Are prison planets a good idea?

[Destructionator XV]

Something seen in more than one sci-fi is the idea of a prison planet, but I don't really think that would be a good idea. First off, it uses a planet, which might be a precious resource in itself, but then it continues to cost. First, most the planet will simply be empty, unless you have billions of prisoners, which seems stupid to put them all in one place anyway.

Food, etc needs to be shipped in for the prisoners and guards from space, rather than grown on the planet and trucked in or something like that. The number of guards needed to be there would be far bigger than a traditional facility, and since there are no cities or anything on a prison planet, they guards would need things especially built for them, and it probably wouldn't be a great place to bring the wife and kids. If it is just a prison on a populated world, guards can live with their families in the city or whatever and just go into work each day.

Also, a prison planet would be useful for keeping violent criminals off the streets, but what about rehabilitation? Once again, that seems far easier to do when on a planet with other facilities present. Prisoners could get visits from family far easier in the jail, they could see counselors and lawyers with more availability.

It seems to me that not only are prison planets a bad economic decision, they ignore the fact that the prisoners are still people. A potential argument would be that a prison planet would only be used for maximum security, but even so, an well secured jail on an otherwise populated planet still seems to me like it would be a better idea, especially in sci fi, where escapes could be tracked easily anyway (scan for missing life forms in the cell with high accuracy).

[Hotfoot]

I believe the consensus was "no"

[B4UTRUST]

Well as for the resources to run it, if you find a semi habitable but harsh planet to work with you simply make the prisoners into your work force as well. They must learn to raise their own crops and harvest their own resources or face starving.

But I've also seen that most prison planets aren't for your blue collar criminal. You don't see a smalltime pickpocket pulling 20-life in the least hospitible part of the government's territories. The planets are there for those who are considered more or less unredeamable. Your psycho mass murderers, insane space wizards, would-be planetary conquerers and destroyers, etc.

As for the guards, in the US military we have what are known as remote tours. They're short term tours of about a year to 18 months where you go to some place in the world where we have a base that not many people want to go. You do your year or 1.5 years and you then get your choice of station more or less. But you don't take your family with you. Remotes can be a bitch at times for that. I don't see why the guards could not be offered something similar to that in whatever 'verse they happen to be on. An incentive volunteer thing. Or even if it was a mandatory year stint out there. You have to pull one tour of duty in the subsector prison planet of your choice prior to being elegible for your next promotion in rank.

Also, I believe if you were to have an entire planet devoted to the prisoners you wouldn't leave your guards down there to begin with. You would probably establish some sort of orbital station or colony from which to operate out of. Since your guards main job at that point really isn't to establish law and order to a bunch of criminals who cannot change, but rather to see that they don't escape back into the populated sectors. So your job is to make sure they stay planet side. You have a few shuttles who every week or so make planetary runs over heavily populated areas of prisoners and do supply drops to them, basic medical supplies, food rations in the harsh winter months, etc. You have a supply transport do a monthly run or two out to the colony from the populated sectors to keep the guards supplied and the resources to take care of the prisoners. The colony would need to be equipped with personel transports for transporting new prisoners down to the planet as well as a few short range fighters in case somehow the prisoners do manage to get a way off the planet. Remote orbital batteries maybe?

[Destructionator XV]

Blast, I missed that thread.

[Stofsk]

Penal colonies have existed in real life y'know.

[Hotfoot]

Yeah, and look how they turned out

[Stofsk]

Point.

[Josh]

Prison planets suck. Prison asteroid colonies, on the other hand, might well have their uses.

[Stofsk]

Seriously though, any new colonial venture would probably have convict workforces assigned to them from the nation state's colonial office.

You have Mother Earth, overcrowded with like 50 billion people on it or something, and it's not hard to imagine a scenario where the penalty for ANY crime would be deportation.

Take Colony Bumfuck in the Boondocks Sector of the Earth Empire: just settled planet with an initial colony, an investment that would take decades to pay off. Shipping families there takes a lot of time and effort and money, but at the same time why not dump onto them various convicts who are organised into workfarms? Read: slave labour. Work hard, you get paroled into the community. Don't wanna work? Don't get fed. Most colonial ventures (or... all of them) won't exist without massive corporate sponsorship. It just won't happen. Someone has to pay the bill, and they're not going to pay up unless they get some kind of return, and normal citizens are not going to work for nothing (though they WILL work for themselves for nothing, if it means becoming a farmer and living a new life on a new world free from the oppressive environment of the homeworld), so they'll probably jump at the chance at using workers that can get paid peanuts and still be kicked in the teeth if they get uppity.

