment lacks the complexity needed to evaluate justice because it fails to consider multiple legal and societal influences. Angela Davis opposes proportionality through her abolitionist stance that considers all imprisonment excessive. Davis opposes the proportionalist approach because she believes a just system should never mandate incarceration. Husak (2022) indicates that proportionality theory relies on the assumption that incarceration represents a valid method to achieve justice but abolitionism doubts the fundamental ethical basis of imprisonment. The approach of proportional sentencing seeks to stop unjust punishments according to Berman (2021) yet this method does not resolve systemic problems within prison systems. Any application of proportionate sentencing practices continues existing racial and economic inequalities because these instruments fail to function independently of established social inequalities. The authors Metz and Metz (2022) propose to examine new punishment methods beyond proportional sentencing especially when detention fails to yield real public advantages. Through his analysis Davis prompts society to question the capacity of proportionality to curb excessive punishment in the criminal justice system. Justice demands an essential redefinition of punishment beyond sentencing according to proportion because that view is rejected by abolitionists. Its ethical justification depends on the way in which proportionality systemically addresses matters of fairness and harm reduction and equality. Another feature of other types of justice is that they do not assume that justice is best done proportionately to the crime committed. For instance, restorative justice as a justice model embraces the reintegration of offenders and the victims into the society without necessarily offering punishment for an offender’s wrongdoing. According to Metz and Metz (2022), proportionality negates the victims and perpetrators of crime and the value of justice is merely a mathematical calculation of crime and retribution. On the other hand, corrective focuses on the underlying causes of social loss with the aid of conversation, paying others back to make amends, and with the participate of the community. Although common proportionality enhances principle structure, Ryberg (2023) opined that it does not guarantee a fair result especially for the offender who seem to have pulls from a predisposed disadvantaged background. Likewise, Husak (2022) points out that the other models of criminal justice such as the rehabilitative justice is more effective in its aim of reformatory punishment without resultant restitution so as to decrease recidivism. Nevertheless, various scholars have downplayed the strict proportionality on the basis of circumstances that justice must consider as well as societal contexts. According to Bronsther (2021), these other frameworks indicate that proportionality is helpful in preventing unfair harsh penalties but is still insufficient in solving the moral dilemmas imminent in modern prisons. It can therefore be suggested that the models of justice that reflect harm and reintegration principles may be more ethical than that based on proportional punishment alone in the contexts of societies that aim at reducing structural inequities in the sentencing. V. The Ethics of Gender and Intersectionality in Carceral Practices Women and the LGBTQ+ individuals, in particular, experience tremendous difficulties within carceral institutions. In the past, the prison system has been set up with male incarceration as its focus, and typically does not recognize the specific needs of incarcerated women and gender non-conforming people. Ocen (2013) notes that correctional policies pay no attention to the distinct vulnerabilities that women, and women from racialized backgrounds particularly, have and thus, result in overly severe punishments and insufficient rehabilitation opportunities. Policies that do not take into account the safety and dignity of LGBTQ+ individuals raise the risk of abuse for them, including sexual and solitary confinement (Boppre, 2019). Conditions that heighten harm rather than promote rehabilitation are established when such protective measures fail to be implemented. In his (Henne and Troshynski 2019) work, Henne and Troshynski argue that mainstream correctional strategies perpetuate social inequalities and restrict marginalized people from reintegration into the community. It is an ethical concern about justice and human rights around the legitimacy of a system that does not take into consideration the specific vulnerabilities of certain groups of people through institutional neglect of gendered experiences of incarceration. Davis denounces gender based violence in prisons as a total failure on the part of the carceral system to uphold human dignity as a fundamental perspective. Heiner and Tyson (2017) explain that she contends that incarcerated women, especially women of color, are disproportionately victimized by physical or sexual abuse at the hands of correctional staff and other inmates. Gender-responsive justice has not focused on systemic patterns of violence in favor of control over protection. Thus, women are more likely to face harm with little or no means of redress. In Sweet (2016), she draws attention to carceral feminism, policies aimed at freeing women which actually serve to further entrap them in the carceral system. Increased surveillance and punitive segregation often intensify the trauma that incarcerated women endure, rather than protect them nor provide a rehabilitative type of measure. Making a case for the necessity of feminist care ethics in their justice policies, Raghuram (2021) argue that punitive models that disproportionately affect women should be left behind. Such system is unethical because it claims to administer justice while in fact a system that allows gender based violence. In carceral institutions, race, gender and class