What are Federation prisons like on earth?

[T'Girl]

Also, housing of prisoners of war is a rather separate issue.

I certainy didn't say that my hypothetical Jem'Hadar was a POW, I would imagine that post Dominion War there would be a considerable number of the Jem'Hadar floating around the Federation, getting into trouble.

Earth prisons are going to be less brutal places because there aren't anywhere near so many brutal people being held there.

I not sure having Earth be a pleasant place is going to reduce crime significantly. There are simply people who like to harm other people, or it's for the power trip, or someone did something to them once.

People today don't steal to send their children to fine colleges.

Or they're bored, have nothing to do and have a lot of time on their hands. The way some posters here describe future Earth, a lot of people are going to have not much to do. Why not commit some crimes for fun? Vandalism, arson, thief, assault, murder. It not like you're going to actually be punished.

A couple of years at the Motel Six resort?

Yeah dude whatever.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Yeah, there are a few sociopaths out there who hurt people just to hurt people but they aren't a majority of criminals. People who are less educated are far more likely to commit crimes simply due to lack of exposure to alternatives and fewer marketable skills. And people with more money are far less likely to take the risk of committing crimes because they have more to lose.

Lack of education is no longer an issue in Star Trek's future, and nobody is lacking access to food and shelter. So I suppose you could make an argument that a greater percentage of the prison population are sociopaths just because non-sociopaths are far less likely to wind up in prison.

I agree there'd be kids committing minor crimes to show off. Vandalism, petty theft. Though contrary to the contention of the Purge movies, people who aren't sociopaths don't not murder people just because of the law. They don't murder people because they're not sociopaths.

 

[T'Girl]

Lack of education is no longer an issue in Star Trek's future

If I might ask, where are you getting this from the show?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Are you looking for a direct canonical statement "We have universal education"? I'm not sure there's that, but it's certainly the natural consequence of the Earth culture described to us in the series. We have learned poverty is eliminated, and we have learned that everybody has equal career opportunity, and I would argue those two conditions are not possible without universal access to quality education.

It also depends whether we're talking about 'On earth' or 'On all Federation planets'. There are probably other planets with less utopian conditions as Earth which have not fully solved equality of opportunity, and those planets would probably have higher crime rates.

 

[T'Girl]

we have learned that everybody has equal career opportunity

But that's an assumption on your part, just as with the education.

On a supposed "utopian" Earth (an idea admittedly I don't see) why would there need to be more than minimal education for the majority of the population? If their lifes are going to be spent recreating, playing on holodecks, having sex, eating and sleeping, how much would they really need to know?

Computer control can be entirely verbal, so reading and writing is at best optional. Mathematics need only be at the "kitchen math" level.

Remember, it's a "utopia."

Now yes, perhaps one percent of the Human population would need a above minimum education. Future Starfleet, administrators, doctors, technicians, and specialists.

But in a largely automated civilization with few real jobs and no requirements for income, why would parents (most of whom also had no education) send their children to school?

Childhood will be for endless play, as will their adult years.

Remember, it's a "utopia."

 

[robau]

I actually view abolishing state run education as the utopia. Shoving a bunch of children into one place to all learn the same things at the same time and the same pace is very dystopian.

In the utopia, parents(yes, even working) are able to be more involved. And of course technology would play a role.

 

[T'Girl]

About the only advantage to large schools would be the opportunity for socialization with other children outside their immediate group.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Also, housing of prisoners of war is a rather separate issue.

I certainy didn't say that my hypothetical Jem'Hadar was a POW, I would imagine that post Dominion War there would be a considerable number of the Jem'Hadar floating around the Federation, getting into trouble.

I rather doubt that. Assuming they didn't all kill themselves from the shame of surrender, then they would still be obeying the founders' orders - because that's what the Jem'hadar do. Presumably, even if the Founders are of a mind to continue the war eventually, they at the very least would be inclined to respect the treaty initially in order to give themselves regrouping time. That means that whatever Jem'hadar survived Cardassia would either be Federation, Klingon or Romulan POWs or they would all be ordered back to the Gamma quadrant.

