There's a very interesting thought experiment devised by the human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smitg and outlined at the end of the excellent book "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson.
Quoting from the book;
“Let me ask you three questions,” he said. “And then you’ll see it my way. Question One: What’s the worst thing that you have ever done to someone? It’s okay. You don’t have to confess it out loud. Question Two: What’s the worst criminal act that has ever been committed against you? Question Three: Which of the two was the most damaging for the victim?”
The worst criminal act that has ever been committed against me was burglary. How damaging was it? Hardly damaging at all. I felt theoretically violated at the idea of a stranger wandering through my house. But I got the insurance money. I was mugged one time. I was eighteen. The man who mugged me was an alcoholic. He saw me coming out of a supermarket. “Give me your alcohol,” he yelled. He punched me in the face, grabbed my groceries, and ran away. There wasn’t any alcohol in my bag. I was upset for a few weeks, but it passed.
And what was the worst thing I had ever done to someone? It was a terrible thing. It was devastating for them. It wasn’t against the law.
Clive’s point was that the criminal justice system is supposed to repair harm, but most prisoners — young, black — have been incarcerated for acts far less emotionally damaging than the injuries we noncriminals perpetrate upon one another all the time — bad husbands, bad wives, ruthless bosses, bullies, bankers."
The point of it is that we punitively punish people for many crimes while doing things far worse at the same time. Should we really be putting someone in prison for burglary when there are people who rip millions of people off with legal price gouging or break up a family by cheating?
We should think and question the legal system, and what effect it has on people unfortunate enough to become embroiled in it. If the legal system is there to punish behaviour that isn't in the interest of society or to protect communities from those who'd harm them, are we actually punishing the right people?
It's a very deep question. Not something that HN will answer in a thread. I think it's worthwhile spending some time on though.
You should at least be comparing expected outcomes (if not worst possible outcomes) rather than actual outcomes. Especially because your thought experiment is subject to extreme (literal) survivorship bias; no murder victim will answer your hypothetical. Other crimes such as carjacking, which has a 50% death rate for the victim, should be punished very severely even if the victim survived.
In addition, in cases where people do things like cheating, they could blame the 'victim' for actually filing for divorce, and not being more forgiving. The divorce filing could be seen as much more damaging to children than the actual cheating, unless you try to instate some sort of negligence standard for 'immoral' activities. Another interesting case might be a child 'coming out' as homosexual when their parents are very religious and consider homosexuality a sin; is the child not inflicting harm here?
Is honesty (or lack thereof) more troubling to you than threatening a fellow human being with disability or death?
One of the most damaging things Clive Stafford Smith has done is to give public support for Moazzem Begg, who was almost certainly a high-ranking member of al Qaeda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moazzam_Begg). (Sure, Begg should have gotten a fair trial -- he would have gone to court had the charges not been dropped, probably because the intelligence services didn't want to reveal all the intel they had gathered on him and his associates).
In every human society in history, there have been people who choose to rob, rape and kill. There's no pleasant way to deal with such people, but it is the role of the state to deal with them, or you have anarchy. It isn't the role of the state to prevent "emotional damage", "bad wives" or "bankers".
Stafford Smith's position seems to be a twisted version of Christian morality where all problems are caused by meanness. Since the justice system is an institutionalised form of meanness, it must be wicked -- indeed, it's probably responsible for crime and terrorism.
Can't ignore in all that, the issue of public order. Going soft on bullies (which is what many smash-and-grab criminals may be) means it grows without limit. So establishing public order is not an optional thing.
I don't think this kind of reductive thinking, if taken into more political and behavioral extreme areas works.
Lets try this mental exercise, what is the physical damage to me if I get raped? In extreme cases one could get infected with a potentially deadly STD, or if a woman, onr may become pregnant, but in many cases at the physical level, it's not all that different from regular sex between people. The main difference is granting permission to sex, or not granting permission to sex.
That makes all the difference, or most.
So, you see, it's easy to break things down into oblivion, the thing is, this is what, in part, makes is human, why we don't follow the same kind of courtship other animals accept as part of nature. Or why otherwise rationalized behavior is not normally accepted.
Restorative justice won't cut it here.
I of course understand my example is extreme, but I simply want to point out that there is a point where these ideas break down as a solution to unjust sentencing.
