This would extend a prisoner’s punishment beyond their sentence. The goal of incarceration is to reform, not take revenge. That’s if all goes well and the system is not motivated by perverse incentives or overwhelmingly targeting a specific group of prisoners (like the poorer ones) with a deal they can’t really refuse.
But the system in many countries doesn't work, otherwise there wouldn't be high rates of reoffending. This isn't about revenge - if that were the case I'd be advocating forced sterilisation, which I'm not. Other concerns are implementation questions, regarding ethics, safeguards, informed consent, etc.
The alternative would be to treat prisoners as victims of their upbringing, but that raises questions about the degree to which it's possible to reverse someone's early emotional trauma. For some crimes (e.g. drug addiction) that may be a better approach, as seen in more progressive countries like Portugal.
There have been projects in Western Africa that have shown that cognitive behavioral therapy can markedly increase social integration and reduce violence of even former child soldiers, probably the most traumatized demographic you can think of. Even pedophiles can - with sufficient support and therapy - manage their urges, as can alcoholics, etc. The hard truth is that the U.S. prison system is making no effort whatsoever at reintegration/therapy and instead is designed to enhance traumatization.
I actually think that sterilization is an incredibly important tool in terms of family planning and should be offered for free to all interested and consenting adults. But prison is probably the worst place to offer it, because (especially in the U.S) it is a place of coercion that precludes meaningful consent for a non-reversible non-life-saving medical intervention. Like other attempts to use sterilization to solve social problems throughout history, it would just contribute to trauma under these circumstances, not alleviate it.
The goal of incarceration is punishment (which acts both as retribution and deterrent), reform is an added benefit too rarely achieved, as is the benefit of keeping dangerous people away from future victims (in most countries those dangerous people are released sooner or later). Prison isn't a hospital for crime.
You mention downvotes which suggests you understand forced/incentivized sterilization has a sordid history of eugenics. Yet, you make no effort to explain why your proposal isn’t eugenicist.
Because it must be a voluntary choice instead of forced. A free trade of reproductive capability in return for a reduced sentence. To avoid overly targetting certain groups, the offer could be standardised in some way.
Ultimately I believe society would benefit by breaking such toxic cycles.
The problem with incentivizing sterilization is that you’re essentially abusing power dynamics to coerce vulnerable people into doing something they would otherwise not choose.
You also need to consider that a staggering number of men in prison in the USA for decades were jailed over cannabis, which is now legal in more states all the time. These are not people who we need to sterilize.
Any situation where an authority incentivizes a marginalized individual to be sterilized, there’s a serious problem.
I'm not sure I believe incarcerated people can make free choices. And I would assume that legislators would push towards harsher and harsher sentences to incentivize prisoners to "choose" sterilization if they ever want to see daylight again.
An incarceration system, if it has any hope of working, must treat prisoners as people who can become valuable members of society in the future despite their past wrongdoing. When you decide that prisoners are a blight on society and that no rehabilitation is possible then prisoners turn into some kind of underclass that is to be disposed of, either directly or indirectly. That's real dark.
That was tried, in various forms already. Now I let you guess by whom.
Honestly, people in Germany are freaking out because the AfD won the county equivalent of a mayors election for the first time. In Germany's second smallest county (it is a Landkries, a county is as close a thing as possible). What bothers me much, much more is to see all this Nazi-eugenics derived ideas slowly but surely finding their way again into mainstream discours. Freaking scary actually.
TIL this sort of derailing of a conversation is called 'concern trolling':
Concern trolling is a manipulative tactic where an individual pretends to be genuinely concerned about a particular issue or cause, but their real intention is to derail the conversation and discredit the opposing viewpoint. In the example you provided, person B is attempting to associate the contentious idea with Nazi thought in order to make anyone who opposes or questions the idea appear sympathetic to Nazis.
Well if they mention their dad is in prison its a bit too late to sterilize, don't you think? If folks in prisons are rather less educated and have lower IQ than average, they are having children earlier in life than average... all this means that you probably won't catch the issue 'at the source' in most cases so to say.
That goes without even going into morals, bad incentives and overall this-is-not-a-good-idea-in-democracy stuff. Imagine if, instead of these severe punishments, you would try to make people better human beings in prisons, teach them skills they can use for honest life once getting out and actually properly help them out? Most folks in prisons are not career criminals, not when they enter the system. I know, very non-righteous-conservative-living-by-bible approach. Instead, ie in US prison record ruins your life, and population generally doesn't give a fuck, you went to prison, you deserved it, now suffer and suffer more, you are sub-human.
Rather than sterilizing people, I've often thought that maybe we should rather have things like means-testing. Originally it was more in the context of not letting poor kids suffer, but perhaps we expand it to make sure kids will have a healthy and safe and loved childhood.
There is something very visceral that comes out of people when you suggest that procreation should perhaps not be a universal right. And don't get me wrong, I think parenthood is integral to a society, but we're broken atm and need to get to a place where we have an upward trajectory.
Poverty is not a choice but dictated by economic circumstances. If you want to "fix" humanity, it's not by taking away a universal right from humans, but by making sure that their needs are are taken care of.
I think that's what I meant, perhaps I used the wrong word. So we "test" that they have the "means" to provide a roof and food for their children? And yeah, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be helping them at the same time
> So we "test" that they have the "means" to provide a roof and food for their children?
But when? Pre-conception seems like the best choice and yep, they have $$$. Oh, no, month 2 of the pregnancy has a complication which wipes out $$ of their money. Still, good to go. Oh no, there's a birth complication and that's another $$ wiped out. Basically on the edge of financial viability now - do you take the baby away? Then there's, say, a global economic meltdown and our unlucky parents are now wildly underwater - do you take the baby away? Or the landlord decides to jack up the rent or sell the building or ...
It's a nice idea but ultimately unworkable unless you can predict the future.
