About Prisoners
The term "prisoner" has many different connotations. A prisoner can be someone who has been kidnapped, someone who has been captured during a war or someone who is being held captive due to their political beliefs. In the context of this discussion, however, a prisoner will be defined as a person who has been remanded to a correctional facility or prison of any kind and is being held there by society, against their will.
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History of
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The concept of being held as a prisoner by society as a form of punishment is a relatively new one. Throughout much of human history, those who committed egregious crimes were often simply executed or physically maimed as a punishment. Beginning in 1800s, however, the concept of using prison to punish criminals instead of torture or death became popular in Western nations. Today, in most developed countries, the concept of confining a criminal in prison as punishment for their crimes exists as a cultural norm.
Type
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There are many different types of societally-held prisoners. Most violent offenders are kept in highly-guarded, difficult-to-escape prisons. The technical term for such prisoners varies from nation to nation, but they are typically known as high-risk prisoners due to their violent past and the fact that they are generally serving very long sentences. Less violent prisoners are often housed in minimum security penal institutions due to their relative peacefulness and lack of motivation to escape from their shorter prison terms. In between these two types there lies an entire spectrum of different prisoner types including sexual offenders, repeat offenders and the mentally ill.
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Time Frame
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The time frame involved in any one prisoner's incarceration differs vastly from society to society. Most developed nations do, however, have somewhat similar penal codes in place. For instance, a prisoner who is convicted of murder will generally serve a life sentence or at least several decades in prison, whereas a prisoner convicted of auto theft will usually serve a much lesser sentence. For other crimes, however, certain societies have their own interpretations of what a fair punishment consists of. For example, in some countries prisoners convicted of rape serve life sentences or are even subject to the death penalty, whereas rapists in others might only serve a few years as a prisoner.
Benefits
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The benefits of having a system that keeps criminals prisoner are numerous. First of all, there is the fact that prisoners should, in the current paradigm of prison management, be rehabilitated during their stay in prison and taught to become productive members of society. Prisoners are also kept safely away from other, non-criminal members of society. This allows the prisoners rehabilitation to take place without interfering with the productive elements of society. Another large benefit of the prisoner-system, compared to traditional capital punishment or corporal punishment, is that it seems to be a more humane solution for an enlightened society to utilize, rather than just killing or torturing criminals.
Risk Factors
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There are also, however, many argued negatives to the keeping of prisoners. Keeping prisoners in prison is an extremely costly proposition. The prisons are extremely expensive to build and maintain, along with the fact that they require large staffs and budgets. Also, in most modern countries prisoners are provided with adequate food, medical and dental care while in prison. This is also rather expensive.
There are also questions about the efficacy of prisoner systems. Are prisoners really rehabilitated while in prison or do they actually tend to learn more about crime from their fellow criminals? This question sits at the core of the debate about what the proper role of a prison ought to be. Should prisoners be coddled, instructed or punished during their confinement? The risk of getting the answer to such a question wrong is extremely dangerous.
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