Because the only goal of forcing someone to eat something they consider immoral is to punish. It certainly won't help rehabilitation efforts (likely hurt them, in fact).
That need not be a goal, and it certainly wouldn't be the only goal. The primary goal would be cost and logistics. I don't think prisons have chefs custom making meals for each prisoner.
Short term savings for long term costs. How much is recidivism costing the US right now? They have made massive savings per prisoner but their reoffending rates are 60% Vs. 30% for Sweden.
And you're wrong. Food quality is a small piece of the big puzzle of how prisoners are treated, which obviously affects how they will reintegrate in society, which is something that recidivism rates measure.
Prisons should not be about punishing people. Punishment would lead to just more drain on society. I would have hoped we'd have outgrown this childish yearn for revenge in the 21st century.
You, like many people in this thread, seem to imply that punishment only serves to take revenge, or to balance the cosmic scales of justice. But you miss the obvious purpose of punishment: that it deters crime.
... which doesn't work. And if the victim's family is allowed to observe the execution of the prisoner, for example, that has nothing to do with deterring crime. There are countless other examples, especially in how both public officials and law enforcement agents, and the media portray court cases.
All the talk about justice being served is missing the point: if punishment is meant to deter crime (either by subduing/rehabilitating the prisoner or by serving as an example to would-be criminals), the feelings of the victim or the victim's family are irrelevant.
But we can actually measure whether punishments are a useful deterrent. Harsher punishments aren't better deterrents. In fact, they may even have the opposite effect: if you're already committing a crime that incurs the practical maximum (i.e. life-long imprisonment or the death penalty), the potential punishment for further crimes can not provide any deterrent at all. What can you practically add beyond that? Torture? Mutilation? A slow and painful death?
I'm not going to argue that the complete absence of punishment would be better. But in order to serve as a useful deterrent punishments often would have to be comically disproportionate to the actual harm of the crime. And that's exactly what we have in the US.
There are exactly three possible explanations to why the US is beating the entire Western world in terms of prison population: a) every other country in the Western world is overrun by criminals because we don't lock up enough of them, b) Americans on average are much more likely to be criminals or c) American prison terms are absurdly disproportionate. I know the right-wing media (or by non-American standards: the far right-wing media) likes to promote a) and Hollywood might be sold on b), I think we both know the answer is c).
Parent post argues that forcing inmates to eat food they consider immoral contributes to their "fuck the Man" mentality, and contributes to the recidivist mentality.
By spinning that into an argument about prison food being so good as to attract reoffenders, you are being childish and dishonest.
There are a lot of things I don't like to eat and I'm pretty sure that I would find eating in prison quite troublesome, regardless of what the food is.
It's one of the many prices you pay for breaking the law, but surely losing your freedom and seeing the world move on without you should dominate this unease?
Well there is a major distinction here. We aren't talking about "i don't care for meat." We are talking about someone's deeply held convictions on morality. Oftentimes vegetarianism is a major part of their identity and culture.
A vegetarian diet can be part of a relgious practce. Plenty of Indian religions emphasize a vegetarian diet - Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. As well as well as the Seventh-day Adventist, a Christian religion.
People can willfully choose their own religion too but it is considered unethical to force a group of people to convert to your preferred religion. In fact that can be considered a form of ethnic cleansing in some situations.
FYI - i personally am a vegetarian (for over a decade) for ethical reasons and being forced to eat meat would be extremely horrific for me. And i don't think that i would be able to eat fish at all without vomiting. Feel free to make fun of me or whatever.
> People can willfully choose their own religion too but it is considered unethical to force a group of people to convert to your preferred religion.
That's why I asked for a test procedure. Someone can claim that they genuinely believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and therefore must wear a colander on their head, and without a test, how do you distinguish that from a clothing restriction from a major world religion? You either need some internal test on the mindset of the individual (e.g. a polygraph, if those worked), or an external test on the claimed religion (e.g. a minimum number of global followers).
"A fixed or firm belief" - hm, sounds like religion all right. So, just like a person can't choose a religion, neither can they willfully choose a conviction?
I see the distinction, I'm just saying the prisoner's ethics are irrelevant: the society decides what rights and privileges prisoners get in prison, regardless of what they think they are entitled to.
