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Bill: Prison Abolition Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK)
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This bill is a resolution. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: December 4077
Description[?]:
| A reintroduction of this legislation: In an effort to end the inhumane treatment of Kalistani Citizens who have been convicted of crimes, the Socialist Party hereby calls for Prison Abolition. 1) In preparation for prison abolition, all Prisoners' sentences will be reviewed and prisoners will fall into the following categories: Class 1a- Non-Violent Offenders- those who have merely violated the law but have not done a crime which has harmed anyone or destroyed anyone else's property Class 1b- Non-Violent Offenders, Property- Same as above except that they have destroyed someone else's property Class 2a- Violent Offenders, Simple Assault- Those who are in prison for a violent crime, but who are not a danger to anyone around them, (people arrested for fighting, crimes of passion, and so forth) Class 2b- Violent Offenders, Aggravated Assault- Those who are in jail because they were violent in the commission of a crime Class 3a- Violent Offenders, High repeat Potential- Those who are in prison because they are highly likely to commit violent crime again if they are let out of Prison Class 3b- Criminally insane- Those who are in prison because they are sociopathological and commit crime out of lack of empthy 2) Once Prisoners are catagorized along these lines, the following shall occur: a- The President shall immediately commute the sentences of all Class 1a offenders, with full restoration of all Citizenship rights, privileges and responsibilities. b- The President shall commute the sentences of all Class 1b Offenders, will full restoration of all citizenship rights, privileges and responsibilities. The Minister of Justice shall empower the courts to demand restitution for the lost, damaged or stolen property, up to and including wage garnishment or direct payment. The Prisoner shall remain under court supervision until restitution is made, if it is deemed possible by the courts. c- The President shall commute the sentences of all Class 2a Offenders, will full restoration of all citizenship rights, privileges and responsibilities. The Minister of Justice shall empower the courts to demand restitution of some form, in payment for the violence. And the Offender will submit to probation provisions for not more than a period of 2 years. If the former prisoner violates the terms of his or her probation by commission of another violent act, he or she will be reclassed as a Class 3a prisoner, and shall be taken back into custody. d- The President shall review the sentences of all Class 2b Offenders, for the purposes of suitability for parole. Those who demonstrate remorse for their actions and a willingness to re-enter society will be given the opportunity to do so. Class 2b Offenders will be required to enter into a state supervised half-way house to oversee their transition back into society, and shall be permitted to obtain a job and gradually transition into their own home, while remaining under supervision of the State. At the recommendation of the Directors of the State halfway house, the Offender will have their sentence commuted, with full restoration of all citizenship rights, privileges and responsibilities. The Offender will submit to probation provisions for not more than a period of 2 years. If the former prisoner violates the terms of his or her probation by commission of another violent act, he or she will be reclassed as a Class 3a prisoner, and shall be taken back into custody. For all Class 3 Offenders, these will be immediately transported to a single facility at Kings Rock which is currently uninhabited, in Odufaray's Pirate Coast region. The King's Rock facility will not be a penitentiary or prison. Inmates will have individual cottages, and will be expected to manage their own affairs, including the election of their own officials, the creation and enforcement of their own code of laws for the facility and the management of their own food supply, and may have full access to the Republican Food Bank and the National Agricultural Agency, as every other citizen does. Class 3a Offenders will be isolated from Class 3b Offenders and Class 3a offenders will be regularly evaluated for their suitability to return to society once their term is over. Nobody shall leave the island, except in the custody of the State. Security for the Island shall be established along Ministry of Justice guidelines for penal security, but the guards will eventually be replaced by a trustee system on the Island, with the Inmates serving as their own trustees. Offenders will be expected to develop their own code of laws for the Island, and will be expected to enforce those laws, but no law on the Island will directly conflict with and Republican Law or law of the District of Odufaray. Any inmate leaving the Island without permission, for any reason, will be returned to the Island immediately. All medical needs will be provided by the Ministry of Health and Social Services. Once their sentence is completed, Offenders may opt to remain on the Island as permanent residents, and shall serve as Trustees for the rest of their lives. Or they may opt to return to society, with all citizenship privileges, rights and responsibilities restored, as if they were never incarcerated. Those who are sentenced to life imprisonment will never leave the Island, but may serve as trustees while on the Island. 3) Those who commit future offenses will be categorized along the above schematic, and only the Class 3 Offenders will be sent to King's Rock. Class 2 and Class 1 convicts will be remanded to probation and restitution as applicable. This program will go into effect immediately upon passage of this Act, and the categorization of Offenders shall be completed after no more than 6 months. Commutation of sentences will begin immediately thereupon. |
