Oh, man, we've got enough indefinite imprisonment without charges going on as it is. Please don't encourage it.
Well, assuming our society is radical enough to discard identity, I think we can fix the prison system. The first step is to rethink what "crimes" are. Smoking marijuanna is not a crime. Selling it is not a crime. We should reserve prison for people that have proven they can't be in the "normal society" anymore. That basically means murders, rapists, "real criminals".
The next step is to make prisons centers for removal from society, not a place where we throw "undesirables" and let them rot (like the current system). We should give people in prison freedom to have a job, freedom to buy things, etc. We shouldn't force someone to live in a 16 square foot concrete box with 3 other people for 25 years. That's torture, not rehabilitation. (Other countries do a much better job than the US in this respect -- so this isn't just pie-in-the-sky. It could work.)
So anyway, I'm idealizing, not suggesting a policy. If someone is a danger to society, it doesn't benefit society to give them an identity document. Unless they are completely stupid, they are just going to fake the document to get what they want. (Example in real life: college students. It's illegal for them to buy alcohol, but they want it anyway. So they just get a fake ID. Problem solved. But why make them criminals for this? Why not just let them buy the beer legally?)
Well, assuming our society is radical enough to discard identity, I think we can fix the prison system. The first step is to rethink what "crimes" are. Smoking marijuanna is not a crime. Selling it is not a crime. We should reserve prison for people that have proven they can't be in the "normal society" anymore. That basically means murders, rapists, "real criminals".
The next step is to make prisons centers for removal from society, not a place where we throw "undesirables" and let them rot (like the current system). We should give people in prison freedom to have a job, freedom to buy things, etc. We shouldn't force someone to live in a 16 square foot concrete box with 3 other people for 25 years. That's torture, not rehabilitation. (Other countries do a much better job than the US in this respect -- so this isn't just pie-in-the-sky. It could work.)
So anyway, I'm idealizing, not suggesting a policy. If someone is a danger to society, it doesn't benefit society to give them an identity document. Unless they are completely stupid, they are just going to fake the document to get what they want. (Example in real life: college students. It's illegal for them to buy alcohol, but they want it anyway. So they just get a fake ID. Problem solved. But why make them criminals for this? Why not just let them buy the beer legally?)