The Soviets believed that reform happened through labor and by all accounts they were right, the recidivism rate in the USSR was something like 12-18%. This seems high in isolation but even today recidivism rates are higher.
This requires an understanding of the causes of crime which are pretty much common knowledge at this point so I’m not going to repeat them. But there is a difference between capitalist labor and proletarian labor. In the USSR, prisoners worked on public interests projects, maybe even projects that they would benefit from later (such as the Volga Canal for inmates living in Moscow). Giving back to the collective from which you took in the form of labor. Gulags were pretty much self-sufficient villages, some didn’t even need guards but I assume had officials working there. Being able to still have contact with the outside world and socially as well is very important for inmates and to be honest I don’t think capitalist countries are going about it in the right way. There’s been several stories here of inmates taken outside who managed to escape from their leisurely walks and hurt people in the process. But I think this is more of a structural problem, trying to do too much too fast. They know this is beneficial for inmates but the structure in place is the penitentiary structure and not able to accommodate this new method properly.
In capitalist countries, prison labor only enriches the bourgeoisie and serves no common purpose. Rolling cigarettes or stamping license plates is not in the public interest.
The Soviets believed that reform happened through labor and by all accounts they were right, the recidivism rate in the USSR was something like 12-18%.
I think doing socially useful labor was part of this, but the USSR also was far ahead of capitalist countries in terms of guaranteeing basic human needs like housing, food, medicine, and education. Taking care of those covers a lot of reasons to reoffend.
The Soviets believed that reform happened through labor and by all accounts they were right, the recidivism rate in the USSR was something like 12-18%. This seems high in isolation but even today recidivism rates are higher.
This requires an understanding of the causes of crime which are pretty much common knowledge at this point so I’m not going to repeat them. But there is a difference between capitalist labor and proletarian labor. In the USSR, prisoners worked on public interests projects, maybe even projects that they would benefit from later (such as the Volga Canal for inmates living in Moscow). Giving back to the collective from which you took in the form of labor. Gulags were pretty much self-sufficient villages, some didn’t even need guards but I assume had officials working there. Being able to still have contact with the outside world and socially as well is very important for inmates and to be honest I don’t think capitalist countries are going about it in the right way. There’s been several stories here of inmates taken outside who managed to escape from their leisurely walks and hurt people in the process. But I think this is more of a structural problem, trying to do too much too fast. They know this is beneficial for inmates but the structure in place is the penitentiary structure and not able to accommodate this new method properly.
In capitalist countries, prison labor only enriches the bourgeoisie and serves no common purpose. Rolling cigarettes or stamping license plates is not in the public interest.
I think doing socially useful labor was part of this, but the USSR also was far ahead of capitalist countries in terms of guaranteeing basic human needs like housing, food, medicine, and education. Taking care of those covers a lot of reasons to reoffend.