I'm conflicted. I once spent 200 days in prison as a conscientous objector. As far as prisons go, it was about as humane as it gets. It was a so-called "open facility" in a Nordic country. We had rooms with doors that were locked st night. We worked making traffic signs in the daytime, for which we were paid a little, and the work was, in principle, voluntary. We could leave the prison compound for an hour each day for a jog or walk in the woods. It would have been easy to just not come back. It would also have been stupid. No-one ran away in the time I was there.
For all that it was barely even a prison, I resented it, and still do. Taking a person's freedom is wrong. It may be necessary for society to function, but it is still wrong. At best it's the lesser evil. And even if there was no prison, no walls, I know I would resent being told what to do in the way your system seems to require.
That said, what you're proposing still seems like it would be less bad than prison, especially prisons as I understand they are in the USA. Of the inmates I knew, practically all were addicts of some description. One young man could not grasp the idea that 110 millimeters is 11 centimeters when I tried to show him with a ruler. I don't imagine them being in prison helped very many of them, or society, in any meaningful way. The one person I felt might not return had apparently quit crime well before but been convicted of some old misdeeds when someone ratted him out.
So it sounds like your ideas are better, at least. Still, I can't say much more than that I think you're entering an enterprise that does evil in the name of the greater good. It probably needs doing, and it sounds like you're trying to reduce harm. I can't applaud you, but I hope you can accomplish your goals and live with yourselves, given the world you're entering.
But they will balk at taxpayer money being used for preventative programs which intend to stop people from becoming addicted to hard drugs (heroin/opiates, meth, cocaine) in the first place, and also balk at paying money for treatment of current addicts.
> Taking a person's freedom is wrong. It may be necessary for society to function, but it is still wrong.
I want to be charitable here, but it sounds like you're saying that it is unconditionally wrong, as in, prison is simply wrong. If you are, then, sorry, but that is utterly insane. If someone commits a serious crime, that person deserves serious punishment, and of serious punishments, imprisonment for a commensurate period of time is entirely appropriate. For the more egregious crimes, imprisonment is insufficient (think of Breivik who easily deserved the death penalty). What the appropriate measures against drug abuse are, I don't know.
I don't see what deserving one thing or the other has to do with it, honestly. Retribution is something the justice institutions have been slowly moving away from for centuriea now, but unfortunately remnants of eye-for-an-eye still linger.
And yes, my personal judgment is that taking a person's freedom may be necessary in sone cases but is always a violation. If we want to keep putting people in prison, we need to bear that burden, not pretend it doesn't exist.
One of the reasons the government punishes criminals is so that private individuals are less likely to punish criminals. We're trying to prevent an endless cycle of revenge. The victim, or their family, needs to feel that the criminal has suffered. Private punishment is not bound by any restriction on being cruel and unusual.
For all that it was barely even a prison, I resented it, and still do. Taking a person's freedom is wrong. It may be necessary for society to function, but it is still wrong. At best it's the lesser evil. And even if there was no prison, no walls, I know I would resent being told what to do in the way your system seems to require.
That said, what you're proposing still seems like it would be less bad than prison, especially prisons as I understand they are in the USA. Of the inmates I knew, practically all were addicts of some description. One young man could not grasp the idea that 110 millimeters is 11 centimeters when I tried to show him with a ruler. I don't imagine them being in prison helped very many of them, or society, in any meaningful way. The one person I felt might not return had apparently quit crime well before but been convicted of some old misdeeds when someone ratted him out.
So it sounds like your ideas are better, at least. Still, I can't say much more than that I think you're entering an enterprise that does evil in the name of the greater good. It probably needs doing, and it sounds like you're trying to reduce harm. I can't applaud you, but I hope you can accomplish your goals and live with yourselves, given the world you're entering.