Chief's "Punishment" in Hard Time
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That struck me as a bit strange, though, almost a point of plot convenience. If Federation medical technology has the ability to alter memory, even of lived experience (as they did with Kurn in 'Sons of Mogh', for example), why was Bashir having so much trouble removing the experiences of prison from O'Brien's mind?
That said, though, it strikes me that the point of prison is not necessarily just punishment but also rehabilitation and protecting the rest of society from potentially dangerous and anti-social people, so this strikes me as a pretty piss-poor substitute from the latter standpoint.
..Unless we assume the method has been found to instill so much fear and agony in the punished that his or her emergence from the extremely brief incarceration is indeed as a "reformed individual", one incapable of persisting with a life of crime.
Since erasing of memory is a medico-technological trick for the UFP, one might think the underlying science is also known to the Argrathi, and they thus know exactly what sort of chemical obstacles to place in the path of a Federation memory-wiping specialist. That is, Bashir might face a series of booby traps that would wreak havoc with O'Brien's brain if the erasing of memories by the customary means were attempted.
On the other hand, perhaps the difficulty of erasure stems simply from the long duration of the experience. Possibly 24th century chemicals can erase a specific experience or memory by locating it temporally in the storage systems of the brain - but trying to erase 20 years' worth of memories without erasing too much of the person (say, everything from the preceding 40 years as well) is too much of a feat. Picard didn't have his Ressikan experience removed, either.
...Although that might have been more because he knew Crusher was a hopeless klutz with the memory broom (what, three disastrously failed attempts so far?) and Pulaski was nowhere to be found.
Timo Saloniemi
Since erasing of memory is a medico-technological trick for the UFP, one might think the underlying science is also known to the Argrathi, and they thus know exactly what sort of chemical obstacles to place in the path of a Federation memory-wiping specialist. That is, Bashir might face a series of booby traps that would wreak havoc with O'Brien's brain if the erasing of memories by the customary means were attempted.
On the other hand, perhaps the difficulty of erasure stems simply from the long duration of the experience. Possibly 24th century chemicals can erase a specific experience or memory by locating it temporally in the storage systems of the brain - but trying to erase 20 years' worth of memories without erasing too much of the person (say, everything from the preceding 40 years as well) is too much of a feat. Picard didn't have his Ressikan experience removed, either.
...Although that might have been more because he knew Crusher was a hopeless klutz with the memory broom (what, three disastrously failed attempts so far?) and Pulaski was nowhere to be found.
Timo Saloniemi
Surely the entire point of prison is rehabilitation and protecting the rest of society from potentially dangerous and anti-social people? Or at least it should be. If legal penalties don't serve those purposes, then something's gone very wrong. I imagine the Argrathi are a society who have lost sight of what prison is about and, wanting to avoid the costs of incarceration, have latched onto this "artificial memories of prison" as an alternative - ignoring the fact that they're presumably sending broken and traumatized criminals back out into society to cause trouble (to say nothing of broken and traumatized non-criminals, like O'Brien).
Also, a problem with cheaper, quicker alternatives like the artificial memories is that the urge and desire to use them as often as possible will be strong - if you have to house and care for a criminal for months or years, you might ask - does this really warrent a jail term? If you just spend two hours fiddling with their brain, it will just mean far more people being sentenced, because the costs are far lesser.
I bet if Chief and Bashir visited Romulus, that might take care of those pesky memory bugs
the punishment is much better for a potentially innocent person wrongly convicted-they don't lose the actual time from their lives that innocent prisoners actually lose. They just gain some unpleasant memories.
6 hours in a simulation is much better than 15 years stolen from your life.
6 hours in a simulation is much better than 15 years stolen from your life.
That sort of sidesteps the important issue of deterrence. If jailing only affects the criminal being jailed, then it is not very efficient; indeed, if the criminal contribution of a single person did matter for some reason, then swift execution of the individual jaywalker would always be the best way to proceed (as certainly this single person would not be much missed in other respects, not enough to offset his curiously great contribution to crime). But the fear the other criminals out there feel when considering the possibility that they, too, might be tortured by freedom deprivation, is an important element in the policy of jailing, as it affects crime in a scale that actually makes a difference.