Our legal system doesn't push "harm" per se, but rather harm caused unjustly[1]. E.g. it harms me a company raises the price of a product that happens to be in demand ("price gouging") but that company has every right to do so as it owns the product.
One way we can reconcile the utilitarian notion of harm, with the property rights/natural rights approach is through economic theory. The so called "welfare theorems" of economics state that when every person maximizes their own utility (under the assumptions of a perfect market), then the result is pareto optimal. From this it follows that in a society with redistribution of wealth, no person has a right to complain that another person has "harmed" them by way how they behaved in the free market.
Outside of the economic realm, the argument for natural rights is even stronger. How can you compare cheating, which is a consensual act, with robbery? At most cheating could be considered a violation of a contract, e.g. a prenuptial agreement.
By completely ignoring the role of natural rights and property rights in the law and in moral reasoning, you are engaging in sophistry.
> Should we really be putting someone in prison for burglary when there are people who rip millions of people off with legal price gouging or break up a family by cheating?
I agree that cheating usually hurts more than burglary. However, it's not just a question of how harmful it is, but also how many people feel the urge to do it. We can mostly deal with burglary by criminalizing it, but criminalizing cheating would be a disaster akin to the war on drugs.
It's only deep if you want it to be deep. In my opinion, it's as "deep" as any other meaningless question. As one in the title, by the way. Because the very assumption that legal system exists to help some commoner — you — seems absurd to me. It's not you who puts people in jail. It's not you who has the guns and manpower to maintain the existing regime and rules. It's not even you, who "feeds" those who have guns and manpower — regardless of what you think, you don't really chose to pay taxes, you just have to, because if you don't, then you are the "criminal" who must be punished.
These questions seem deep (which actually translates to "without an obvious answer") only if you assume that you are choosing who should be punished, what is a crime and what is a punishment. Then, unsurprisingly, it is quite hard to explain rationally the current state of things — so that "your" choices would seem "right" enough. Because that's just not the case.
But if you try to answer the question about "what is right" from the "Golem's" point of view — the legal system, the government, the "social norm" — it actually is pretty clear and simple. "Right" is what keeps it stable. Punishing somebody, who makes somebody else miserable doesn't really help it — it's ok for people to be miserable, it's not ok for them to turn on the Golem. It doesn't have to be rational or efficient, it doesn't have to help anybody or protect anybody. The moment it becomes something more than a mere human — and it long time is — it doesn't care for human needs or worries. Feeding murderers on behalf of other people, while keeping them in a closed institution doesn't really help anybody or is rational, it isn't about justice or whatever — it just works, it just keeps the system stable. On the other hand, people using psychedelic drugs and living in hippie communes doesn't hurt people, but hurts the system. That's why things are what they are.
This is a good question, but the direction he's going with it seems like it might be advocating throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's true, we're not punishing the right people, and the people we punish are frequently being punished too much for comparatively minor crimes. The solution isn't to eliminate punishment, it's to fix the system so that the bigger criminals don't get away with their crimes because of their wealth and political connections. And for things that aren't against the law but are devastating, maybe we need to look at changing the law. However, even here, civil suits usually serve to deter such behavior: many things aren't technically "illegal", but they are actionable "torts", which you can sue people for. The McDonald's coffee case is a good example here, and shows why civil suits, though frequently derided, actually serve as a check on really bad behavior that doesn't have specific laws passed against it yet: McD's kept their coffee heated to dangerously-high temperatures, despite other people being injured by it in drive-thrus, and when it happened to this woman, she sued (wanting them to pay her medical bills, as she sustained serious burns) and won a very large punitive judgment as the jury felt that McD's was negligent. There's no law saying how hot coffee should be served (and that's likely to be micromanaging and not a good way to run society), but it is entirely possible to be sued for "negligence" when you do something that gets someone hurt, so there is a big incentive to not do that, and to make sure you don't seriously injure someone through your carelessness.
These examples (mugging, burglary) are serious crimes that have a lasting impact on most people. In addition, a place where mugging and burglary is happening without consequence has a really negative effect on the people there. Ask a black mother whose kids live in fear whether that guy who is mugging, robbing and breaking and entering belongs in jail.
The punitive nature of arrest and jail makes the cost/benefit less attractive of capture looks like a high risk. (Example: NYC)
We don't jail cheating spouses because society learned that moral turpitude as a crime creates other problems that society is struggling to move past.