intersect to increase the levels of systemic oppression suffered by those who are not afforded those privileges. That is, women of color, particularly Black and Indigenous women, are incarcerated at rates that far exceed their population, in line with a wide range of experiences in social and economic exclusion. As Brown (2010) note, the cumulative effects of racial and gender discrimination prevent African American women from having access to the workplace, housing, and healthcare. In its emphasis on the importance of an intersectional directions in the work of justice, Gueta (2020) highlights that failure to address these overlapping oppressions act as constricts in the emergence of false and effective policy reform. As Henne and Troshynski (2019) tell it, technologies of control impact women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds much more disproportionately, and they imprison women still further in cycles of criminalization. Ethical deficiencies in policies that fail to take into consideration the multiple forms of marginalization that incarcerated women experience at the intersectional level comprise the ethical deficiencies of carceral oppression. Reform efforts fail to realize fully if they do not address race, gender, and economic disadvantage all at once. There are many ethical issues concerning gender-specific incarceration that are not acknowledged by many correctional policies, hence a failure of applying proper gender mainstreaming. Using examples, show how the standardized disciplinary practices set up women for regulation and punishment for trivial offenses that are common, hence reproducing the normative gender performance. According to Ocen (2013), chaining of the pregnant inmate is a form of violation of human rights, however such actions continue to be enacted in frameworks that do not acknowledge the peculiar circumstances of pregnant women behind the bars. The lack of trauma sensitive practices additionally epitomizes ethical dysfunctions of carceral structures in prison, which incarcerated women often experience having escaping from trauma in their pasts (Boppre, 2019). Heiner and Tyson (2017) state that gender-sensitive approaches are problematic mostly because they fail to reinforce the corrective nature of the imprisonment system. The lack of consideration of gender-specific issues shows that the entire criminal justice system is lack of justice. In this sense, ethical correctional practices should include the principles that account for the specific needs of incarcerated women and people of LGBTQ+ status to meet their rights and worth. Corrective measures that take into account gender are effective approaches and methods in dealing with unfairness in imprisonment while, at the same time, ethical issues arise with these policies. Policies that cater for female offenders through service delivery aimed at rehabilitation and non-imprisonment mechanisms are efforts to counter harm of imprisonment. However, Sweet (2016) states that a large number of such programs are still implemented in a paradigm that focuses on domination rather than subjectivity. Boppre (2019) discusses intersectional prison sensitiveness beyond the mere token gestures and more focused on correctional measures aiming to be rehabilitative instead of simply controlling. According to Raghuram (2021), there is a perception that the ethicist correctional policies should take a standpoint of feminist care ethic to guarantee that justice enhances reformation instead of punishment. Indeed, gender-sensitive measures partly hold some progressive transformative potentials; nevertheless, these open up within the context of a prison environment. Ethical reform of prisons is far from a mere change in policies but restructuring that looks at the inequality that defines the carceral system. VI. Criminalization of Political Dissent and State Power Mainly in the past, prisoners served as building blocks of the state power and means of quelling any attempts of rebellion and free speech. It was becoming common when governments simply outlawed activism so as to dismiss the movements as maybe rebellious thus a security threat to the state or disorderly to the society. Those are Selmini and Di Ronco’s (2023) ideas about incarceration are, according to the authors, incarceration has frequently been employed as an instrument to decimate political dissent rather than actual criminal behavior. From incarcerations of revolutionary activists in the colonial period to suppression of protest leaders in the present times, states have used prisons to neutralize the organized opposition. Martin (2017) posits that public order policing has many ways of crossing typical criminal law and political control to democracy by use of forceful laws. The imprisonment of protesters also deterring people from coming out in large numbers to protest, this goes against the democratic values of the society. Russell (2020) opines that with the neoliberalism approach, there has been a broadening of legal constructions of criminality to embrace non-violent protest. The historical experience of prison for dissidents shows how the state can deliberate on what is allowed from a political perspective with regards to the public agenda. Though states’ policymakers use such measures to counter instability, these actions diminish democratic credibility to skeptics. When political suppression is formalized in prison, there are moral concerns over the contribution of the prison to maintaining power of the state. Detention of activists and dissidents is a terribly antipathetic act that is inconsistent with the concepts of justice, freedom, and political sovereignty. Deposing legal institutions as means of suppressing political opposition erodes its legitimacy by putting carceral system in place as a mean of social control. Watts (2019) argues that since the West aims at arresting dissenting voices it reveals the paradox in liberalism in that while it