It makes more sense than prison planets. My scenario assumes Earth has become a bureaucratic nightmare where the vast majority of people are just ink on a page.

[The Cleric]

Just exectue anyone sentanced to a life term. Anything less can be dealt with locally, or aboard a giant asteroid/prison ship.

[frigidmagi]

I have to disagree Stofsk, the last thing you want to sent to a colony that may not have effective law enforcement is a set of harden criminals. After all if these guys get weapons and manage a rebellion the closest help could be months or a year away, that's not excaltly a worthwhile risk when I could easily just use indentured labored instead. Having a group of people I know don't care about the law or the rights of their fellow humans? That's a damn scirpt for disaster and colonial resentment of the mother planet.

[Mayabird]

Weren't the convicts exiled to Australia mostly unviolent offenders who'd commit petty crimes of debt, prostitution, drunkenness, and the like? They weren't actually hardened criminals.

[Batman]

Wether it's economically sensible depends highly on the tech level of the civilisation in question but I don't see why a prison planet can't work.
1. Find a marginally habitable planet.
2. Equip the prisoners what tools they need to eek out a living.
3. Drop prisoners on planet.
4. Install orbiting defense system to make sure nobody get on the planet unauthorized (when their highest-tech tool is a coal-fueled anvil the inmates aren't going to get off on their own anytime soon).
5. Repeat 3. as needed.

Naturally that works only for a high-security facility where you have no intention of ever letting anybody out again and if even marginable planet are scarce and/or the cost of transportation is too high that obviously doesn't work economically, but if a civilisation is seriously thinking about prison worlds that part should already be out of the way.

You need no guards on the ground. No need to resupply them, no potential hostages, no supply runs that can be hijacked.
No way for outsiders stage a prison break. Have fun trying to sneak up on a planet from space.
Before the inmates can develop the technology to get of the planet by their own (if at all) the facility has either been closed, turned into a regular colony or been plain out forgotten.

[Hotfoot]

It should be noted that Bat's example also requires the removal of the "no cruel or unusual punishments" clause that most civilized societies have concerning the corrections aspect of the legal system.

[Batman]

It's certainly unusual but I don't see how turning the prisoners into pioneers is any more cruel than locking them up in their cell 23 hours a day.
I already SAID it would have to be a maximum security facility so rehabilitation is pretty much a forgegone conclusion.
Two problems I DO see with this setup are
a) medical support, and
b) paroles.
Unless you either 1) blithely assume the inmates can take good care of themselves (assuming there's so many of them that there'll be a good amount of medics/doctors among them, so much for the maximum security approach) or 2) couldn't possibly care less, some sort of medicare needs to be provided either on-site, in a centralised location, or in an orbital facility.
For paroles, you need a way to track the location of the inidividual prisoners, and get them out safely.

[Hotfoot]

In a cell, you get several things that are not provided on a prison planet:
-Regular food
-Running Water
-Sewage
-Protection from other inmates
-Shelter
-Medical Care

You also do NOT have the following in a Jail Cell
-Slave Labor
-Torture

Such a planetary prison would be virtually impossible to have parole possibilities, not just because it would be difficult or impossible to locate the prisoner and extract them, but because there's nothing ensuring they'll live to see their parole or the end of your sentence. Esepcially one where there are no guards on the surface. This was all covered in the previous thread. No guards on the surface means Somalia-like conditions, with warlords hoarding supplies and ruthlessly murdering anyone who gets in their way.

Edit: Also, consider that children will be born on these planets, children that have committed no crime. Unless you're going to start segregating entire planets (even then, it's going to happen on the female planet when guards get corrupt and realize that there'd be no realistic way to get caught).

[Hotfoot]

Also, a sense of scale. Using Detroit's crime statistics for 2005 I'm going to project what sort of population we'd need to have a need an entire planet for a prison. Let's say that 500,000,000 prisoners is the threshold we need for a prison planet to become viable. Assuming 1 offense = 1 prisoner (not the case), and we pull from Murders, Rapes, Arsons, Aggrevated Assaults, and Auto Thefts, again, using Detroit's crime statistics, this gives us 25,705 per 1,000,000 incarcerated, we'd need a population of roughly 19.45 Billion people (over 3 times our current population) to hit the minimum for a viable planetary prison. Take in mind that's using some of the worst crime statistics in the Unites States. To have a planetary population of 3 Billion using the same statistics, we'd need a population of 116.7 billion people.