We don't effectively police many categories of white collar crime because the risk of capture is infinitesimal.
Not sure I follow. Are you saying robbers, rapists, carjackers, thieves, murderers, drunk drivers causing vehicular manslaughter etc etc should NOT be punished because some other "bad" behavior is not punishable by law in today's society?
Machiavelli said, the man forgets the loss of a father sooner than the loss of property. Imagine you worked 5 years to buy something and it is robbed. Isn't it emotional damage? Human rights people tend to separate rights in boxes, while in fact most rights are indeed human rights.
It's very considerate of the burglar to only choose victims who have insurance! I'm sure the insurance company was happy to pay out. I hope you can still afford it when premiums go up with the increased crime rate that follows unpunished crimes.
I think it's not about what is the worst, but about what is necessary. Ultimately, the idea is that there are some basic rules without which the society can not perform. The exact rules vary by culture, but in a Western culture they usually include murdering people, violating property rights, causing substantial bodily and emotional harm, defrauding or defaming someone, etc.
Now, one has to admit our current legal system has gone way beyond that and subverted criminal justice system from "absolute necessities" to "things I love to force other people to do because I think they should be doing those things and too stupid to realize it" - and so we now prosecute people for setting wrong kind of plant on fire and inhaling the smoke, or for cutting other person's hair without consent of government employee, or for listening to a musical tune without paying to some corporation that is considering "owning" it, or for using the idea because somebody else thought about similar idea before and asked government employee to give them "ownership" of it. And so on.
This all looks like abuse, but there's still the original idea behind it - the idea that there are some necessities underlying working society, and these necessities must be enforced. Not because each violation causes grave harm - but because multiple violations would snowball into set of consequences that would make our society very hard to live in.
So if we go to the mugging example, let's assume we say "mugging is no problem, the police should not care about it, there's no harm done, especially compared to what Wall Street bankers are doing". Let's ignore even the facts that people are grievously hurt or murdered in muggings. But even beyond that - what happens if we declare free mugging season?
First of all, more muggings - especially from people that are physically strong, imposing and have no moral problems with it. Then, people that are not so strong would try to defend themselves - e.g. by arming themselves. Then, muggers would arm themselves too, because they found the source of cheap income and are not going to give it up. Then you have two outcomes possible - either the non-muggers succeed, individually or collectively, in raising the potential price per mugging to level so high it's not worth it (i.e. if you are going to end up dead in 1/3 of mugging attempts, your mugging career is not going to be long) or you have situation where you're living in a warzone. Which some people learned to survive in, but would you want to get into such situation?
In either case situation did not exactly improve - in the first case, you just create the police by other name, and probably more harsh to muggers than any current one (vigilantes have little use for Miranda rights and competitive trials) , in the second you get dramatic reduction in quality of life.
Before Napoleon there was such a thing as "restorative justice": "Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the offenders, as well as the involved community. This contrasts to more punitive approaches where the main aim is to punish the offender, or satisfy abstract legal principles.
Victims take an active role in the process. Meanwhile, offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done – by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service".[1] In addition, the restorative justice approach aims to help the offender to avoid future offenses. The approach is based on a theory of justice that considers crime and wrongdoing to be an offence against an individual or community, rather than the State."
How about sociopaths? They can become serial offenders, learning all the while how to apologize more effectively each time they are apprehended. If a crime has little downside, then crime will grow.
How will this work in today's society? Judges give the harshest sentences in election years compared to other times because they want to look "tough on crime". Some of the most asinine laws stem from politicians who also want to look tough on crime. As a society, we treat people who've been to prison like crap and our movies make prison rape jokes, as if it is something to be joked about. It is just depressing.
We're always going to need some prisons. Because as much as many people are possible to rehabilitate, there's always going to be a (rather small) percentage that are simply dangerous to just about everyone and everything around them. See, some of the worst examples of serial killers. You don't really want to risk the possibility of letting them near anyone else, and house arrest (or a traditional psychiatric ward) might not be secure enough in a few cases...
But we should be sending a far lower percentage of criminals to prison, yes.
On another note, could virtual reality potentially be an interesting punishment here? There are a few articles online about the possibility of having someone experience what feels like 10,000 years in 8 hours, and the concept could potentially be used for literal imprisonment too (like say, in The Matrix). You could give someone who's simply impossible to rehabitate a virtual life that fits their own worldview...