claims to cherish freedom it seeks to punish those who defy the system. Bernat and Whyte (2020) explain the process of how criminalization of activism in Catalonia was used to undermine the separatist movement. In such circumstances, imprisonment is not a preventive measure against crime but rather an organ of ideology. Wood and Fortier (2016) further state that the above legal techniques involve coercion, this makes people obey the law by force of threats. The measures in question are quite offending to the principles of democracy as the state interests are privileged over the civic actors and discussions. Furthermore, it goes beyond individual cases purveying what can be referred as ethics of suppression of the public. Isolating political activity is paralleled by limitations of liberties and the erosion of adequate standards for the formation of a more just society. Wood and Fortier (2016) conclude that the continuing reliance on prisons as the primary method of neutralizing dissent provokes a number of concerns about the legitimacy of punishment by the state. The impropriety or otherwise of state power to imprison dissidents must therefore be established in accordance to standards of democracy. These measures are often justified as necessary for maintaining public order since violent sentiments may emerge in large gatherings as seen across the world in the recent past. According to Martin (2017), public order laws allow the state to have legal grounds for suppressing dissent under paraphernalia of restoring order. Cited in the paper by Selmini and Di Ronco (2023), Oberg identified that such reasons often work as an alibi for eradicating political foes as opposed to tackling relevant threats to security. According to Russell (2020), with the appearances of Hassan and Hassan in the United Arab Emirates, it becomes possible to broaden the criminal code with elements connected to acts of resistance and to present lawful activism as criminal behavior, bordering on security enforcement and authoritarian control. This brings into question if incarceration in the states can be seen as tool for social control and not as a proportional measured to punish law breakers. According to Wood and Fortier (2016), suppression of the opposition through imprisonment shows that there is a great use of force and that legal procedures are tools of power as opposed to justice. The ethnic dilemma is besides the ability to assert state power and authority the right to democratic freedom and liberty in situations where the imprisonment is used to suppress freedom of the people. Although, these malpractices are legal, people still question their morality especially in the context of democracy? Prisons are an anathema to civil liberties and civil liberties organizations especially where the prison system is used as a tool in advancing political opponents. Democracy includes free speech or random public participation and protection of the rights of minorities; however, carceral structures violate these concepts. Bernat and Whyte (2020) noted that selective policing and selective arrests of activists disenfranchise the community toward legal institutions and strengthen the perception of legal bias. In his 2019 work, he debates the idea of democracy embracing both human rights and using the prison as an instrument to punish protest. As Selmini and Di Ronco (2023) noted, the government’s efforts to limit protest are in line with growing tendencies toward authoritarianism when sanctions supersede compromise. Thus, the connection between the levels of democracy and imprisonment is rather intricate, especially in contexts where powerful states determine what counts as legitimate disobedience. Russell (2020) still carries this argument that makes her conclude that democratic institutions are more of a means of oppression rather than empowering the people. Analyzing the topic of incarceration and civil rights shows that it is a fight between the state and liberty rights. That way, the issue of whether or not prisons can accord with democratic principles depends on whether this function is similar to justice or rewards loyalty to the current system. VII. Abolitionist Ethics vs. Penal Reform Competing Visions for Justice Davis and von Hirsch present completely different ethics of incarceration, which are part of a wider abolitionist versus reformist debate. Prisons should be abolished altogether, and are nothing but instruments of systemic oppression and not of justice, Davis recounts. In McLeod (2015), he states that the reform of the system of penal has not addressed the repressing structural violence in the system of incarceration. Yet, as against of von Hirsch who suggests retributive stance and believes that proportional punishment is an ethical duty to maintain justice, Bentham appears to be instrumentalist. Jouet (2023) therefore concludes that his framework has made incarceration still a justifiable response to crime, if it is applied fairly and proportionally. For Bell (2021), most reformist take on sentencing policies and correctional conditions and try to make use of them for improvement, not to destroy the system. Such divergence speaks to a heart of the issue within criminal justice ethics that concerns whether Italian prisoners may be morally deserving in any scenario, or on the grounds of the immutability of that flaw does incarceration itself represent an impermissible sin. These positions help to create the contrast between contemporary debates on justice and penal ethics. Non-reformist approaches continued with a decarceration perspective offers ideas for changing the damaging nature of imprisonment without completely doing away with it. Decarceration strategies seek to lower the number of inmates through factors that include sentencing changes, non-prosecution options, and released from prison due to parole. According to Akbar (2020), incremental reforms refer to reforms that are reformist in addressing mass