The virtual prison of "Hard Time" does not keep the single wrongdoer off the streets for any significant time, but it does appear to traumatize him into cessation of wrongdoing. The important thing, though, would be to pre-traumatize the potential wrongdoers outside the virtual prison into not living up to their criminal potential.
We don't know the specifics of the technique. Quite possibly, O'Brien's brain is now 20 years older and, to simplify a bit, will die 20 years sooner than otherwise, all other things being equal. The rest of his body did not appear to undergo physical aging (no hair or nail growth to match the virtual events), but that as such is no proof of anything much.
Timo Saloniemi
I wondered about that. Would he really die 20 years sooner? That sucks! Are you sure?
I was thinking that the Agrathi technique isn't really so bad and shouldn't work so well as a deterrent, at least among the Agrathi, if only because if you know it's not real, you'll go ahead and commit your crime, then wait it out in virtual prison and get on with your life afterward. I'm sure the fact that it seems real makes it traumatic, but it's not as bad as if you believe it's real.
I was thinking that the Agrathi technique isn't really so bad and shouldn't work so well as a deterrent, at least among the Agrathi, if only because if you know it's not real, you'll go ahead and commit your crime, then wait it out in virtual prison and get on with your life afterward. I'm sure the fact that it seems real makes it traumatic, but it's not as bad as if you believe it's real.
Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
As shown in the episode, there was no difference from O'Brian's perspective between "virtual" prison and real life. It was 100% real to him in all aspects. And his time was hard time. Ask anyone who has been or has read about someone who has been in a prison in a 2nd or 3rd World country about how harsh prisons can be.
Federation medical science MAY be able in theory to remove memories up to a point, but 20 years worth is a long time and a lot of memories.
We're not talking about what Crusher did with Sarjenka, which was remove at best a few hours or day's worth.
Federation medical science MAY be able in theory to remove memories up to a point, but 20 years worth is a long time and a lot of memories.
We're not talking about what Crusher did with Sarjenka, which was remove at best a few hours or day's worth.
The whole idea of this punishment is problematic. For most posters here, it seems that it's just a matter of implanted memories, but at some point early in the episode, someone explaining the procedure states that the prisoner actually passes through these experiences, in real time, though highly-sped up time. He doesn't just falsely remember experiences he never had... he DID experience each and every day of confinement, one by one.
I question whether erasing memories of traumatic experiences would erase the after-effects. One might still feel overwhelmed by... something he can't put his finger on. At least if you remember what traumatized you, you can think about it and learn to deal with it. The stuff still happened. I doubt the resulting feelings can be erased that easily.
As for rehabilitation being the most important goal, fine, but nobody knows how to rehabilitate criminals. Certainly this punishment doesn't rehabilitate... it may deter future crime, but it does this by breaking a human being, and that's nothing like rehabilitation.
I question whether erasing memories of traumatic experiences would erase the after-effects. One might still feel overwhelmed by... something he can't put his finger on. At least if you remember what traumatized you, you can think about it and learn to deal with it. The stuff still happened. I doubt the resulting feelings can be erased that easily.
As for rehabilitation being the most important goal, fine, but nobody knows how to rehabilitate criminals. Certainly this punishment doesn't rehabilitate... it may deter future crime, but it does this by breaking a human being, and that's nothing like rehabilitation.
Except apparently the Federation, beginning with Dr. Adams (or possibly shortly before him).
We have heard of a number of criminals who have gone to brainwashing for their crimes, and none of them has turned out to be a repeat offender. What's more, none has turned out to be incapable of continuing his or her life. Harry Mudd is a great example of a person whose career of crime continues with full human vigor, yet we observe he never repeats an offense he has been treated for.
However, we have little idea of how this is accomplished, and whether it works well on nonhumans. Yet it was apparently done on Garak in the aftermath of "Broken Link", and he never reattempted genocide. It may have been done on him after "Empok Nor" as well for all we know.