That sounds more like we need insane asylums not prisons.
Politically we find it easier to deal with people that can't function in society as criminal than sick and historically Insane Asylums have been really nasty places. However, I don't see the advantage of keeping criminals in the same place as the insane.
I agree we should be sending less people to prison. But then the problem becomes how to punish people for doing these things?
Some people do not have the money to pay compensation. Some people will avoid community service. Some people will disobey home detention orders. What do we do with these people now?
I think author forget that prison ALSO means that we are isolating someone dangerous, someone that is dangerous for society, that's why we lock him up. There will be no other solution/place for murderers etc. Period.
I really would like that authors of that kind of articles go to areas where there is a lot of gang activities and live there for couple of months. I am sure they would change their mind.
Here's an incident that took place last week in a town near me:
A man with a beer and a condom approached a random couple on the sidewalk and declared his intention to have sex with the woman. When she declined, two of his brothers and a fourth man appeared from behind a bush, beat the man into submission and dragged the woman back to their apartment. They barricaded the door and raped her. The criminals had multiple previous charges including DUI and were illegal immigrants AND they had sneaked into the U.S. a 2nd time.
But I suppose letting them "live with and be closely supervised by a family" will straighten them out. /s
What the author doesn't acknowledge is that prison is the best thing we have come up with so far. We all want something better, but we don't have it. And his touchy-feely concepts are perhaps adequate for shoplifters and soft-drug offenders, but not a family of gang rapists.
The true problems with the prison system are the overwhelming numbers of non-violent offenders who are disproportionately ethnic minorities. It would also be a good idea to improve rehabilitation efforts.
Not sure why you got downvoted, I'm pretty left wing but people who pull the kind of shit in that story really do belong in prison, it doesn't have to be a harsh american-style prison but it has to be secure, some people just shouldn't be in society because of the threat they pose to the rights of others.
It's not just about punishment it's about protecting law-abiding members of society.
Deterrent factor is huge. Most if not almost all people fear having to spend time in prison. And there is no question that it guides their behavior. And the people who don't fear being in prison don't need less of a reason to be out there. Prison is punishment. No way to compare that type of loss of freedom with home detention.
For all the crime committed now, there is no question that crime would increase if the punishment weren't viewed as taking away a liberty in a consequential way.
I think this is missing a big point of the article - Currently there is a real perception problem that probation (etc) is not enough punishment, therefore a lot of people get sent to prison. This is actually the same as you're saying.
So his solution is to provide a harsher middle ground, that provides more punishment and more "benefits" of prison, without needing to send all offenders to prison.
In fact the solution keeps prisons around - partly for the violent offenders in your example, partly for those that don't get the message from the middle ground.
Agreed, I think the big problem here is that we have "soft-drug offenders", and not only that, but we have lots of them - more than rapists. This erodes the public image of what "criminal" is - if we look at random criminal and it's a pothead that just wanted to get a little high without harming anybody, then the natural question people ask is "do we really need to be that harsh on that?" And the answer is no. Because he's not a criminal, and only idiotic laws make him a criminal. But the harm is done because the idea of "criminal" is now confused - are we talking about rapists? Are we talking about murderers? Are we talking about potheads and public drinkers? Do we want to be hard on them or soft on them? The only way to untangle the mess is to get people that we don't really need to prosecute out of criminal system altogether.
Show me where in the article he suggests that violent felons not go to prison?
He merely points out that punishments less severe than prison (i.e. fines) are ineffective against the poor, while prison is poor at rehabilitation.
[edit]
Furthermore his suggestion of deferred sentences would work great to imprison someone with multiple minor charges, as you mention these perpetrators having.
We (the human species) have done better than (modern) prisons; prisons are a compromise that makes the system of building and maintaining orderly society less effective and more expensive than simply hanging the bastards but in theory that compromise has enough positive tradeoffs to be worth it in the end.
Sure. The US needs to prolong their racist and anti-communist policies, that's why they came with their current prison system afterall.
Nixon improved the system to ensure better voter turnout for his kind (20% less democrates votes and get blacks from the streets),
Clinton improved the system for more cheap slave labour (which worked great for centuries to make the US the greatest country of all) and helped private prison incentives. Mandatory sentencing, war on drugs, reducing accountability on law enforcement and justice.