incarceration but are aimed at softening its impact while retaining the punitive system. In line with Foran, Kaba, and Naples-Mitchell (2021), it is found that decarceration measures can drastically decrease imprisonment but it has a limitation in which it only partially dismantles punitive legal systems. According to Scott (2013), though the reformist approaches have offered some positive changes which would make prison more endurable for some prisoners, such changes do not challenge the core concept of prison as containing institutions. Some of these reforms may be ethical if only they are capable of affecting justice practices rather than just tweaking punitive strategies. Opponents of gradual transformation assert that where imprisonment prevails as the key element in two systems of justice, justice disparities and abuse will not disappear. Some abolitionist ethics consider imprisonment as unjust as a concept, thus claiming that the punitive systems have to be dismantled not improved. The abolitionist position thus rejects the idea that punishment in general and confinement, in particular, can have legitimate moral aim. In this case, McLeod (2015) named abolitionism as justice in the community, restorative justice, and transformative justice. In the same article, Giamberardino (2023) provides a definition of penal abolitionism as an approach with the goal of eradicating what produces criminalization and increasing investments in social services, education, and mental health. Bell (2021) defines abolitionism as the concept that should be opposed to punitive approaches and practices instead of advocating for carceral solutions that emphasize punishment as a form of retribution. This perspective is that imprisonment leads to more harm than prevention, produces more injustice than justice. The abolitionist position allows for a complete overturning of the current approach. It is because according to public safety that calls for a complete abolishment of carceral institutions and an adoption of community-based solutions. There are questions of moral dilemma as to when, whether, how and which form of antislavery radicalism can be reconciled with reformism. This means, some opinionated persons have stated that by incorporating abolitionist principles into reformist measures, more just pathways of the penal system could be opened. Jouet (2023) discussed that there are some areas where penal reform adopted abolitionist concepts as a campaign like the reduction of corporal punishment and the campaign against capital punishment. For years, welfare has sought to dismantle punitive structures, which in the opinion of Akbar (2020) reform efforts based on abolitionist ethics are possible in the long term, even if they cannot get rid of penitentiary institutions. However, Foran, Kaba, and Naples-Mitchell (2021) have mentioned that the reforms have a paradoxical effect as they help in the sustainment of the institution rather than questioning its existence. Partial reforms may bring about an appearance of a positive change while at the same time retaining the fundamental aspects of penal control as stated by Scott in the year 2013. These conflicting ethical systems are not peculiar to this portrayal of the show but present the essential conflict on whether justice can be done under the current structure or if the system needs to be overhauled. As with many other topics, the metrics of analyzing the possibility of abolition and reform are also of practical and ethical nature. Despite being more tactical, reformist strategies, therefore, run the risk of reinforcing carceral logics by making them seem less harsh on inmates while maintaining the structure’s injustice. According to Bell (2021), while there are transformations in incarceration conditions and the changes in sentencing regimes, they do not eradicate the social and economic factors that lead to imprisonment. The author Giamberardino in his 2023 work suggests that abolition is a longer and more difficult process compared to traditional justice reforms since it entails the need for political commitment and a structural investment in the new models of justice. According to McLeod (2015), abolitionist frameworks outline how the approach of decarceration will happen little by little through the restructuring of systems as opposed to an all-out removal. Both long-term strategies are sustainable only if there is a population that is ready to address the ethical dilemma of mass incarceration and ready to invest in justice systems based on rehabilitation and equality. Evidently, though abolition has not been realized, its ideas are still pertinent in discussions regarding prison and criminal justice reform. VIII. The Human Rights Debate Ethical Violations in Carceral Institutions The practices within prisons regularly breach basic human rights as they cause physical and psychological damage to prisoners. The practice of torture together with forced labor and extended isolated confinement exists in violation of international standards prohibiting cruelty and degrading procedures. Weisburd (2023) shows that punitive systems incorporate rights violations as foundational elements which consider deprivation and suffering as natural parts of imprisonment. Baffour et al. (2024) show that prison overcrowding produces worse abuses because it creates poor medical services and violent environments within unsanitary facilities that degrade human dignity. According to Liebling (2011), the moral condition of correctional institutions depends on their treatment of inmates, yet many prisons exhibit systemic problems along with excessive punishment and neglect. Using solitary confinement as a means of prison security creates extensive psychological harm which challenges moral standards of standard practice. The point where law meets ethics in incarceration shows contradictory relationships which develop between prisoner rehabilitation efforts and human rights protections