Do prison planets make sense?

[tmazanec1]

Even given FTL, would prison planets make sense? Would a government be more likely to just kill criminals, or just incarcerate them in conventional prisons?
What about STL only? Do space prisons make any sense at all if we are restricted to c and slower?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Even if we are restricted to STL, I can see no problem with a sufficiently advanced civilisation using space prisons.

By "sufficiently advanced" I mean interplanetary travel and space construction being trivially easy, that level.

In that case, space prisons offer considerable advantages in terms of security. After all, even if the inmates do riot and take control, where can they go? They are stuck in space with no way off.

As for an FTL civilisation using prison planets, again I can see it hapenning as long as the inmates are not allowed any FTL travel or communication. Again, they escape the prison, they can't get off the planet. They're stuck there.

Incidentally, for a good example of a prison planet type of thing, see the Starget SG-1 Season 3 episode "Prisoners."

It involves a civilisation using a planet as a prison. It has a stargate, but no DHD, so the prisoners can't dial out to escape.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd think cost-wise they'd be inclined to go with conventional prisons, or execution if they're not particularly concerned with executing innocent people (its all the red tape and appeals around the Death Penalty that makes it so expensive I believe).

A prison planet would be the ultimate in security, but shipping prisoners their would be very expensive.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Thats why I said it would be in a society where STL travel and space construction is trivial

Yes, there are high costs involved. But if you are sufficiently advanced, those won't really matter. Real life shows us that if people are determind enough cost doesn't matter.

[iborg]

In a way, it'd be like shipping convicts to the other end of the world during the age of sail.

[SylasGaunt]

And when has that ever been feasible? Am I right?

[HeadCreeps]

A prison planet would be the ultimate in security,

Is it really? I mean, it depends on the form of security being used, and this goes hand-in-hand with expense, but what's to stop a prison planet from having entire sections of prisoners developing materials and such to get back off the planet*? If you honestly want to keep the planet secure from escapees making it back to wherever without notice, you also have to have a sufficient level of capacity to ensure the prisoners don't find their way back off the planet. Considering the possibility of people from crime families and such from the outside interfering, the security of such a planet sounds like a logistical nightmare and no more effective than just having prisoners stay on their planet of conviction. Of course, it depends on a countless number of hypotheticals.

*-depending on the complexity of interstellar travel at the time and the availability of people who know how to make it work

[Stofsk]

They make no sense other than for having say secret prisons for high-profile criminals/political prisoners that you want to have 'disappear' and kept away from the public eye, but for reasons of perhaps morality or practicality don't want to have outright murdered. (best conception for this would probably be a prison ship which is constantly mobile, so if you have Future Space Mandela as a prisoner nobody knows where he's being kept so the Rebel Alliance or whoever can't easily stage a jail break)

Or making a colony out of prisoners like what the British did with Australia, but that's still stupid - you'd want dedicated and intelligent colonists not the sort of guys who get put in lock-up (trust me, I wouldn't trust most of those guys to open a can of baked beans that was already open). The only way this could make sense if you had prisoners used as cheap labour (because a colony will have no shortage of work for hard yakka). But who would agree to go on a colonisation effort with a bunch of criminals? So the most sensible idea would be to treat said prisoners as the ones who are low-risk, actively aiming for rehabilitation, and as a reward for good behaviour. Make it so that you work out your sentence on a colony planet and your record becomes clean as a new citizen of this world. But this is about the only way a 'prison colony' makes sense.

But the way most sci-fi treats the subject, where a prison planet is just like any other prison where escape is utterly impossible, it's just massively stupid. Sure you can't escape from a prison planet either - without help (like some confederates spring you by landing a ship). Guess what, you can't escape from a conventional jail either - without help (like some confederates landing a helicopter in the yard long enough for you to hop onboard and fly the fuck out of there). There are even some conventional jails which are underground, or have supermax wings. So by having a prison on a planet, you've increased the cost of transporting that prisoner there. May not be so bad if it's for lifers, but what about visitation rights? What about appeals and court appearances? Just because you go to prison for a crime doesn't mean you won't ever go back to court - prisoners commit crimes all the time whilst in prisons, and get new charges as a result (which leads to more court time which leads to more sentences to add on to what's already there). Some get their sentences commuted, or get pardoned. Some get new trials or are acquitted on appeal. So by having a prison on another planet, you needlessly increase your logistics train for that - unless you're willing to throw away concepts like justice for all, in which case it wouldn't matter. But you'd be basically a tyrannical society in that event, and most of those societies either had gulags - where people went and were promptly left to rot away forgotten - or they just execute the offenders and pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