Actually helping improving the crime rate is not the goal, the goal is entirely business and political.
The crime rate went down due to Roe v. Wade btw, getting poor people access to birth control. That's why the right-wing states are fighting that. It would diminish their advantages of the current imprisonment system.
I think only the individuals that pose a real and significant physical safety threat should be put behind bars (i.e those that are likely to physically attack others).
For everyone else (incl. white-collar criminals, non-violent drug offenders, etc.), we need to figure out a more cost-efficient, recidivism-minimizing corrections system.
White collar crime can be so much worse than violent crimes. If some desperate person punches you in the face that should be punished, but someone who destroys the lives of so many by engaging in fraud in the financial sector leading to billions in public money spent to bail out companies, lives destroyed has done far worse than punch a single person in the face.
Yes.
Prisons should be first to rehabilitate the offender if it's possible, if there is no punishment of being away from society people will be more willing to commit crimes.
The main problem with prisons is that they seem like a waste of tax payer funds.
Why should I sentence someone for pre-meditated murder for 20 years? Wouldn't it be better to just off him? Same with rapists. If the crime was done to intentionally harm another person that person is a danger to society.
The economics are also not in favor of keeping criminals like that.
For all other crimes the prison should help rehabilitate that person and if possible pay for his incarceration to offload the burden on the tax payer.
I'm not sure I believe punishment is even possible.
My personal view is that if someone needs to be separated from society for the good of society or for themselves, it should be done in the most humane and least restrictive way possible.
My question is why do we still punish people with computer or financial or corruption crimes in prison for long terms? Yes, I understand some price should be paid, but extremely long prison terms for non-violent crimes such as hacking computer systems seem strange.
In fact, some of these wrongdoers actually are very intelligent, and having them make amends with their intellect could be a just way to perform community service. Anyone able to chime in? I'm not well informed on the different views, so I'd like to gain some insight to this view.
You don't think someone like Madoff deserves the worst punishment we have available for current non-violent offenders? He destroyed thousands of lives, ruined their savings and their ability to retire. Many people will probably have a far worse quality end of life experience because of him. The opportunities for the children of his victims is much diminished. It was an incredibly damaging crime and he's in prison right now bragging about it still.
He's not ashamed of all the hurt he's caused.
You think someone like that shouldn't be in prison? Ok, well if you do I still disagree. That guy belongs where he is for the time he has to be there for.
At least here in the U.S., the odds of getting any punishment at all for "white collar" crime seems very low, and even if it happens, long prison terms are not likely. It seems the main thing holding people back is cultural, not fear of punishment.
That sort of system is very biased towards the upper classes though. Those who have access to the education and resources and connections to pull off this sort of crime end up punished lightly if at all, while those of similar character who are stuck robbing liquor stores are locked away for years, even though the overall damage they inflict may be minor in comparison.
If you remove the risk of prison for nonviolent offenders, you're creating a world where large businesses and their owners will no longer care whether they do something illegal, they will only care about the risks of getting caught versus the potential profit to be made. You turn the criminal justice system into a risk analysis that happens in some board room. There will be no real detriment to rich people for breaking the law - worse case scenario they lose some money, the equivalent of you ruining the financial security of thousands of people or causing billions in irreversible environmental damage and getting a speeding ticket for it.
All the talk about home incarceration type programs seems like it wouldn't work out all that well with a population that (I assume) mostly rents and (I assume) often has trouble keeping their finances in the black without any punitive measures.
[+] [-] onion2k|10 years ago|reply
Quoting from the book;
“Let me ask you three questions,” he said. “And then you’ll see it my way. Question One: What’s the worst thing that you have ever done to someone? It’s okay. You don’t have to confess it out loud. Question Two: What’s the worst criminal act that has ever been committed against you? Question Three: Which of the two was the most damaging for the victim?”
The worst criminal act that has ever been committed against me was burglary. How damaging was it? Hardly damaging at all. I felt theoretically violated at the idea of a stranger wandering through my house. But I got the insurance money. I was mugged one time. I was eighteen. The man who mugged me was an alcoholic. He saw me coming out of a supermarket. “Give me your alcohol,” he yelled. He punched me in the face, grabbed my groceries, and ran away. There wasn’t any alcohol in my bag. I was upset for a few weeks, but it passed.