according to Trestman (2014). Forced labor continues to exist in modern times especially within privatized prison systems creating problems between exploitation and economic coercion. The prison system develops practices which allow suffering to become routine while it simultaneously extends societal economic and social inequalities instead of dealing with underlying social problems. These institutions reveal structural problems which challenge present day imprisonment methods despite their ethical failings. The U.S. prison system regularly violates international human rights standards which define acceptable treatment of inmates. The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners or Mandela Rules ban torture and require decent living accommodations while placing the focus on prisoner rehabilitation instead of punitive strategies. The U.S. correctional system practices retribution through imprisonment while neglecting the principles set by Weisburd (2023). The authors report in Baffour et al. (2024) that prison overcrowding combined with excessive sentencing practices and poor healthcare services produces environments that breach human rights guarantees. Ajunwa (2014) investigates the Abu Ghraib facility abuses to show how institutional breakdowns lead to domestic and international human rights abuses. The author Liebling (2011) examines how solitary confinement continues in U.S. prisons while pointing out its negative psychological effects and its position as cruel treatment according to international legal standards. According to Wahab and Panichelli (2013) the criminal justice system shows unfair preference toward minority populations which further worsens human rights problems through race and socioeconomic biases. The disagreement between international standards and current U.S. incarceration policies creates doubts about the ethical grounds of punishment-based systems. Current incompatible institutions need reform to value human dignity instead of focusing only on institutional control. According Weisburd (2023), the ethical transformation of prisons generates intense argument about rebuilding these facilities into institutions that protect human rights. Academic experts maintain that thorough policy modifications involving reduced sentences and better prison facilities along with stronger operational oversight would help decrease extreme prisoner mistreatment. Trestman (2014) proposes that implementing rehabilitative models within prison frameworks would create ethical and legal compliance in prison operations. Weisburd (2023) analyzes this approach by arguing that detention facilities inherently serve to create pain which cannot be remedied until significant institutional changes are implemented. Baffour et al. (2024) show how crowded prisons combined with inadequate resources work against rehabilitation by keeping harmful structural elements which enable violations of human rights. According to Liebling (2011) prison moral performance enhancement necessitates both policy adjustments alongside changes in organizational culture and operational direction. The authors Wahab and Panichelli (2013) point out that coercive control remains vital in penal institutions thus creating barriers for ethical prison policies. The implementation of reform encounters major impediments because punitive perspectives strongly influence the formation of policy. Successful implementation of human rights-based prisons requires both officers who question current practices and new conceptions about correctional facilities. It is where the issue of whether incarceration is familial with human decency at all that remains unanswered. There are scholars who argue that any version of imprisonment cannot show any value for the inherent dignity of man since it involves force and negation. According to Weisburd (2023), punitive confinement rather undermines the spirit of autonomy, rehabilitation and justice by replicating power relations of harm. The anti-carceral sentiment is most profoundly present in Ajunwa (2014), where the author notes how shortcomings of a system are mirrored in the abuses of the prison institutions. As Liebling puts it, it is the suffering as a punitive practice that forms a core aspect of the carceral regime and for this reason, it can be considered as ethically problematic. Negative justice contexts are reviewed by Trestman (2014) as not resulting from crime prevention however, and he calls for specific ethical rehabilitation of offenders as the model of restorative justice rather than punitive confinement. Ever since, Wahab and Panichelli (2013) noted that vulnerable populations are the most affected by incarceration since this only perpetuates more years of exclusion contrary to the tenets of social justice. The idea of human rights for prisoners raises an age-old issue of justice or punishment and moral right of the state. The question as to whether incarceration can ever be compatible with ethical principles has been one that stands out in most opinions made under sections of human rights and social justice. IX. Ethical Justifications for Alternative Sentencing and Justice Models Instead of using punitive approaches, they aim at bringing harmony within the community and also ensure that everyone in the community is punished in a way that transforms them but not put in a cell. This is therefore the idea of restorative justice that provides an opportunity for offenders and victims as well as members of the public to interact. Transformative justice contains not only crime roots recognition within the society but also that individuals of the society and the society itself should take the main responsibility. Caruso (2020) agrees on the non-retributive justice system as the ethical and efficiency increased approach towards criminal justice because retribution cannot answer on the root cause of suffering. In light of the above discussed notion, it emerges that correctional