Hard Time: Really as effective a punishment?

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't buy that giving somebody a simulation of incarceration is as much of a deterrent as real prison. Besides the fact that real prison causes you to miss years of your life and has a huge physical toll, aren't most prisoners aware that it's not real?

O'Brien didn't know how Agrathi punish people, so when he accidentally kills his cellmate after falsely accusing him of hiding food, it has a tremendous psychological effect. If you knew it was fake, you'd probably be like 'Oh, NO did I kill my fake cellmate? How terribly awful of me I feel SO bad!'

And sociopaths wouldn't even feel bad about killing their cellmate, they'd come out thinking 'HA I get to go back to my regular life, some punishment.' Then they'd start committing crimes with total abandon thinking, worst case scenario, I get another fake prison experience and go right back to my life AGAIN.

And why don't they use this technology for people with terminal illnesses or very old people nearing death? Hey I have cancer, oh darn it, guess I'll have to spend 50 years in a paradise simulation.

 

[Hober Mallow]

O'Brien turned out okay once he resumed normal duty and pressed the station's reset button.

 

[Tosk]

I don't consider Hard Time a reset button ep. The "get over it with time and help" factor is already built into the story itself. Unlike Picard, we at least see O'Brien struggling to re-learn his job.

 

[Melakon]

Yeah, "Hard Time" is sort of "The Inner Light Lite".

 

[dub]

more like "The Inner Light HEAVY."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Besides the fact that real prison causes you to miss years of your life and has a huge physical toll, aren't most prisoners aware that it's not real?

There are probably built-in "safeguards" to make sure the prisoners don't realize it's not real. Subtle psychological cues to make them think it IS real, and/or forget (if they already knew) how the Argrathi do this.

 

[Anwar]

Wouldn't it make more sense for there to be some rehabilitation program for them to use on people instead of torturous prison simulations?

 

[Jono]

I don't buy that giving somebody a simulation of incarceration is as much of a deterrent as real prison. Besides the fact that real prison causes you to miss years of your life and has a huge physical toll, aren't most prisoners aware that it's not real?

O'Brien didn't know how Agrathi punish people, so when he accidentally kills his cellmate after falsely accusing him of hiding food, it has a tremendous psychological effect. If you knew it was fake, you'd probably be like 'Oh, NO did I kill my fake cellmate? How terribly awful of me I feel SO bad!'

People know holodeck simulations are fake but we've seen several times where people are so immersed that it doesn't matter. They know that physically nothing is real, but emotionally it is and that overcomes the lack of it being reality.

And sociopaths wouldn't even feel bad about killing their cellmate, they'd come out thinking 'HA I get to go back to my regular life, some punishment.' Then they'd start committing crimes with total abandon thinking, worst case scenario, I get another fake prison experience and go right back to my life AGAIN.

That's assuming that they give everyone the same punishment. Maybe murderers get the death penalty or since they are great with mind altering they brainwash sociopaths into being "normal"/"good" like the Nebari do in Farscape.

And why don't they use this technology for people with terminal illnesses or very old people nearing death? Hey I have cancer, oh darn it, guess I'll have to spend 50 years in a paradise simulation.

Maybe they do. We got to see about 20 secs of them in the "real world" and it was in a lab or whatever. We have little idea of what their society is like apart from that for certain crimes you get sent to imaginary brain gaol.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Did it seem like O'Brien was treated as the Harry Kim of DS9?

 

[Jono]

^ If anything it would be Harry Kim was treated as the O'Brien of VOY given DS9 came first.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

This comes close to the same logic as one should be able to reason or pray themselves out of mental illness, a position that is fraught at best.

 

[Tosk]

Fraught with what?

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Did it seem like O'Brien was treated as the Harry Kim of DS9?

^ If anything it would be Harry Kim was treated as the O'Brien of VOY given DS9 came first.

And Geordi La Forge came before both of them.

 

[dub]

Did it seem like O'Brien was treated as the Harry Kim of DS9?

^ If anything it would be Harry Kim was treated as the O'Brien of VOY given DS9 came first.

And Geordi La Forge came before both of them.

...and Chekov came before that.

Did it seem like O'Brien was treated as the Harry Kim of DS9?

I actually felt pain for O'Brien. He's a great character and Colm is a great actor. In Kim's case, I'm always just hoping he dies in those scenes.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Fraught with what?

Fraught doesn't need with. It's an adjective.

 

[R. Star]

^ If anything it would be Harry Kim was treated as the O'Brien of VOY given DS9 came first.

When crap happened to O'brien I felt bad for him. WHen it happened to Kim it usually was funny.

 

[SchwEnt]

Yes, many questions in this eps.

The Agrathi penal system may not be about corrections or rehabilitation or deterrence, only punishment. And then Agrathi may not want to inflict "real" punishment because of reasons, so they create "virtual" punishments.

And a criminal without remorse or conscience wouldn't suffer as O'Brien did, so perhaps each punishment is uniquely created for each criminal.

This Agrathi mind technology may extend well beyond their criminal justice system. It may be used extensively in all aspects of their society, as reward and punishment and more.

Many questions.

 

[Lindley]

This comes close to the same logic as one should be able to reason or pray themselves out of mental illness, a position that is fraught at best.

The position is 'causing or affected by great anxiety or stress' at best?

 

[R. Star]

Yeah, I always figured the program was tailored to the offender. A child rapist would probably end up with a cell mate who constantly rapes him, a murderer would probably be beaten by his cell mate routinely and so forth.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

This comes close to the same logic as one should be able to reason or pray themselves out of mental illness, a position that is fraught at best.

The position is 'causing or affected by great anxiety or stress' at best?

The position being the one taken by the people dealing with mental illness, not the OP.