> We can with a high degree of confidence say that a focus on rehabilitation, training, and prison environment reduces future crime rates, the same way that we can say that putting air bags in cars reduces automobile deaths. You can take from that what you will about free will, but there just is an obvious relationship here, I don't think anyone can dispute that.

Comparing social engineering to an air bag is silly. We can ram cars into walls in labs over and over. We can't fit society in a lab and so we can't model it very well. But even if we could reduce crime using these strategies, the strategies themselves fit my definition of a crime because they violate my definition of justice.

> I don't think I'm attacking the concept of free will if I say that adding guard rails on a twisty road will reduce deaths. I don't think I'm attacking the concept of free will if I say that areas with high job opportunities and housing rates tend to have less crime, and that investing in public infrastructure can lower crime rates. Similarly, I don't think I'm attacking the concept of free will if I say that prisoners being able to get a job after they leave prison is heavily correlated with recidivism rates.

You previously blamed the justice system for recidivism instead of the criminal (because it should have reformed him). That's quite different than "guard rails". What did I say that made you think I'm against "investing in public infrastructure" or "allowing ex-cons to get jobs"?

> Okay sure, but giving prisoners access to educational and recreational materials and programs isn't "molding them" against their will. They want this stuff too.

> It's not for a prisoner's benefit that jails are charging money to make phone calls to their family -- that's not a policy that's born out of our commitment not to accidentally mess with their minds against their will. We're not talking about "reeducating" people, we're looking at very obvious statistical data that says people who don't spend their entire prison sentence wasting their minds, who have training to get a job after they leave prison, who aren't regularly placed into dangerous situations that reinforce fight/flight responses while they're in prison, are less likely to hurt other people.

I said that the punishment should be proportional to the crime. I didn't say that prisoners should sit in their cells going insane. I didn't say the author here should not be able to have a chess board. It's reasonable to question whether a punishment is proportional to the crime, whether it is cruel and unusual, etc.

Overly cruel punishments (China executing drug users for example) are exactly as wrong as punishing criminals "for their own good". If you could prevent all theft by, say, cutting off the hands of thieves, would you be okay with that? (I wouldn't, because the punishment does not fit the crime).

> And you can look at that and say that it's distasteful, or that they don't deserve a job, or that you don't like the idea that environment and resources have an obvious statistical effect on crime rates; but if you do, then I think that you should also have to grapple with telling ordinary people who have committed no crimes that you're deliberately putting prisoners into situations where they're more likely to hurt them.

I never said ex-cons don't deserve a job. I don't think that ex-cons should have to announce themselves in job applications. That is exactly the kind of dehumanizing strategy that I'm arguing against. When you've done your time, you've paid your dues, the world is set right, and you should be able to go on your way.

Believe me, I know what you're proposing is not "brand new". It's very old. And you're correct to say that it already exerts a lot of influence.

My argument is that, as it gains more and more influence, the value of human beings will gradually be lost, because we will be treating people as means to some end (a better society, a safer society), rather than ends in themselves. Humans will be viewed as "products of their environment" rather that free-willing, free-acting agents. Anyway, this drama is not new, it's as old as time and I'm sure it will keep playing out for as long as there are people.