It would be easy to see how curing the criminal would not satisfy the sense of justice on some cultures, say, the Klingon one. But if the UFP method works on generic humanoids, from human to Argrathi, it would appear to be a great export product, with the Argrathi quite possibly among the customers.
Timo Saloniemi
Hmm. Well, Dr Adams (Dagger of the Mind, right?) hobbled minds, he didn't "heal" them. The blanker you are, the less will you have to misbehave, but this would come under the heading of breaking people, not rehabilitation. The writer may have been commenting on thorazine, which presents a similar problem, at least sometimes.
I've got a problem with blurring together criminality and mental disturbance. In Whom Gods Destroy there was a seemingly more benign version of the same chair/device, but I hope they only used such things on the criminally insane, rather than just plain criminals. The fact that very few criminals were supposed to exist in the 23rd century is, I hope, more a matter of people having been raised in a better environment, not lots and lots of chair-treatments on shoplifters, say.
Harry Mudd was "treated"? I don't remember that about Garak. I need to see it all again. After Empok Nor, I'd think eliminating the influence on him would have been enough. Garak, rehabilitated? He'd be no fun anymore...
I've got a problem with blurring together criminality and mental disturbance. In Whom Gods Destroy there was a seemingly more benign version of the same chair/device, but I hope they only used such things on the criminally insane, rather than just plain criminals. The fact that very few criminals were supposed to exist in the 23rd century is, I hope, more a matter of people having been raised in a better environment, not lots and lots of chair-treatments on shoplifters, say.
Harry Mudd was "treated"? I don't remember that about Garak. I need to see it all again. After Empok Nor, I'd think eliminating the influence on him would have been enough. Garak, rehabilitated? He'd be no fun anymore...
According to McCoy, the man did a lot of good work.
It's just that he was a perfectionist, so in addition to curing people, he also banged his head against a wall trying to cure incurables - which gave us Lethe and the misadventure with the torture chair.
That was mentioned in his criminal record in the introductory episode. Easy to miss.
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe, but I don't go for explanations of episodes which subtract meaning from them. A good man who just goes bad for unknown reasons isn't meaningful, and that makes no point. (And pressure from dealing with very hard cases isn't nearly enough of a reason, not to me anyway.) They weren't just cranking out entertainment then... they were trying to do something more than that.
A doctor or researcher can have a good reputation based on results which seem successful, but haven't been examined or questioned enough yet. McCoy may have heard good things about Adams, but we don't know what he heard or from whom.
At the least, this episode's about how total power over human beings, and being allowed to make your own rules, can corrupt and attract power freaks. The episode also seems to address criticism of psychiatry then and now, so specifically that it almost certainly isn't coincidence.
One of these is the fact that successes of psychiatry so often depend on the psychiatrist conveniently deciding what constitutes "success". Adams got results. Even after getting exposed by Kirk, by his own standards, his treatments worked, because violent cases stopped being violent. Never mind the quality of life and dignity lost by being made "blank"...
Good reputations can be made this way, and McCoy would have no reason to doubt the good things he'd heard about Adams.
Some American prisons are far worse.
It's a serious, serious problem in the US that is severely under-reported.
Hmh? Trying to interpret the episode as stating that Adams was a madman who just happened to have the mandate to run a madhouse rather than be one of the customers doesn't strike me as particularly mature. Are you really trying to say that you prefer to see Adams devoid of any motivation beyond "he was evil"?
True. But if he's in the business of reforming criminals, then the one result he can publish is a reformed criminal. If he isn't churning out those for real, then not only is McCoy way off base, the entire Federation penal-medical establishment is, in allowing Adams to consume resources for no observable gain. For twenty years straight.
Sounds silly. Only villains get corrupted by power? Everything actually stated in the episode establishes Adams as a good man gone bad, not a villain materializing out of the blue on the path of our heroes with strange government resources oddly at his disposal.
