Can Nudge Help Us Get Rid Of Prisons? Should It?

Prisons serve a purpose. They give society a sense of punitive justice that works. However, is the prison system a self-fulfilling prophecy? Has it limited human potential? We need to have serious conversations about the nature of the criminal system. One of the things that we can begin to do is allow space for behavioral economics to help reduce the punitive elements that no longer work.

Prisons are also a symbolic space where we encounter the reality that some are willing to sacrifice their perceived freedoms for what it is that they desire.

The law is about ontology. What this means, in short, is that the presence of the law in society assumes that people are at their core not worthy of trust or do not have the inherent capability of making the right moral choices. Hence, why the prison system exists in its current form.

Prisons are now more about making money than preventing moral lapses in personal decision making. "The largest private prison corporations, Core Civic and GEO Group, collectively manage over half of the private prison contracts in the United States with combined revenues of $3.5 billion as of 2015."

Prisons are a panopticon of reality. Prisons don't stop behaviors from repeating. They do not teach or embrace a posture of restorative justice. They do not offer alternative behaviors or deal with the beliefs that got the offender to where they are.

This list could go on. But, the gap filled in with the lack of attempts to change behavior by the prison could be helped by using behavioral economic nudges.

Here a few ways that nudging could help reduce criminal behavior. However, the first step that we must deal with is to reorient what it means to be a human person. Because, when there is an assumption that the human is simply evil left to their own vices, that will always seem to justify punitive measures that give the appearance of working but never actually changing the behavior.

Reorient the role of the prison officer. One key major shift would be to remove the hierarchy of power in the current roles - and alter the functional essence of the system itself. Where the prison officers should be helping prisoners ready for society - rather than to prevent them from entering society. One way to do this would be to offer the prisoners roles that would mirror society at large - and give them choices within those roles. Give them the freedom to choose a series of functional roles while in prison.

Reform prison education. This is one major area where there has been less and less focus in many prisons. However, it is the site of education, learning, and growth that could invoke the most measurable change. By investing in boosting education, allowing each prisoner to have their own library in their cell -- creating an incentive-based reading program -- allowing them access to online education, and increasing literacy could also increase the possibility of the ex-prisoner coming out of the system becoming gainfully employed.

Opt-in savings program. Give the prisoners the option to opt-in to a way to save money while they are in prison by giving them all a savings account where the money they gain while being incarcerated is saved - which will give them a financial cushion to fall back on when they are released.

Ultimately, a much better option for all prisons to adopt would be restorative justice. Which is to say, that each prisoner has the internal mechanisms to overcome the behaviors that got them there in the first place. The role of the prison should not be punitive, but restorative. Nudge theory can help by providing more choices to those in prison. If behavioral economics were taken seriously as a vocal contributor in developing societies, we might even be so radical to claim that over time and with the right development of nudges -- prisons could eventually be obsolete unless we are all committed to thinking that humans are ontologically evil and nothing else.