And what was the worst thing I had ever done to someone? It was a terrible thing. It was devastating for them. It wasn’t against the law.
Clive’s point was that the criminal justice system is supposed to repair harm, but most prisoners — young, black — have been incarcerated for acts far less emotionally damaging than the injuries we noncriminals perpetrate upon one another all the time — bad husbands, bad wives, ruthless bosses, bullies, bankers."
The point of it is that we punitively punish people for many crimes while doing things far worse at the same time. Should we really be putting someone in prison for burglary when there are people who rip millions of people off with legal price gouging or break up a family by cheating?
We should think and question the legal system, and what effect it has on people unfortunate enough to become embroiled in it. If the legal system is there to punish behaviour that isn't in the interest of society or to protect communities from those who'd harm them, are we actually punishing the right people?
It's a very deep question. Not something that HN will answer in a thread. I think it's worthwhile spending some time on though.
[+] [-] nickff|10 years ago|reply
In addition, in cases where people do things like cheating, they could blame the 'victim' for actually filing for divorce, and not being more forgiving. The divorce filing could be seen as much more damaging to children than the actual cheating, unless you try to instate some sort of negligence standard for 'immoral' activities. Another interesting case might be a child 'coming out' as homosexual when their parents are very religious and consider homosexuality a sin; is the child not inflicting harm here?
Is honesty (or lack thereof) more troubling to you than threatening a fellow human being with disability or death?
[+] [-] IsaacL|10 years ago|reply
In every human society in history, there have been people who choose to rob, rape and kill. There's no pleasant way to deal with such people, but it is the role of the state to deal with them, or you have anarchy. It isn't the role of the state to prevent "emotional damage", "bad wives" or "bankers".
Stafford Smith's position seems to be a twisted version of Christian morality where all problems are caused by meanness. Since the justice system is an institutionalised form of meanness, it must be wicked -- indeed, it's probably responsible for crime and terrorism.
This is a really evil worldview.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|10 years ago|reply
Lets try this mental exercise, what is the physical damage to me if I get raped? In extreme cases one could get infected with a potentially deadly STD, or if a woman, onr may become pregnant, but in many cases at the physical level, it's not all that different from regular sex between people. The main difference is granting permission to sex, or not granting permission to sex.
That makes all the difference, or most.
So, you see, it's easy to break things down into oblivion, the thing is, this is what, in part, makes is human, why we don't follow the same kind of courtship other animals accept as part of nature. Or why otherwise rationalized behavior is not normally accepted.
Restorative justice won't cut it here.
I of course understand my example is extreme, but I simply want to point out that there is a point where these ideas break down as a solution to unjust sentencing.
[+] [-] force_reboot|10 years ago|reply
One way we can reconcile the utilitarian notion of harm, with the property rights/natural rights approach is through economic theory. The so called "welfare theorems" of economics state that when every person maximizes their own utility (under the assumptions of a perfect market), then the result is pareto optimal. From this it follows that in a society with redistribution of wealth, no person has a right to complain that another person has "harmed" them by way how they behaved in the free market.
Outside of the economic realm, the argument for natural rights is even stronger. How can you compare cheating, which is a consensual act, with robbery? At most cheating could be considered a violation of a contract, e.g. a prenuptial agreement.
By completely ignoring the role of natural rights and property rights in the law and in moral reasoning, you are engaging in sophistry.
[1] e.g. "[with developments such as the Model Penal Code] crime increasingly became conceptualized as the wrongful imposition of risk" (my emphasis) in "Making the Best of Felony Murder" http://www.bu.edu/law/journals-archive/bulr/documents/binder...
[+] [-] cousin_it|10 years ago|reply
I agree that cheating usually hurts more than burglary. However, it's not just a question of how harmful it is, but also how many people feel the urge to do it. We can mostly deal with burglary by criminalizing it, but criminalizing cheating would be a disaster akin to the war on drugs.
[+] [-] OJFord|10 years ago|reply
Reason #1: The vast majority of people haven't been victim to something that's put someone in prison anyway.
Reason #2: At most, it would seem the 'solution' to the thought experiment is changes to legislation; not "scrap it all!"
