Nature Behind Bars: Animal Class Helps Prisoners Find Compassion

[MachineGhost]

So even murderers get upset about abusing animals?  Wow.  That makes those Asian dog-and-cat eating, bear bile farming sh!theads to be worse inhuman scum than they already are.  And gee, maybe we ought to try animal therapy instead of isolation for 28 years.

[quote=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015 ... f9427089=1
]What class subjects generate the most discussion and emotion?

Recently they've been into compassionate conservation, where individual animals matter. They're appalled at the possibility of removing wolves from the endangered species list, and at local killings of coyotes and black bears. Many are from rural areas, so they're sensitive to human encroachment on wild lands. They resent it when animals are cast out and labeled as the problem. And despite the bad things some have done to people, they get extremely angry about animal abuse.

How do you think the class affects them?

They get excited over the animal videos, and love talking about pets and wild animals—it softens them. It gives them the chance to discuss the importance of social relationships and compassion and empathy. They find common ground. And it connects them to the outside world and to nature. I've had the most violent guys say what a positive effect the class had on him. One said talking about dog behavior helped him realize he needs to extend more compassion to humans. Researchers refer to animals as "social catalysts" when they help people connect and reconnect in this way.[/quote]

[MediumTex]

In some zoos, the animals are treated better than we treat prisoners.

Does that seem strange?

If one zoo animal killed another zoo animal, they wouldn't put it in a much smaller cage and deprive it of sensory experience for the remainder of its life.  People would instantly label that as cruel and pointless, and yet we don't have any problem treating our fellow humans that way when they are overtaken by animal instincts and kill another person.

Ironically, though, we think nothing of killing animals, but we are not yet completely comfortable killing our fellow humans when they break the rules of the tribe.  Killing animals is okay, but torturing them is looked down upon, while torturing other humans is okay, but killing them is considered much more serious.

I think it's sort of bizarre that some of the most revered people in our society are the brave soldiers who are able to go to other countries and kill a lot of the people who live there, and yet when a person kills someone who lives here it is the worst possible thing the person can do.  Isn't it weird that the same action--killing another human being--can be celebrated as a great achievement in one case, and then scorned as the worst thing a person can do in another case.

[screwtape]

Maybe when they are issuing prison jump-suits the prisoner ought to also be handed a puppy to take care of.

That probably sounds silly but I wonder if there might not be something to the idea.