The sharpest test of the conscience remaking of human character is found in the Soviet policy for handling law-breakers. The Soviet criminologist holds neither of the theories on which the prevalent systems of prison regime in capitalist countries are based. He does not believe in the existence of “born criminals” whose will must be broken by brutal suppression nor does he rely on emotional appeals to the “better nature” of the criminal, for he knows that this better nature exists as yet only in rudimentary form. “We don’t assume that a man of anti-social habits will be at once reclaimed by gifts of chocolate, nice bathrooms, and soft words,” a leading Soviet penologist told me. “Men are made over by a new social environment and especially by their work done collectively.”
Soviet law aims to make over social misfits while protecting society from their attacks. Punishment as vengeance has no place in such an aim: revenge merely incites revenge in return. To make prisoners sit in solitude and think of their sins produces a fixation on crime. To “break a man’s will” or lessen his human dignity in any way injures him as material for a creative socialist society.
Soviet justice therefore aims to give the criminal a new environment in which he will begin to act in a normal way as a responsible Soviet citizen. The less confinement the better; the less he feels himself in prison the better…. “We have a double approach,” said Attorney-General Vyshinsky in an interview. “Active, confirmed enemies of our Soviet power who stick at nothing to injure us must be ruthlessly crushed…. But if we had tried to apply the idea of absolute humanitarianism to bitter enemies we wouldn’t be here today.”
Strong, Anna Louise. This Soviet World. New York, N. Y: H. Holt and company, c1936, p. 254
Punishment as vengeance has no place in such an aim: revenge merely incites revenge in return. To make prisoners sit in solitude and think of their sins produces a fixation on crime.
unironically better than the US criminal system :shrug-outta-hecks:
The GULAG system
The sharpest test of the conscience remaking of human character is found in the Soviet policy for handling law-breakers. The Soviet criminologist holds neither of the theories on which the prevalent systems of prison regime in capitalist countries are based. He does not believe in the existence of “born criminals” whose will must be broken by brutal suppression nor does he rely on emotional appeals to the “better nature” of the criminal, for he knows that this better nature exists as yet only in rudimentary form. “We don’t assume that a man of anti-social habits will be at once reclaimed by gifts of chocolate, nice bathrooms, and soft words,” a leading Soviet penologist told me. “Men are made over by a new social environment and especially by their work done collectively.”
Soviet law aims to make over social misfits while protecting society from their attacks. Punishment as vengeance has no place in such an aim: revenge merely incites revenge in return. To make prisoners sit in solitude and think of their sins produces a fixation on crime. To “break a man’s will” or lessen his human dignity in any way injures him as material for a creative socialist society.
Soviet justice therefore aims to give the criminal a new environment in which he will begin to act in a normal way as a responsible Soviet citizen. The less confinement the better; the less he feels himself in prison the better…. “We have a double approach,” said Attorney-General Vyshinsky in an interview. “Active, confirmed enemies of our Soviet power who stick at nothing to injure us must be ruthlessly crushed…. But if we had tried to apply the idea of absolute humanitarianism to bitter enemies we wouldn’t be here today.”
Strong, Anna Louise. This Soviet World. New York, N. Y: H. Holt and company, c1936, p. 254
MFW the Gulag is unironically more humane than the "freedom and democracy" country's prison system.
:astronaut-2::stalin-gun-1::stalin-gun-2:
Always has been
Click the link titled "Mary Steven Callcott" below in my other comment for the full spiel
:dont-laugh:
Dr. Mary Steven Callcott
deleted by creator
I own a copy of the book too
unironically better than the US criminal system :shrug-outta-hecks:
Duh, Why do you think the Gulag system's so fucking demonized and warped in the west? If you know there's a better world out there, you're gonna want to seek it.
I've been doing leftist shit for years now and I'm still unwinding the programming. That shit runs so deep.