Proposals
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 05:42:35, August 17, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | Is there a way I could improve this bill to make it acceptable to either KPP or the DFA? If not, please say as much and I will move it as is. |
| Date | 23:00:15, August 17, 2016 CET | From | Kalistan Unionst Party (KUP) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | I have reservations of highly dangerous criminals managing their own affairs, what's to stop them repeating their crimes. |
| Date | 23:02:18, August 17, 2016 CET | From | Libertarian Democrats of Kalistan | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | The DFA oppose the action towards Class 3 prisoners. We see the law and punishment as a form of deterrent to crime. However, we support that low security (Class 1) prisoners should be reevaluated and put through rehabilitation instead of incarceration. We believe that this rehab should be compulsory, but they are allowed to live outside of prison whilst they go through it. |
| Date | 07:14:33, August 18, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | They will be trapped on an island nearly 100 miles away from the mainland. The only people they will even be able to perpetrate their crimes upon will be themselves. Let me specify here: We believe that under this scheme, 9 out of 10 of all prisoners in Kalistan's admittedly underpopulated prisons will be released, either with or without probation. There are few laws in Kalistan which limit the ability of people to do things. So only those hardest of the hard will remain in custody. And that is a tenth of the total number of people. We will have the facility in case we need it. But we don't need it to be a prison, just a way of segregating the hardest criminals and sociopaths from the rest of society. And lets face it: being on a volcanic rock 80 miles out to sea is much safer than living in a prison in the middle of settled areas. It is much harder to escape. |
| Date | 07:16:23, August 18, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | Law and punishment is not a deterrent to crime. If it was, we would have no offenders. As for rehab, what would this look like? A half way house system? Mandatory meetings for a certain length of time? Job Training? What are some options. |
| Date | 16:18:30, August 18, 2016 CET | From | Kalistan Unionst Party (KUP) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | We need assurances that in the event of a mass incident on the island then there will be protocol in place to deal with the incident. |
| Date | 17:05:12, August 18, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | What if we added a clause that, if the Trustees on the Island requested assistance to put down civil disorder, there would be a special military, or militia force deployed to the Island to put the insurrection down? |
| Date | 19:16:32, August 18, 2016 CET | From | The Conservative Independence Party | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | Funny how SPoK would describe them as trapped, when that is the thing they want to change. |
| Date | 19:26:43, August 18, 2016 CET | From | Labour Party | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | We don't find that to very humorous at all actually. |
| Date | 00:09:07, August 19, 2016 CET | From | The Conservative Independence Party | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | Wasn't a joke. Seriously I will not bother explaining to the speaker what I meant as I've had to explain literature so many times it's getting rather annoying. |
| Date | 00:13:50, August 19, 2016 CET | From | Kalistan Unionst Party (KUP) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | As long as there is sufficent provision in place in the event of a major incident on the island, we will support. |
| Date | 00:16:43, August 19, 2016 CET | From | Labour Party | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | In that case, we ask that the CIP might explain what their point actually was? |
| Date | 05:46:53, August 19, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | People are trapped in the prison system now. If we had our drivers they would all be let free, but several of our Parties insist that we lock up people, more people, that we make laws, more laws that criminalize more and more behaviors every day. That is the President's Party that would incarcerate the nation if it had its way. The island was a compromise offer. Without it, this bill wouldn't have a chance. And the speaker wants to laugh at the bill for offering the compromise, rather than proposing anything constructive? For more than 2 decades, the Conservative Party has proposed bill after bill after bill in this country designed to limit freedom and liberty in this nation. Xenophobic nonsense, parochial privileges, and destruction of anything like a social safety net in this country. This has been their proposals. Throw more people in jail. Deport more people. Kick more people out on the streets. Frankly, the SP has had enough. Comrade President: As head of Government I speak directly to you. I backed your government bills, and agreed to serve in your government though u find everything your Party believes in to be repulsive to the cause of the human in Kalistan. Please! Call the Constitutional Court now. Your Party's speaker is doing a grave disservice to this Republic! |
| Date | 14:14:17, August 19, 2016 CET | From | Libertarian Democrats of Kalistan | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | The DFA wants to know what the provision/security of the island would be like? |
| Date | 15:15:09, August 19, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | As most of our members are still out of the Assembly, I will table to DFA's question until the authors of the bill return to the Assembly. |