McCoy considered Adams the real McCoy in medicopenology. Noel fully agreed, even after getting the grand tour of what Adams was up to. By definition, those are our experts on the matter - the viewer is not. Claiming that Adams was no good to start with is like trying to argue warp physics with Scotty.
But never mind complicated medical issues. We have another witness statement to Adams doing good work, and he doesn't suffer psychobabble or read scientific papers. Kirk indicated several times that he had frequented penal colonies both before and after the methods of Adams were adopted. Furthermore, he never indicated his visits would have been limited to Tantalus V; he felt confident in stating that (at least several and most probably all) the penal colonies, plural, had become "more like resort colonies".
In order to be able to run an asylum, he'd have to meet the standards of others. And Adams was doing that for twenty explicit years. (Meeting the standards, that is; running a single asylum was something that only fell on his lap when he fried van Gelder's brain - before that, he had apparently in practice been running ALL the asylums in the Federation!)
Timo Saloniemi
What? Of course not. I'm having a very hard time trying to figure out how you could think that's what I was saying. That makes it hard to know how to respond. A number of factors lead people like Adams to think they know what's best for the rest of us, and the greater the ego, the less likely one is to question himself. He's not "evil". I don't believe in "evil", and he's not even necessarily a "madman", unless one wants to consider all such people madmen, in which case we've got an awful lot of them...
So? As I said, a "reformed criminal" is in the eye of the beholder. A man who no longer commits crimes is by definition a "reformed criminal". Therefore, Adams is a success, by the set criteria. But what if this lawful behavior is accomplished by disabling the will and hobbling the personality, in a way that might not be clear or obvious to most observers? The patient's interests are hardly served in this way. The result is less crime, but more people with deadened souls. It's an easy mistake to make, mistaking milder behavior for psychological "health".
I have no clue what you mean by "Only villains get corrupted by power?" I don't believe in villains. All human beings are corruptible. The more you control your situation and environment, the more corruptible you are. What's all this about "villains" anyway?
Well then, he was REALLY making or heavily influencing the rules. Not enough people who would dare second guess him, perhaps. Not enough oversight. Really, what I'm talking about is just an echo of what happens in the real world. The writer may not have fully realized how much better things were supposed to be in the 23rd century, or may not have cared, because he was commenting on the present day. Probably.
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Then either the UFP at large is perfectly happy with having its criminals hobbled that way and for that reason supports Adams' work, or then Adams' life work is faulty and has not gained UFP acceptance. We know from the episode that the latter is not true: his criminal reform process has been through the trials and has been put into practical use across the Federation, not merely in an experimental facility. Clearly, before going overboard with the mind-blanking chair, Adams has demonstrated that he can not only make his ideas work by his own criteria (anybody can dream up and build a perpetual motion machine that almost gets the job done, which ain't "proof of concept" objectively but may be treated as such subjectively), but can actually achieve practical and tangible results with them.
You seemed to be fundamentally unhappy with the idea that Adams did good work before going bad, going as far as saying that this was bad and immature drama ("explanations for episodes which subtract meaning from them"). And then you appeared to go even more simplistic, saying that the story must be about bad people going worse when they get access to power. I just cannot fathom why the story would become less powerful, less subtle, or less anything if we accepted what the dialogue was telling us - that Adams demonstrated how the obsessive pursuit of further success ultimately leads to horrific failure, even when the motivations are pure as such.
Adams being good at what he does, and objectively serving the common good, provides him with a good motivation for frying people's brains. Adams being an unexposed charlatan who acts out of insecurity or the need to cover his failures makes things simpler but IMHO not more dramatic, not more effective, and not really worthy of the early traditions of TOS storytelling.
Every person in the human realm would have an interest in providing firsthand oversight when Adams' reformed criminals return to the society. It's an issue the layman would tackle with passion, easily outshouting experts and dismissing their theoretical musings by referring to the tangible results.
Mind you, Adams' methods are shown outliving him. The Elba II establishment even uses the same hardware!
Timo Saloniemi
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