rehabilitation-based practices on the offenders meet the ethical principles of justice as compared to the punitive practices. As per Ward and Salmon (2009), the impact is where such models seek balance in the sharing of responsibility between the individual and the community while offering alternatives to incarceration. These approaches derive their ethical basis from the amount of change that they bring about in the offenders, while the offenders keep off from victimizing other people as well as achieving the desires of the society. Contemporary societies seek different justice forms in the process that raises a question to the basic justice and harm reduction principles. The differences in ethical and rationality between imprisonment punishment and justice system which gives emphasis on rehabilitation are distinctively divergent. Penal incarceration reveals the main principle of deterrence and protecting society, however it produces recidivism and systemic harms. Souryal and Whitehead (2019) have stated that the current form of the penal system perpetuates further crime rather than eradicating its sources of cause. On the other hand, the restorative justice involves the use of conference, compensation, and amnesty in a bid to bring back harmony instead of punishment suffering. Daly (2013) explains that the restorative justice allows the victims to participate in the justice process whereby offenders get chances of making reparations and reformation. This goes further than restorative justice by acknowledging that there are societal factors that cause such behaviours hence requiring social change in addition to punishment. As per Daly (2013), the dilemma of these two approaches brings out fundamental issues of the permissibility of punishment as a measure for crime prevention. The emerging models of justice are a struggling for human rights as opposed to the retributionist concept of justice putting out a challenge to the society to consider what should the meaning of the very word justice be and what it should be done. Ethical debates have always been focused on the possibility of substituting conventional punishment by the given type of sentencing. They say that crime prevention through imprisonment does not deter other related offenses; probation does though. Based on the concepts of Bagaric (2024) I have read; punitive measures of sentencing do not yield the intended positive results compared to the rehabilitation strategies. Restorative and transformative justice are two progressive models that envisage a format of justice to criminal offenders as a way of making them repent and be answerable for their actions than being jailed. When Moore & Campbell stated that the role of plea treaties is to find a balance between proportionality and incentive-based justice, what is not clear is the fact that these approaches are rooted in the system of carceral. It therefore translates that to what extent that this sort of measures can fully compliment or even offset traditional punishment depends on the degree to which it can contribute to the accountability of offenders and at the same time conform with the society’s safety standards. There are some predications which rise out of none-carceral-based justice models and desire that serious offences cannot be fairly punished by other forms of punishment because sometimes incarcerations are still mandatory for dangerous persons. The debate shows that in the process of justice reform ethical consideration can conflict with practical reasons as to how the reform should be developed. The virtuous features of non-carceral justice practices is useful to keep in mind, while the issues that come with it expose the difficulties in translating such models into practice. Restorative and transformative justice involve shock, reparative consist of community-building, and reintegrative; these make the principles behind these more ethical than punitive. Caruso (2020) maintains that conducting away from retributive punishment prevents the worsening of the situation and offers hope for rehabilitation thus enhancing the justice system with the vision of helping in achieving long-term order. However, the effectiveness of such models depends on the participation of employees and the willingness to accept the authority given to these models and this cannot always be easily obtained. Ward and Salmon 2009 state that such justice measures can only be effectively pursued with much supporting policy in organizations and change in attitudes towards punishment. Certain categories of cases e.g. cases of violent crimes are likely to be difficult to be managed under the new models of justice since most victims prefer retribution. The rationale for these approaches therefore hinges on their prevention functionalities, although the risk of merely replicating punitive systems makes it a continuous iterative process. The ability to scale up the use and expansion of the concept as well as its sustainability is mainly based on institutional commitment and recognition, how members of the public perceive such models and the law that governs them. Systematic and widespread correction entails changes in laws of sentencing, devotion to ancillary programs, and alteration of the provincial prisons system. Souryal and Whitehead (2019) claimed that any effort today has to require demands for the structural changes in justice systems so that non-carceral changes can include appropriate alternatives without exacerbating the inequalities. According to Daly (2013), the sustenance of restorative justice must entail a constant and efficient provision of funds as well as the involvement of the citizens and legal entities to ensure that they accept other forms of punishment. Bagaric (2024) note that when one attempts to scale up such models of reform, there will always be persons who will resist since they believe in the utility of incarceration. The change from punitive to the rehabilitative justice system, is