[Simon_Jester]

For a prison colony based on historical precedents, you need two big things. One is acceptably cheap shipping to the colony (if it's practical to send human beings in significant numbers at all, you have this). The other is demand for prison labor at the other end- some kind of work for which unskilled human labor is preferred to automation.

I'm not seeing it- Stofsk makes a lot of excellent points about this, including "who would want to go on a colonization effort with a bunch of criminals?" and "I wouldn't trust most of those guys to open a can of baked beans that was already open."

[salutes Stofsk]

With that out of the picture, prison planets are going to be much more specialist undertakings, not a treatment for the kind of routine crime found in all societies. You might see political prisoners exiled to a remote colony to do infrastructure work for later settlement (think zeks in the Soviet gulag system building canals and roads). Or politically dangerous individuals who are too popular to be killed but too dangerous to be mainstreamed (think Napoleon, first on Elba and then on St. Helena).

In the latter case, if we take the Napoleon precedent, the planet isn't strictly a prison. It's just a remote location where you can hopefully control someone's movements without placing them in extremely harsh confinement. You might very well give the prisoner a degree of freedom of movement about the planet, functionally equivalent to parole; he just can't leave and you put a bit of effort into stopping him from doing so. Effort which, while significant, is probably small compared to either the consequences of his escape or the political costs of executing him- had the Allies executed Napoleon after his defeat, France would very likely have gone up in arms.

[Mr Bean]

There is actually an excellent example of a Prison planet in the Honor Harrington series of books
The setup is a livable breathable world that is quite nice to live on except for the small fact that the local wildlife is inedible to humans. Being either made of the wrong stuff for humans to digest or out and out deadly to eat. Prisoners are kept in camps which they must construct themselves out of provided materials by the planets guards who watch over the whole planet via satellite systems with their home base being on a large continent some distance away from the others (Think of a real world comparison their home base is in Australia while the rest of the world is empty except for the prison camps)

Because all the native food is useless to humans the prisoners are dependent on flights once a month of prepared food from the Guards own little continent where plants have been imported from off-world and are grown by the low security handpicked prisoners for the rest of the planet. The camps are left largely to themselves as each is no more than a few hundred each set a hundred miles or more away from other camps. The food delivered is dosed with anti-contraceptives to prevent prisoner pregnancies and the prisoners are trust basicly to look after themselves in their own little camps. If trouble happens the guards out-number each of the camps by a large margin and can crush one or two camps with numbers ten times as much with advanced space weaponry while the prisoners can't get above spear and bow and arrow stages.

Once you look over it is a nice setup. The transport is unarmed so even if a food flight is ceased it only has so much fuel and is unarmed limiting the amount of mischief that the prisoners could get into. And their own compound is heavily fortified with high thick walls that don't mean dick to a enemy with modern weapons but are impossible when your talking crossbow's at best.

It's very secure and except for the fact of a few issues (No ships were kept on standby it was 100% airbreather based) you could easily see how such primitive conditions would make an excellent prison planet. The planet itself is the prison and the only thing you need to worry about is the inmates killing each other. But nothing says you can't be smart with your prison population and move the population around from time to time as well as keep satellite recon on every camp. The only flaw is again the prisoners fighting amongst each other.

[Simon_Jester]

And it's notable that this prison idea is a gulag, or at least a storehouse for workers to be sent off to operate under gulag conditions. Also political prisoners, as in my previous post, and as a place to 'disappear' people off to. Common criminals don't get sent there.