I think it's significant that you switched the parent commenter's "something they consider immoral" to "something you don't like". It does sound pretty mild if it's something you just don't like for mild aesthetic or taste reasons. That's definitely not the way many people think about some of the things that they don't eat.
How the prisoner perceives this deprivation is irrelevant:
"I need to eat filet mignon once a week"
"No"
"But it's immoral for me not to"
"Oh okay then"
Prisoners are granted privileges based on how society and its laws perceive their demands. Nothing gets automatically granted just because of morality or religious choices by the prisoner.
That's really just a difference of opinion. As far as I'm concerned, the loss of freedom from being in prison is punishment enough, what happens to you there shouldn't be unnecessarily cruel or punishing.
The fact that our punishment-heavy system doesn't help recidivism should be a sign that purely punishment isn't effective at rehabilitation.
Entomophagy - eating insects - provides cheap protien. Would you be happy if you were forced to eat insects?
I don't think you understand how ingrained some of these "voluntary" diets are; how strong taboo is.
EDIT: also, forcing people to eat a certain diet is disproportionately punishng them. Do we give those prisoners reductions in their sentence just because they were life-long vegans before they went to prison?
Just because you don't happen to share their values doesn't make this the same thing as being a picky eater. I don't think you'd be so cavalier if the prison were doing something that goes against your values — for example, if the prisoners were forced to eat human meat.
You're in prison because you disregarded the values that society put in place, surely the society has no obligations to respect your values in prison (although it still goes to some length to do that).
"You shoplifted an expensive purse, so now we can force you to eat your late mother" is a positively medieval stance to take. Prisoners are still human beings, and forcing them to do horrible things like that is a violation of both the general idea of human rights and several parts of the US Constitution.
My point still stands regardless of the extreme example you decided to illustrate it: you disregarded society's values and in return the society will disregard some of your values.
The prisoner doesn't get to decide what is cruel and unusual punishment to them.
> Prison is punishment first, rehabilitation second
That is not a society I want to live in. Prison should protect the remaining population and rehabilitate, punishment should be a consequence of the means necessary to do so. Prioritizing in that order (protect -> rehabilitate). In my opinion anyways..
I think you dismiss the deterrent effect of punishment too hastily. I actually think that should be the primary purpose of prison (apart from forcing criminals to work to compensate their victims, but that one's probably too radical).
Rehabilitation should obviously be another goal, but for violent crimes I don't think there's a good way to predict recidivism that couldn't be gamed. If someone could theoretically be rehabilitated in a year for mass murder, should they be released? I don't think so, because that would drastically reduce the deterrence against murder.
But thise prisons are stupid. They're very expensive and they just don't work.
And by removjg diets you are disproportionately punishing some people. A Muslim given the same sentence as someone with no religion will suffer more as a result of imprisonment purely because of the lack of dietary choice.
"Prison should suck" is a horrible sentiment, and runs contrary to the UDHR. I understand that American hasn't ratified that, but that's not because they disagree with it.
I didn't say it was right. I said it is the society we live in. Subtle difference but a key one, since you ran with it and ascribed things to me I didn't say (I'm not sure where you read -- and quoted -- me saying "prisons should suck," so this is a really crucial misread). It is very important to understand that I did not share an opinion with that observation.
To that end, I've been there. You think I'd come out and go "gosh golly, that was sure an effective means of handling my situation?"
Living in Norway, I don't feel that to be the truth. You have a great point though! But I think removal of freedom, and in some cases isolation, suffices as deterrent.
>Prison is punishment first, rehabilitation second
Says who? Punishment (beyond the punishing nature of the denial of one's freedom) need only be a part of prison because some peoples' (defective) morality demands it.
The first priority of a prison is to protect the people at large from the expected behavior of convicted criminals.
>Of all the consequences of breaking the law, being forced to eat something you don't like certainly sounds pretty mild.
What reason do you have to believe that forcing vegan prisoners to eat a non-vegan diet (or starve) will have any rehabilitative effect? Or are you happy to mete out punishments arbitrarily based upon individuals' personalities?
Prisons already accommodate a multitude of diets for various (mandatory) reasons. It really isn't expensive to accommodate one more.