All of which, by the way, who could use a planet of their own to live on. After all, if a planet can support life, it's a precious resource that shouldn't be squanderd on the scum of society.

I've described why such a venture would be a nightmare in the other thread, but here's the bottom line: It's wasteful, it requires total disregard for the prisoners of the society, it puts citizens at tremendous risk and/or creates jobs that nobody in their right mind would ever want to take. It's easier to keep the current method of having several high density prisons on a normal planet, or just start giving the death penalty to jaywalkers and litterbugs. Either is more human than a prison planet.

[Batman]

In a cell, you get several things that are not provided on a prison planet:

-Regular food
Assuming it's a planet they can actually eek a living out on, they've got that IF they're willing to work for it
-Running Water
Doable and not a necessity
-Sewage
Doable and not NECCESSARILY a neccessity (depends on the size of the population. The romans managed it, somebody with 16-19th century technology should be able to do it
-Protection from other inmates
They don't have that in modern prisons, either, except in single isolation, and while they ARE safe from that in those, they ALSO have NO HUMAN INTERACTION WHATSOEVER. I'm not sure which is crueler.
-Shelter
They've been given the tools to build such.
-Medical Care
I already admitted that would be a problem.

You also do NOT have the following in a Jail Cell

-Slave Labor
You don't on the prison planet, either. Nobody forces you to work. You're happily allowed to starve.
-Torture
I very much doubt that doesn't happen in modern jails, either.

Such a planetary prison would be virtually impossible to have parole possibilities, not just because it would be difficult or impossible to locate the prisoner and extract them, but because there's nothing ensuring they'll live to see their parole or the end of your sentence.

There's precious little in modern jails ensuring they'll live to see their parole or the end of their sentence, either.

Esepcially one where there are no guards on the surface. This was all covered in the previous thread. No guards on the surface means Somalia-like conditions, with warlords hoarding supplies and ruthlessly murdering anyone who gets in their way.

There are days where I'm inclined to say Good! Let them!

[Hotfoot]

-Regular food
Assuming it's a planet they can actually eek a living out on, they've got that IF they're willing to work for it

Bullshit. Ref: Somalia. You're putting HARDENED CRIMINALS on a planet and you expect them to play nice? You're fucking crazy.

-Running Water
Doable and not a necessity

Sorry, should have perhaps qualified that: Fresh running water. You're also assuming that the warlords will share their water supplies. You're a damn fool if you don't think that water will be fought over desperately.

-Sewage
Doable and not NECCESSARILY a neccessity (depends on the size of the population. The romans managed it, somebody with 16-19th century technology should be able to do it

The Romans were a civilization with laws and a community. We're talking about hardened criminals who got to where they are by lying, stealing, and KILLING.

-Protection from other inmates
They don't have that in modern prisons, either, except in single isolation, and while they ARE safe from that in those, they ALSO have NO HUMAN INTERACTION WHATSOEVER. I'm not sure which is crueler.

You're a fucking idiot. You're going from sometimes ineffective protection to NO protection at all. In modern prisons, they segregate the violent offenders from the nonviolent offenders, have routine contraband checks, keep rival gangs in different parts of the prisons, and so on. Where did you learn about prisons? Prime time dramas?

-Shelter
They've been given the tools to build such.

Hey, look, the Crips and the Bloods have been given basic tools! They're going to stop fighting and build a community together FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND. Jesus Christ, how delusional are you?

-Medical Care
I already admitted that would be a problem.

Well, not totally deluded. Funny you'd be more worried about health care than, food, water, or shelter, which you ASSUME will appear from magical fountains of plenty.

-Slave Labor
You don't on the prison planet, either. Nobody forces you to work. You're happily allowed to starve.

Once again, your delusion has done you in. Once ganglords have graduated to warlords, slave labor is practically a certainty.

-Torture
I very much doubt that doesn't happen in modern jails, either.

There's a difference between something happening and something being epidemic. In America, carjackings happen. In Africa, carjackings got so bad they started slapping flamethrowers on their cars. Do you get it yet?

There's precious little in modern jails ensuring they'll live to see their parole or the end of their sentence, either.

Pure bullshit. In fact, I challenge you to prove that assertation. According to DOJ stats, there were nearly 5 million convicted criminals on probation and/or parole. Meanwhile, several prisions take great pains to keep the inmates safe, even from each other. Please present your evidence to the contrary.