The problem with the setup is mostly that there's no way to maintain any kind of accurate prisoner count- if the administration were expected to account for every individual sent there, instead of just "send us X thousand slave laborers to work on Planet Q to build a blah," running the place would be impossible. But since the tyrannical conditions of the state that runs the prison planet is such that it's perfectly acceptable for a prison population to undergo a certain amount of 'wastage' per year... well, on those terms it works. It's one hell of a lot more expensive than an ordinary prison system would be, I'm sure, but this is a society where interstellar travel is cheap enough that using it (and providing the infrastructure for a prison planet) is relatively inexpensive compared to the benefits the security organs of the state get from owning such a place.

[Simon_Jester]

This is another reason why the concept makes more sense for political prisoners, who are somewhat less likely to turn on and brutalize each other. Also for labor camps, where there is some overwhelming burden of work that keeps the prisoners from turning on each other.

I think most of the really successful examples of the 'prison planet' archetype have worked on that basis.

[jollyreaper]

The prison planet could only make sense if planets were common as dirt AND transport is so cheap it doesn't matter. But it's still one of those silly tropes that doesn't hold up outside of Buck Rogers. Single-use planets make no more sense than single-biome planets.

The only idea even dumber than the prison planet is the idea for mining planets. Even if energy and space travel is like Star Wars, cheap as dirt, it would still be cheaper to mine in space. The only way that a mining planet would make sense is if you have cheap stargate travel that works from a planetary surface so your network of worlds will be every world with a breathable atmosphere. All things being equal, you settle the planets that don't require a lot of terraforming and it's easier to mine on a planet where you can breathe the atmosphere. But how advanced is the stargate tech? Wouldn't you have robots to do the work at this point which means it wouldn't matter if you have atmosphere? Maybe it turns out some chunk of rock like Mercury has no air but all the metals you need so you send your mining bots there and do your manufacturing and only send finished goods back through the gate, preserving the environment of the Earth-like worlds where the people live.

[eyl]

There is actually an excellent example of a Prison planet in the Honor Harrington series of books
The setup is a livable breathable world that is quite nice to live on except for the small fact that the local wildlife is inedible to humans. Being either made of the wrong stuff for humans to digest or out and out deadly to eat. Prisoners are kept in camps which they must construct themselves out of provided materials by the planets guards who watch over the whole planet via satellite systems with their home base being on a large continent some distance away from the others (Think of a real world comparison their home base is in Australia while the rest of the world is empty except for the prison camps)

Because all the native food is useless to humans the prisoners are dependent on flights once a month of prepared food from the Guards own little continent where plants have been imported from off-world and are grown by the low security handpicked prisoners for the rest of the planet. The camps are left largely to themselves as each is no more than a few hundred each set a hundred miles or more away from other camps. The food delivered is dosed with anti-contraceptives to prevent prisoner pregnancies and the prisoners are trust basicly to look after themselves in their own little camps. If trouble happens the guards out-number each of the camps by a large margin and can crush one or two camps with numbers ten times as much with advanced space weaponry while the prisoners can't get above spear and bow and arrow stages.

Once you look over it is a nice setup. The transport is unarmed so even if a food flight is ceased it only has so much fuel and is unarmed limiting the amount of mischief that the prisoners could get into. And their own compound is heavily fortified with high thick walls that don't mean dick to a enemy with modern weapons but are impossible when your talking crossbow's at best.

It's very secure and except for the fact of a few issues (No ships were kept on standby it was 100% airbreather based) you could easily see how such primitive conditions would make an excellent prison planet. The planet itself is the prison and the only thing you need to worry about is the inmates killing each other. But nothing says you can't be smart with your prison population and move the population around from time to time as well as keep satellite recon on every camp. The only flaw is again the prisoners fighting amongst each other.

It should be noted, however, that even in that universe prison planets such as Hades are apparently not the norm; ISTR that Weber has pointed out (online, not in the books) that a space station prison would be more efficient. Hades was used because StateSec wanted its own private prison for high-profile political and military prisoners; putting it a seperate system meant that they could keep it more-or-less "black" from an internal Havenite perspective (there was also an element of empire-building involved). Later in the series we see another POW camp, and that's on Haven itself; putting the prisoners on an island without any nearby land masses is sufficient to maintain security (granted, the conditions on Hades were as stringent as they were partly because StateSec were just being dicks).