The number who would openly defy those orders could probably be counted on one hand, if any of them even tried to defy them at all.

 

[T'Girl]

Few things, one I think that the Founders would simply abandon any Jem'Hadar in the alpha quad where ever they were at the time.

Two the Jew'Hadar wouldn't have been the ones who surrendered, that was the act of their gods and therefor for the Jem'Hadar there would have been no dishonor.

Three at the end of a war POW's are released, not retained. Certainly the Federation would not continue to hold POW's.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Are prisoners allowed conjugal visits? The cells we've seen so far don't seem like they could accomodate that ...

 

[T'Girl]

If privacy is unimportant to you and your partner, what would be the problem?

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Few things, one I think that the Founders would simply abandon any Jem'Hadar in the alpha quad where ever they were at the time.

Two the Jew'Hadar wouldn't have been the ones who surrendered, that was the act of their gods and therefor for the Jem'Hadar there would have been no dishonor.

Three at the end of a war POW's are released, not retained. Certainly the Federation would not continue to hold POW's.

Again, the Founders are currently (at least for the moment) under the Federation's thumb. If they don't cooperate and live up to the treaty, both in letter and in spirit, then starfleet doesn't allow odo to go to the gamma quadrant and they all die. Certainly just randomly cutting all the jem'hadar loose to wander around the alpha quadrant killing people would clearly strongly undermine the peace. It also would not result in jem'hadar prisoners, since they would all die of withdrawal within the month.

If the Founders were truly of a mind to not take the jem'hadar back to the gamma quadrant with them (which I think is a pretty bizarre assumption, since they already lost so much of their forces in the fighting) then the only solution for them that would still preserve the peace would be to order the jem'hadar to kill themselves.

Also, the Federation is not dumb enough to just slap a bunch of jem'hadar pows on a ship and let them go wherever they want. If there are pows to be released, they would be released directly into the gamma quadrant, into the Founders' custody.

 

[2takesfrakes]

If privacy is unimportant to you and your partner, what would be the problem?

True, with so many women in The Porn Industry, the chances of one ending up as the girlfriend of a Federation Prisoner ... aren't unreasonable.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Founders obeyed the order to surrender, and the Jem'Hadar obey the Founders without question, so I doubt there are any prisoners. They probably all withdrew to the GQ.

The Jem'Hadar wouldn't be ordered to kill themselves - they didn't fail or violate their orders, and suicide in this case would be a waste of perfectly good troops. If the Founders say withdraw, they'll withdraw.

 

[T'Girl]

If the Founders were truly of a mind to not take the jem'hadar back to the gamma quadrant with them (which I think is a pretty bizarre assumption, since they already lost so much of their forces in the fighting) ...

My thoughts are these.

The Founder really don't care about the Jem'Hadar as people, so they're not going to take them back to the gamma quad simply for that reason. The Founder will heartlessly abandon them.

Back in the gamma quad the Founders can simply make more Jem'Hadar when needed, this apparently doesn't take very long, so not returning the existing Jem'Hadars isn't going to put them short on soldiers.

The Founders created a new type of Jem'Hadar specially "designed" for the alpha quad (I admittedly don't understand this). This might mean that these are not optimized for gamma quad combat.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I don't agree. The Founders won't abandon the Jem'Hadar. Not only would it be, like I just said, a waste just on general principles, but IIRC the Dominion's cloning facilities and Jem'Hadar hatcheries have been smashed. They'll need all the troops they can get. They won't just throw them away.

And I'm sure it was part of the terms of surrender, anyway.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

^ To be fair, the cloning facilities et al were only smashed in the alpha quadrant. The war never really entered the Gamma Quadrant at all except for the ill fated Obsidian Order expedition. Still, I agree it would make no sense for the Founders to abandon the Jem'Hadar. Just because you have the capability to make new soldiers doesn't mean you randomly throw away the ones you already have. It's not like getting them back to the GQ would be some terrible hardship for the Dominion, since all the remaining ships would already have to be ordered to return anyway, and if they didn't have enough ships, the Federation would probably organize a transport convoy just to be rid of them.