There are days where I'm inclined to say Good! Let them!

Those days bring you closer and closer to being just like Walper then. By the way, what kinds of criminals would you send to these prisons? After all, prison overcrowding doesn't come from serious offenders, but rather minor offenders. So if you're only sending serious offenders, you need a huge population to make them viable, and if it's all offenders, hello, welcome to the system that makes Gulags and concentration camps look HUMANE.

Edit: I know you probably missed it in my previous post, because I edited it, but what are you going to do about the inevitable children that get born on the planet?

[Batman]

-Regular food
Assuming it's a planet they can actually eek a living out on, they've got that IF they're willing to work for it

Bullshit. Ref: Somalia. You're putting HARDENED CRIMINALS on a planet and you expect them to play nice? You're fucking crazy.

I'm terribly sorry but that's their fault, not mine. If they would rather starve than work together...

-Running Water
Doable and not a necessity

Sorry, should have perhaps qualified that: Fresh running water. You're also assuming that the warlords will share their water supplies. You're a damn fool if you don't think that water will be fought over desperately.

Assuming the warlords will a)exist and b)have the ability to monopolize the water supply, of course.

-Sewage
Doable and not NECCESSARILY a neccessity (depends on the size of the population. The romans managed it, somebody with 16-19th century technology should be able to do it

The Romans were a civilization with laws and a community. We're talking about hardened criminals who got to where they are by lying, stealing, and KILLING.

If they're dead-set on dying from the Plague, let them.

-Protection from other inmates
They don't have that in modern prisons, either, except in single isolation, and while they ARE safe from that in those, they ALSO have NO HUMAN INTERACTION WHATSOEVER. I'm not sure which is crueler.

You're a fucking idiot. You're going from sometimes ineffective protection to NO protection at all.

No. I'm going from mostly ineffective protection to little protection.

In modern prisons, they segregate the violent offenders from the nonviolent offenders,

Which wouldn't be on the prison planet anyway
[quote[

have routine contraband checks, keep rival gangs in different parts of the prisons, and so on. Where did you learn about prisons? Prime time dramas?

If you have numbers on the effectiveness of that i'd be glad to hear them. I will admit outright that I am at least partially basing my assumptions about prison live on TV documentaries.

-Shelter
They've been given the tools to build such.

Hey, look, the Crips and the Bloods have been given basic tools! They're going to stop fighting and build a community together FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND. Jesus Christ, how delusional are you?

If they can't be arsed to stop fighting each other to start fighting for survival why should I mourn them?

-Medical Care
I already admitted that would be a problem.

Well, not totally deluded. Funny you'd be more worried about health care than, food, water, or shelter, which you ASSUME will appear from magical fountains of plenty.

I assume they can be built by the inmates if they work together. If they can't, I'm sorry but that's no great loss to society.

-Slave Labor
You don't on the prison planet, either. Nobody forces you to work. You're happily allowed to starve.

Once again, your delusion has done you in. Once ganglords have graduated to warlords, slave labor is practically a certainty.

Which is inevitably going to happen because?

-Torture
I very much doubt that doesn't happen in modern jails, either.

There's a difference between something happening and something being epidemic. In America, carjackings happen. In Africa, carjackings got so bad they started slapping flamethrowers on their cars. Do you get it yet?

What I see is you comparing nation states to a prison facility. Even where the Africas are concerned there's a slight difference in the available resources.

There's precious little in modern jails ensuring they'll live to see their parole or the end of their sentence, either.

Pure bullshit. In fact, I challenge you to prove that assertation. According to DOJ stats, there were nearly 5 million convicted criminals on probation and/or parole.

And how many were no longer there to await that on account of being dead?

Meanwhile, several prisions take great pains to keep the inmates safe, even from each other. Please present your evidence to the contrary.

I never said they weren't doing they're level best. I'm saying they're not particularly succesful. And at least for the time being both of those assertion are hearsay so I'm conditionally conceeding them until further notice.

There are days where I'm inclined to say Good! Let them!

Those days bring you closer and closer to being just like Walper then. By the way, what kinds of criminals would you send to these prisons?

Which particular part of high security prison didn't you understand?

Edit: I know you probably missed it in my previous post, because I edited it, but what are you going to do about the inevitable children that get born on the planet?

This is inevitably going to be a mixed gender prison planet because of?
A possibility, I might add, I have at least tangentially dealt with already.

[Hotfoot]

I'm terribly sorry but that's their fault, not mine. If they would rather starve than work together...