[Lord of the Abyss]

It should be noted, however, that even in that universe prison planets such as Hades are apparently not the norm; ISTR that Weber has pointed out (online, not in the books) that a space station prison would be more efficient.

I found a quote of his comments about that, here.

Unless you're StateSec, you generally don't need your own private hell planet as a place to park inconvenient numbers of prisoners. Just how big do you figure the penal population of most worlds is going to be? And why would it make more sense to load them on a specially outfitted starship and send them traipsing off across the galaxy to a prison rather than building yourself a nice, inescapable, suicide-charge-equiped orbital habitat out around Pluto somewhere?

Which brings up something; just because something isn't the most rational and efficient way to do something doesn't mean people won't do it anyway. If a society can make a prison planet, then it is entirely possible they will do so even if there's better ways to handle prisoners.

[dragon]

Also don't forget that australia start as a prison. Given that and the tech to get to another planet there's nothing wrong with the idea. But only if they have the tech.

[eyl]

It should be noted, however, that even in that universe prison planets such as Hades are apparently not the norm; ISTR that Weber has pointed out (online, not in the books) that a space station prison would be more efficient.

I found a quote of his comments about that, here.

Unless you're StateSec, you generally don't need your own private hell planet as a place to park inconvenient numbers of prisoners. Just how big do you figure the penal population of most worlds is going to be? And why would it make more sense to load them on a specially outfitted starship and send them traipsing off across the galaxy to a prison rather than building yourself a nice, inescapable, suicide-charge-equiped orbital habitat out around Pluto somewhere?

Yeah, that's the quote I was thinking of.

[White Haven]

It's also a question of scale. What happens when you're dealing with massive empires clashing and millions, possibly billions of POWs? All of a sudden just cramming them on an unused planet with no tech infrastructure looks better and better if you don't want to/can't A) execute them, B) build thousands and thousands of prison facilities, or C) set up a prisoner transfer.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. If wars are fought on a large-interstellar scale, and you have either millions upon millions of POWs or (just as likely) millions upon millions of people you want to relocate... well, you get something like a prison planet, but only in the sense of "there are lots of people on this planet and they can't leave," not like "the entire population of the planet is either the inmates or the guards of Giant Alcatraz."

Relocation of ethnic groups or political factions is fairly likely, I think. Just about every empire since ancient times has occasionally done this in the territory they rule- create situations where people are either forced or rather violently 'encouraged' to move to a new location. That disrupts their ability to make trouble in their old homeland, while placing them in a position of dependency on the empire that resettled them. Think in terms of the Jewish diaspora, or of Ulster, for different versions of how this can work.

Just taking those people and moving them to a new planet which just happens to have a naval squadron blockading it is a relatively low-fuss solution to the problems they pose. It's more expensive than killing them all*, but it's one hell of a lot more palatable for real people to do... and if you didn't have the transport capability to do something like this, you wouldn't be able to run an interstellar empire in the first place. At best, you'd have some kind of quasifeudal setup, with the interstellar government's writ running very lightly across a large number of powerful planetary/system governments, and very little nonmilitary interstellar traffic.

To have what we think of as a nation-state stretch across interstellar distances you need enough spacelift capability for meaningful commerce between planets, things like that... at which point yes, shipping prisoners becomes fairly practical as long as they can provide for most of their economic needs when they get to the place you're sending them.

*(insert rant about how in HARD SF nobody would do this because people and technology are HARD)

[PREDATOR490]

Andromeda depicted the use of Prison planets by corporations that were 'hired' to get rid of the 'garbage'.

An enterprising company that gets its hands on a decent ship and a deslolate shithole to simply dump folks on and leave to cash a pay-check. Dosent seem that far fetched. Logically, important prisoners would be kept within specialised prisons while the low-interest prisoners are out-sourced to the company to deal with.