| Date | 21:27:01, August 19, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | To answer the DFA's Question, the King's Rock is a volcanic Rock in the middle of the Ananto Ocean. It is 45 miles to the nearest piece of land and nearly 100 miles to the mainland. It is the furthest point in the Pirate Isles, off Odufaray. This was a fortress for Pirates thousands of years ago, and has recently only been used as a scientific research station which studied volcanic activity. The security of the Island, provided by the Justice Ministry, would consist of the following arrangement: 1) During transition to the trustee system, there would be officials on the Island to ensure that violence is kept to a minimum. In our Prison system, there is violence, and as long as people are cooped up in close quarters, that violence often takes on a very individualistic tone, where it is one or two versus one. In a facility like King's rock, the pressure cooker of a prison will be ended and there will be other diversions. But when an altercation breaks out, the State will maintain a presence to put the matter down and to try inmates for various infractions of the penal code. 2) During the transition period, the State officials will train the inmates in civics and in self government. Ultimately, the goal is to allow the inmates to, under supervision of the State corrections officials, write their own code of conduct for the island and to elect the most capable among them to serve as trustees for the camp. A trustee system will encourage people to rely upon their own power while on the Island to solve their own problems. At first, Trustees must be approved by Corrections officials and may be removed for cause, but later, Trustees will become equals in the maintenance and security of the Island. 3) Once the Trustee system is fully established, Corrections Officials will leave, with the exception of a skeleton crew, who will serve as auxiliaries to the Trustees at need in policing the Island. Additionally, there will be medical staff on hand to treat the criminally insane. The Republic will also continue to supply the island with building materials and food and medicine, and teachers will live on the Island to teach. I also imagine that the Trustees may put in for a contingent of the National Service to help maintain the infrastructure. But the Trustees will essentially be the elected and functional government of the Island, and will hold their own elections and so forth according to their code. At some point, I imagine the code will become a Charter and the Kings Rock facility will become a self governing Republican region, not under the jurisdiction of the District any longer. I hope this answers your question. |
| Date | 14:36:51, August 20, 2016 CET | From | Libertarian Democrats of Kalistan | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | Dangerous criminals deserve no such freedom. We ask the parties voting in favour of this bill to look the victims of murder, rape and arson in the eyes and tell them the people responsible for their pain will be given similar civil liberties to those who have been law abiding citizens their whole lives. We strongly support rehabilitation over incarceration for many crimes but letting Class 3 prisoners out of prison...this is no form of rehabilitation. We support the action towards Class 1a, 1b, and 2a prisoners. |
| Date | 16:45:05, August 20, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | To our Libertarian Comrades, We do look at those people every day. And it is difficult to have compassion for the criminals who perpetrated horrendous crimes. But with the Prison System in place, we ourselves are complicit in the creation of more victims- When we incarcerate thousands of Kalistanis, we also incarcerate their families, their loved ones, who have absolutely no part in the crime, except their previous relationship to the criminal. When we sentence someone to 20 years, we also sentence those people who love that person to make a choice: Either they will stay close to the place their loved one is locked up, and go through the process of security and so forth every time they want to see a convict, or they have to write that person out of their lives. It is not the Government's job to create MORE victims, but that is precisely what prisons do. We do feel for the victims. But we know that locking the perpetrator up is not going to resolve the loss those victims have. Its not going to give them anything to restore any part of their life which was taken from them. Its just going to ensure that the irritant remains ever present in a cell to remind them of what they lost, what was taken from them. And it is going to encourage a sense of vengeance which is hardly moral. It is not the Government's job to promote immoral sense of revenge, but that is precisely what prison's do. Restoring the social order which was breeched by a criminal act- that is the job of the Government. And that is precisely what this bill does. By requiring rehabilitation, by requiring restitution, and yes, by requiring the segregation of the criminal minded from the rest of society, without taking away a person's humanity, that is precisely what this bill does. And that is why we SHOULD vote for this bill. We encourage those who voted against the bill to think about the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, and loved ones, who will remember that it was YOU who voted to take their loved one away and throw them in a deep dark hole, to be forgotten. Yes, have compassion for the victims. We can do whatever we like to try to restore their lives to them, as much as possible. But can you restore the lives of the families that our prison system has destroyed? Can you sleep with yourself knowing that our courts not only sentence offenders to punitive corrections, but also all the people who ever cared for those people? Can YOU, in good conscience, vote to take something away from people who never hurt anyone, and yet, find themselves in the exact same situation as the victims, or maybe in a worse place, due to the loss of maybe the primary earner in the family? Because, let me remind you- a no vote doesn't only