Assuming the warlords will a)exist and b)have the ability to monopolize the water supply, of course.

If they're dead-set on dying from the Plague, let them.

No. I'm going from mostly ineffective protection to little protection.

If they can't be arsed to stop fighting each other to start fighting for survival why should I mourn them?

I assume they can be built by the inmates if they work together. If they can't, I'm sorry but that's no great loss to society.

Which is inevitably going to happen because?

What I see is you comparing nation states to a prison facility. Even where the Africas are concerned there's a slight difference in the available resources.

I never said they weren't doing they're level best. I'm saying they're not particularly succesful. And at least for the time being both of those assertion are hearsay so I'm conditionally conceeding them until further notice.

This has been bunched together due to being a massive collection of simply stupid crap that was ALL covered in the previous thread which you should have read when posted the link for it directly after the OP. Your inability to read the thread or grasp the enormity of the stupidity, insensitivity, and frankly of your suggestions is staggering. You are creating a situation in which there is no direct control and after the first week will devolve in to anarchy. Knowing you have created that system, newer prisoners have virtually zero chance of avoiding it, yet you send them in anyway, that is reprehensible.

This is inevitably going to be a mixed gender prison planet because of?
A possibility, I might add, I have at least tangentially dealt with already.

No, you really haven't. In order to have a single planet for female murders and rapists, you'd have to have several planets strictly for men, and then, corrupt guards will take advantage of the fact that there is nearly zero oversight of actions on the planet, which will inevitable create a co-ed planet. Speaking of, enjoy hiring guards for these prison planets. Check page three or so of the previous thread for reasons why.

And how many were no longer there to await that on account of being dead?

A bare fraction, not that anyone with a brain is suprised. You've let media rot yours.

In modern prisons, they segregate the violent offenders from the nonviolent offenders,

Which wouldn't be on the prison planet anyway

I'd love to hear the reasoning for why violent offenders require an entire PLANET. Then you get to tell me what happens when a conviction is overturned on appeals.

have routine contraband checks, keep rival gangs in different parts of the prisons, and so on. Where did you learn about prisons? Prime time dramas?

If you have numbers on the effectiveness of that i'd be glad to hear them. I will admit outright that I am at least partially basing my assumptions about prison live on TV documentaries.

Hey, look, national trends for twenty-five years. The fact that deaths per capita are going down while prison populations go up is a very strong indicator.

Which particular part of high security prison didn't you understand?

The part about the point. If you want a high security prison, either the crime rate is going to go way up, or the necessary population is going to have explode into the trillions. Prison overcrowding comes from MINOR OFFENDERS. Murderers and rapists make up a relatively small percentage of the total population.

[The Cleric]

Just a question, but why do convicts have so many rights that you don't seem to want to violate? I mean, we are talking about CONVICTS here.

[Destructionator XV]

Just a question, but why do convicts have so many rights that you don't seem to want to violate?

Convicts are still people. Even if you ignore that, there are still imperfections in the justice system that send innocent people to jail.

[frigidmagi]

According the laws of the United States even a convicted murderer on death row as certain unalienable rights. While the mere fact of their imprisonment does mean that their rights are being curtailed, as a just and deserved punishment for crimes they have commited, they are still human beings. There is frankly no need to resort to savagery in their case, nor does it improve the lives or freedoms of free citizens to have them treated in such a manner.

One should beware treating murderers and rapiest to gentlely but one should also beware treating anyone even such as them savagely and without morals. One should always beware becoming a monster.

[Hotfoot]

If you're going to fucking kill them, be a man about it and put a needle in or shoot them in the fucking head. Don't pussyfoot around it and try to wash your hands of it by saying "Oh, it's not MY fault they're all killing and raping each other because we put them in an unsupervised shithole". In our legal system, there is a specific clause against cruel and unusual punishments. That is because we are a civilized society, not a bunch of fucking eye for an eye barbarians. Now, sure, our legal system has flaws, but we don't cut hands off for stealing or stone rape victims, and I consider that to be a good thing.

You want to remove someone from society because they commited a crime? Fine. There's no reason to be barbaric about it. Much as everyone loves to beat their chests about how great it would be to do horrible things to some criminals, at the end of the day, even a murderer can end up giving something back to society. Prisons and Jails are called "correctional facilities" for a reason. It may not always work, but there is an attempt to try and rehabilitate the prisoners into functional members of society. That can't happen if we fucking torture them.