The heavy use of automation would make prison planets easier. Automated sentries, mines, robots to maintain the population while a few observers watch from high up. Setup a no-fly zone around the planet complete with automated defences to shoot down unwelcome intruders.

This is exactly what Andromeda did and there was a movie called No Escape that worked around this same concept.

The former would be an example of a higher end civilisation to achieve, the latter wouldnt be a planatary equivelent.

Would it really be practical ?
- Probably not

Are human beings always practical ?
- No

[Tanasinn]

You might solve the "where do we get people willing to go to a planet with stupid, dangerous criminals?" by using white collar or sufficiently-intelligent other types; just put them in a position of authority and security over the riff-raff and possibly entice them with reduced sentences. Of course, this is unethical, but may keep the mud from splashing up on the government if they can point out "hey, these administrators, despite our generous efforts, abused our trust!"

If you're particularly unethical and space travel is cheap, you might dump lifers and condemned by the thousands onto a semi-inhabitable rock to eke out brutal, short, stone age existences where they can pose no threat whatsoever to whatever civilization they were removed from and no long-term expenditures after landing. You might have to worry about third parties landing there to filch people for whatever reason, but you could plausibly set up a set satellites with missiles and settings to shoot anything that fucks about without the proper IFF.

[PREDATOR490]

Andromeda just dumped them in an automated defences shithole with no care if the prisonners lived or died as long as they didnt mess with the system.
No Escape basically DID dump folks on an island with nothing and promoted in-fighting by supplying resources to the barbarians vs. the folks that were trying to build a civilised community.

Dump them on a planet that is habital on paper, throw in a few token supply drops and then sit back and claim prisoners dying is a result of their own stupidity / fighting.
Since the prisoners that are likely to be sent there are either folks that are completely worthless or extremely dangerous then I dont think the public will be as concerned about their ethical treatment in the first place or be bothered to really check it out if supplied a proper amount of propaganda and token bullshit reports.

[Axiomatic]

I don't understand all these references to "making" a prison planet.

Why would a prison planet require "making"? It's a PLANET. It's right there! You just dump people on it and they're in prison!

[sirocco]

I don't know about you but the only problem I see is an ethical problem with the most violent 'inmates' abusing the other ones.

Just consider that just with intermingling between men and women on your semi-habitable planet, you could very well have decent families or even communities in less than a decade. And those people will be more likely to create an economy with basic industry and agriculture. And with every new batch of prisoners, they might risk losing everything.

Just imagine Hanibal Lecter in Little House on the Prairie...

Apart from that, this planet won't pose any threat to the rest of your evil empire. Just look at the video on TED.com about the guy who tried to build a toaster from scratch... That is so awful that it's funny.
So I doubt that people left on a pristine world with nothing but some clothes and a backpack could actually be a problem for your Death Troopers.

[Coyote]

A lot depends on the science-fiction universe being written. If space travel is expensive and rare and difficult, and/or habitable worlds are rare and precious, then you shouldn't see a prison planet. But if space travel (and habitable worlds) are fairly routine, then you might see prison planets being used, but you face something of a conundrum-- if space travel is easy, then you have to constantly guard the planet to make sure a convict's buddies don't come and spring him... which seems to defeat the purpose of having a prison planet as a "cheap" alternative, a stop-and-drop with no sustainability costs.

Prison planets are kind of odd ideas, though. Superficially, they are probably seen as a "humane" form of life imprisonment without parole, or an alternative to a death penalty. The people who designate a planet to become a penal colony probably pat themselves on the back about how civilized they are, and how their society doesn't torture or incarcerate their convicts. But on the planet, you're fairly well guaranteed to have a society of violence and brutality, and anyone being dropped off is headed for a lifetime of "cruel and unusual" punishment unless they can fight their way to the top of a local food chain. Any female convicts dropped off are almost certainly looking forward to a lifetime of rape and enslavement, if current criminal demographics continue and violent males continue to outnumber violent females.

The best way a prison planet might make sense would be, rather, to have a planet become a sort of labor camp, with strict schedules and lots of guards, where the prisoners work to build products that offset the costs of their incarceration.