Louis Brin, a noted prison reformer, told 50 people in Phillips Brooks House that prisons, public schools, and hospitals are repressive and de-humanizing and should be reformed yesterday.
"The prison environment contradicts the goal of the system," Brin said. "Rehabilitation must take place outside the prison."
He said that prisons should contain only those people who can't function in a free environment. That would leave only a hundredth of the present prison population, he said. "Too many busybody laws proscribing behavior clutter up the courts and the prisons," Brin continued.
Efforts to treat prisoners are really only exercises in control because of the attempt to both rehabilitate and punish inmates at the same time, Brin said. This combination makes rehabilitation degrading, he said.
Diversion from institutions should be the goal of the system, and "institutionalization should be the last resort," he said.
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