an ideological, legal and political process that takes time. In relation to ethical justice reform, the society has to look for sustainable approaches to justice other than the current punitive measures. While championing for a different approach in justice, the following issues should be put into consideration; on safety, on how resources will be channeled and on the possibility of changing the whole system. X. Conclusion: The Future of Ethical Incarceration Practices It brings key issues that are not only legal but also economical and human rights issues in as much as it serves as a means of punishment. According to Coyle et al. (2016), the financial cost of mass incarceration reduces funding for such tangible social amenities as school funding or healthcare, thereby worsening systemic injustices. The punitive prison policies are used in the interest of the economy and the ruling political parties as they do not address the issue of crime. As Robinson-Sweet (2024) in his article demonstrates, the stories of incarceration portray how the sociopolitical culture constructs narratives that justify punitive policies that deny human rights violations. According to Bond (2022), many times ethical issues concerning prisons are not an issue of priority when it comes to the management of prisons and prison practices that are based on punitive aims. Concerns about if present systems are moral can be raised by such violations as solitary confinement, forced labor, and lack of medical attention in prisons. The mass incarceration system serves to continually reinstate harm to the society especially the society’s powerless by denying them their civil liberties or justice. According to Simon (2014), these conflicts of conscience demonstrate the society’s struggle with the concept of justice, reform and prisons as states’ tool. To meet these needs it is necessary to deal with the foundation of using punitive measures and find the solutions that are compatible with the humanization. The arguments that exist between prison abolitionists and prison reformists are actually not different from moral and philosophical issues of justice and authority of the state. There are calls from some scholars who posit that prison per se is unethical since it serves as apparatus of social control that cannot be reformed while not repeating itself. Coyle et al., (2016) opine that punitive incarceration is a counterproductive approach that does not seek to address the issue of social injustices while in the process; it perpetuates it by continuing to lock people that are of a socially disadvantaged status back into their positions. Robinson-Sweet’s (2024) work shows how institutional stories contribute to the construction of incarceration as a reasonable and therefore resistant to reform. In his opinion, rehabilitation strategies that are developed for implementation frequently aim at enhancing conditions of the prisons rather than containing deficiencies of the whole carceral system. Simon (2014) states that legal struggle against mass incarceration only illuminates the structural flaws in punitive justice and the doubts arise whether we can transform the system at all. A number of abolitionists provide more reasonable justice measures that do not involve temporal confinement arguing that incarcerating people is immoral. This struggle and perspective of reform and abolition underscore the conflict between the need for protection, responsibility, and justice in carceral spaces. First of all, there is a necessity to study justice systems to reduce their influence on people, remove inequalities, and increase responsibility for imprisonment. The incarceration levels as depicted in the results are high in the minority groups and this shows that social inequalities need to be corrected for fairness. Coyle 2016 has pointed that mass incarceration polices has adverse effects for legal minorities and economic minorities since it deepens the disadvantages. Robinson-Sweet to the future (2024) contended how carceral institutions deal with their histories and histories that are produced, disseminated and made available to the public in order to expunge ethical questions. Reflecting upon Bond (2022), the author discusses how such stories contribute to the policy and preserve the punitive concepts as a dominant paradigm. Simon (2014) says that mass incarceration has not contributed to the general safety of the society and is, therefore, replaceable by other forms of justice to avert re- offending. Reducing recidivism is the best way to put an end to the practice which entails advocating for progressive not punitive measures that create a path to positive change for people who went through it. Ethical justice reform must do things that counter current thinking about punishment, demand for improved justice systems that do not reinstate harm, and equity. Thus, it is finally possible to conclude that it is necessary to build the future justice models as addressing both the principles of rehabilitation and accountability and people’s dignity. While aiming to punish offenders, restorative justice looks at a way of healing the crime’s impact by returning some level of justice to the victims and the community of the offender. According to Robinson-Sweet (2024), documentation plays a role in ethical considerations in penology by being transparent on reform efforts. According to Bond (2022), people’s interactions with incarceration issues change their perception towards its concerns, to support policies that advocate for reintegrating offenders. According to Simon (2014), concerns and legal actions against mass imprisonment have opened opportunities for change; nevertheless, organizational barriers are present. In its explanation, Coyle and colleagues (2016) assert that prison substitutes that focus on reforms and offer schooling, vocational training, and treatment to eliminate re-offending. 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