Also, even though the Dominion can rebuild its fleet in a relatively short time, that doesn't make it an even remotely smart idea for them to throw away an entire batch of soldiers. Their losses in the war must have been astronomical (add up all the ships that originally came through the wormhole, all the alphas who died and the entire massive fleet that was destroyed by the prophets). They probably do need those troops in the gamma quadrant - for all we know the Dominion could still have other enemies on their own side of the wormhole who would see the Founders' disease as a golden opportunity to strike - and even if they don't, there's just absolutely no reason NOT to take them back.

I also have to say the idea that the 'Alphas' were somehow specially designed for alpha quadrant duty and in any way useless elsewhere seems entirely off base. They were different mainly because the cloning facilities had to be reproduced from scratch without direct contact with the GQ facilities. The Founders seemed to amp up their aggression an extra notch, which is probably just the difference between cloning 'peacetime' troops and cloning 'wartime' troops. But there wasn't anything there iirc that was really AQ specific.

 

[Drone]

About the only advantage to large schools would be the opportunity for socialization with other children outside their immediate group.

I don't know. For some folks of a cynical nature, the idea that large or mass state education would serve a very useful purpose in making pliantly docile a subject population through the inculcation of the contemporary "progressive" philosophies, doesn't seem particularly out of line.

 

[Cyke101]

I would assume that in the 24th century Utopia that is the Federation, you would still have criminals of every type, just not nearly as many as we have now. With basic needs met for every citizen, discrimination based on race, gender or species (nearly) a thing of the past, and the availability of free medical and mental health care, not to mention the vast educational and career opportunities, you're not going to see a lot of street gangs, drug cartels or organized crime families anymore. And if there really is no more "money", then there would be no more career criminals trying to scam or steal it.

There will always be screwups and outcasts of course (Harry Mudd comes to mind), but in far smaller numbers. Prisons really would be devoted to rehabilitation, and not to warehousing undesirables until their sentences had been completed.

Yeah, exactly. Earth prisons are going to be less brutal places because there aren't anywhere near so many brutal people being held there.

Yeah, there are a few sociopaths out there who hurt people just to hurt people but they aren't a majority of criminals. People who are less educated are far more likely to commit crimes simply due to lack of exposure to alternatives and fewer marketable skills. And people with more money are far less likely to take the risk of committing crimes because they have more to lose.

Lack of education is no longer an issue in Star Trek's future, and nobody is lacking access to food and shelter. So I suppose you could make an argument that a greater percentage of the prison population are sociopaths just because non-sociopaths are far less likely to wind up in prison.

I agree there'd be kids committing minor crimes to show off. Vandalism, petty theft. Though contrary to the contention of the Purge movies, people who aren't sociopaths don't not murder people just because of the law. They don't murder people because they're not sociopaths.

I'd been thinking about this topic over the last week, actually. The Federation has prisons, but we've seen nothing like mass incarceration, and nothing like prison for the sake of prison (not to get to that pesky subject of 24th century economics once again, but I highly doubt there are for-profit prisons, like the ones that charge prisoners for meals and charge ex-cons once again just to see their parole officers). No school-to-prison pipelines, either. No insipid War on Drugs that targets primarily the most vulnerable. Nothing to gain from locking up a disproportionate amount of its citizens.

I agree, there'll always be a need to punish lawbreakers and those who harm their fellow citizens. There's got to be a system of accountability, after all. But trumping up charges for the sake of lining one's coffers seems to be a thing of the past. Indeed, DS9 and ENT could have shown us something like a corrupt Earth prison, especially given the gluttony of police procedurals that have popped up over the last twenty years in the rest of TV Land. Of course, it's far easier to say that the writers were unconcerned and thus unintentionally chose to depict such a future, but I'll much rather take that than have future "enlightened" Earth continue today's prison-happy culture. I don't know how it got there, but I'm sure it'll be interesting to explore in any case and I'm glad that folks in this thread are discussing those ideas.