affect the lives of violent criminals: it leaves in place the old system where we lock up, often for long times, even non-violent offenders. Twenty years for some crimes which cause loss or destruction of property, but nobody was hurt? Its not just the murderers and rapists- those are a very small part of the prison population. It is also the property offenders, repeat petty criminals, and yes indeed, sometimes innocent men and women who are in jail because of a preponderance of circumstantial evidence and the mistake of a jury and the zeal of a prosecutor, rather than actual guilt. You would keep THOSE in prison as well, because a no vote is a vote for the status quo in our broken corrections system. Can you, in good conscience, support THAT? It is time we ended this cruel and inhumane system of prisons and penitentiaries in our land. Once and for all. People are meant to be at liberty. Even guilty ones. Lets take a step toward the restoration of social order, and end the state sponsored destruction of it in our prison system. |
| Date | 17:16:17, August 20, 2016 CET | From | Labour Party | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | Fine words from the Socialist Party speaker. |
| Date | 17:21:53, August 20, 2016 CET | From | Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK) | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | To our Libertarian Comrades, We do look at those people every day. And it is difficult to have compassion for the criminals who perpetrated horrendous crimes. But with the Prison System in place, we ourselves are complicit in the creation of more victims- When we incarcerate thousands of Kalistanis, we also incarcerate their families, their loved ones, who have absolutely no part in the crime, except their previous relationship to the criminal. When we sentence someone to 20 years, we also sentence those people who love that person to make a choice: Either they will stay close to the place their loved one is locked up, and go through the process of security and so forth every time they want to see a convict, or they have to write that person out of their lives. It is not the Government's job to create MORE victims, but that is precisely what prisons do. We do feel for the victims. But we know that locking the perpetrator up is not going to resolve the loss those victims have. Its not going to give them anything to restore any part of their life which was taken from them. Its just going to ensure that the irritant remains ever present in a cell to remind them of what they lost, what was taken from them. And it is going to encourage a sense of vengeance which is hardly moral. It is not the Government's job to promote immoral sense of revenge, but that is precisely what prison's do. Restoring the social order which was breeched by a criminal act- that is the job of the Government. And that is precisely what this bill does. By requiring rehabilitation, by requiring restitution, and yes, by requiring the segregation of the criminal minded from the rest of society, without taking away a person's humanity, that is precisely what this bill does. And that is why we SHOULD vote for this bill. We encourage those who voted against the bill to think about the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, and loved ones, who will remember that it was YOU who voted to take their loved one away and throw them in a deep dark hole, to be forgotten. Yes, have compassion for the victims. We can do whatever we like to try to restore their lives to them, as much as possible. But can you restore the lives of the families that our prison system has destroyed? Can you sleep with yourself knowing that our courts not only sentence offenders to punitive corrections, but also all the people who ever cared for those people? Can YOU, in good conscience, vote to take something away from people who never hurt anyone, and yet, find themselves in the exact same situation as the victims, or maybe in a worse place, due to the loss of maybe the primary earner in the family? Because, let me remind you- a no vote doesn't only affect the lives of violent criminals: it leaves in place the old system where we lock up, often for long times, even non-violent offenders. Twenty years for some crimes which cause loss or destruction of property, but nobody was hurt? Its not just the murderers and rapists- those are a very small part of the prison population. It is also the property offenders, repeat petty criminals, and yes indeed, sometimes innocent men and women who are in jail because of a preponderance of circumstantial evidence and the mistake of a jury and the zeal of a prosecutor, rather than actual guilt. You would keep THOSE in prison as well, because a no vote is a vote for the status quo in our broken corrections system. Can you, in good conscience, support THAT? It is time we ended this cruel and inhumane system of prisons and penitentiaries in our land. Once and for all. People are meant to be at liberty. Even guilty ones. Lets take a step toward the restoration of social order, and end the state sponsored destruction of it in our prison system. |
| Date | 00:33:52, August 21, 2016 CET | From | Libertarian Democrats of Kalistan | To | Debating the Prison Abolition Act |
| Message | The Libertarians would like to commend such an admirable speech for SPoK. We would support the actions towards Class 1 and Class 2 prisoners. We cannot support the action being taken towards Class 3 prisoners however, and it is for this reason that we object such a bill. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||
| yes | Total Seats: 388 | ||||
| no |
Total Seats: 311 | ||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 51 |
| Random fact: Don't put "the" as the first word in your party name, because when parties are referred to in news reports, their names are preceded with "the", e.g. the [Socialist Party] has lost. |
| Random quote: "Popular suffrage is in itself no guarantee of freedom. People can vote themselves into slavery." - Frank Chodorov |