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Let's talk about justice (not the episode)

in Broken Link Garak gets 6 months in confinement , that doesnt sound enjoyable. though he doesn't seem to disappointed.

Garak, I think, was playing it off, because he didn't want it to be known he was severely claustrophobic. (I am aware it wasn't established until the next season, but I think this is true anyway, given his enigmatic nature.)

For someone sufferong that kind of phobia, that must be hell. Plus, it would explain why he got out in less than 6 months. There is no way 6 months happened between the end of that episode and "THINGS PAST", his next appearance.
 
The penal colony Tom was at seemed pretty comfy. It's always implied in the Berman era show that a Federation prison is a gilded cage. A comfy place you just can't leave.
Indeed.

I read a book from about a century ago by a professional criminal. Its subject was how he operated, in an effort to help catch others like him.
At one point he says that while some prisons are worse than others, all prisons are prisons. He described in detail one prison where the prisoners had to collect their food from a different building and then return to their cells, so that in cold weather you were waiting in line in the cold and then carrying your food along walkways slick with frozen spilled coffee, just to give perspective to his statement that no matter how bad a prison was, the worst part was being made to feel seperate from society; an "inmate" rather than a person.
He said a professional thief should expect to spend three days in prison for every day he spends out, and each must decide for himself if that is worth it.
 
Saw The Trouble with Tribbles the other day and at the end Cyrano Jones is threatened by Spock, not a man given to lies, with 20 years imprisonment in a rehab centre for transporting a dangerous lifeform off its native planet.
Seems especially harsh when it is Spock who sees no problem having the Tribbles beamed over to the Klingon ship.
If Tribbles are dangerous Spock made a rather dubious moral decision at the end.

*Everybody laughs ending*
 
Spock may not be given to lies, but he has little issue with tactical exaggeration, misdirection, etc.

And its always rather difficult to take those TOS joke endings seriously without causing story issues. They just weren't written with that in mind.
 
Lenore Karidian kills several people, but is apparently sent to a psychiatric institute. Hopefully, not the ones we see in "Dagger of the Mind" or "Whom Gods Destroy." :)

It's funny. We hear a lot about how humane the psychiatric hospitals are in the 23rd century, but the two times we actually see one . . . hoo boy! :)
 
In ENT you are sent to a fairly comfortable cell with abundant amounts of writing paper (Borderland).
In TOS you are sent to a remote rehabilitation center (Dagger of the Mind, Whom Gods Destroy).
But by VOY you will wear a gray jumpsuit and an ankle monitor then forced to perform labor (Caretaker).
What happened to the progressive justice of the Federation?

'The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.'
-Fyodor Dostoevsky
In TOS they'll execute you by some method unexplained just for visiting a planet the Federation doesn't want you visiting.
 
Don't think the same would be true for Soong- when Archer visited him he had been in prison for 10 years and it didn't seem like they were about to release him soon, hadn't Archer come along. He might have been locked inside a cell precisely because he was considered too dangerous to do work in a more outside environment, much like the differences between today's maximum security prisons and prisons that are graded lower on that scale.

Also as far as Soong goes: " Of course, none of this will ever be tested. They clear out my room every few months. I'm told it all gets vaporised. " , so I doubt he had much job satisfaction.
That must really suck(for him). Soong is like Tantalus, or Prometheus.
 
The vibe I picked up -- if only for TNG -- is that you have your more enlightened citizen, untethered for the need of money and who's universe is his oyster. And that for a convict, a relatively easy stint in New Zealand, was a terrible burden for that enlightened citizen who's movements are now curbed from all what all Federation citizens want to do - explore n' all.

Janeway is a kinda tough nut though putting Tom Paris in the clink in that claustrophic brig with little to do but eat Neelix' dubious food. Particularly as other officers are seen to transgress and just get the "you let me down" treatment.

.
 
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