[+] [-] krick|10 years ago|reply
These questions seem deep (which actually translates to "without an obvious answer") only if you assume that you are choosing who should be punished, what is a crime and what is a punishment. Then, unsurprisingly, it is quite hard to explain rationally the current state of things — so that "your" choices would seem "right" enough. Because that's just not the case.
But if you try to answer the question about "what is right" from the "Golem's" point of view — the legal system, the government, the "social norm" — it actually is pretty clear and simple. "Right" is what keeps it stable. Punishing somebody, who makes somebody else miserable doesn't really help it — it's ok for people to be miserable, it's not ok for them to turn on the Golem. It doesn't have to be rational or efficient, it doesn't have to help anybody or protect anybody. The moment it becomes something more than a mere human — and it long time is — it doesn't care for human needs or worries. Feeding murderers on behalf of other people, while keeping them in a closed institution doesn't really help anybody or is rational, it isn't about justice or whatever — it just works, it just keeps the system stable. On the other hand, people using psychedelic drugs and living in hippie communes doesn't hurt people, but hurts the system. That's why things are what they are.
[+] [-] superuser2|10 years ago|reply
>I was mugged one time
Have you considered that muggings are rare and underwriting property insurance is rational because theft/burglary carries the risk of jail time?
[+] [-] Grishnakh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|10 years ago|reply
The punitive nature of arrest and jail makes the cost/benefit less attractive of capture looks like a high risk. (Example: NYC)
We don't jail cheating spouses because society learned that moral turpitude as a crime creates other problems that society is struggling to move past.
We don't effectively police many categories of white collar crime because the risk of capture is infinitesimal.
[+] [-] ChemicalWarfare|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmm6o|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|10 years ago|reply
Now, one has to admit our current legal system has gone way beyond that and subverted criminal justice system from "absolute necessities" to "things I love to force other people to do because I think they should be doing those things and too stupid to realize it" - and so we now prosecute people for setting wrong kind of plant on fire and inhaling the smoke, or for cutting other person's hair without consent of government employee, or for listening to a musical tune without paying to some corporation that is considering "owning" it, or for using the idea because somebody else thought about similar idea before and asked government employee to give them "ownership" of it. And so on.
This all looks like abuse, but there's still the original idea behind it - the idea that there are some necessities underlying working society, and these necessities must be enforced. Not because each violation causes grave harm - but because multiple violations would snowball into set of consequences that would make our society very hard to live in.
So if we go to the mugging example, let's assume we say "mugging is no problem, the police should not care about it, there's no harm done, especially compared to what Wall Street bankers are doing". Let's ignore even the facts that people are grievously hurt or murdered in muggings. But even beyond that - what happens if we declare free mugging season?
First of all, more muggings - especially from people that are physically strong, imposing and have no moral problems with it. Then, people that are not so strong would try to defend themselves - e.g. by arming themselves. Then, muggers would arm themselves too, because they found the source of cheap income and are not going to give it up. Then you have two outcomes possible - either the non-muggers succeed, individually or collectively, in raising the potential price per mugging to level so high it's not worth it (i.e. if you are going to end up dead in 1/3 of mugging attempts, your mugging career is not going to be long) or you have situation where you're living in a warzone. Which some people learned to survive in, but would you want to get into such situation?
In either case situation did not exactly improve - in the first case, you just create the police by other name, and probably more harsh to muggers than any current one (vigilantes have little use for Miranda rights and competitive trials) , in the second you get dramatic reduction in quality of life.
[+] [-] epx|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] digitalengineer|10 years ago|reply
Victims take an active role in the process. Meanwhile, offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done – by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service".[1] In addition, the restorative justice approach aims to help the offender to avoid future offenses. The approach is based on a theory of justice that considers crime and wrongdoing to be an offence against an individual or community, rather than the State."
Of course this is not for the mentally ill and/or murders, rapists etc. Surprised the author didn't mention it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vijayr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CM30|10 years ago|reply
But we should be sending a far lower percentage of criminals to prison, yes.
On another note, could virtual reality potentially be an interesting punishment here? There are a few articles online about the possibility of having someone experience what feels like 10,000 years in 8 hours, and the concept could potentially be used for literal imprisonment too (like say, in The Matrix). You could give someone who's simply impossible to rehabitate a virtual life that fits their own worldview...
[+] [-] Retric|10 years ago|reply
Politically we find it easier to deal with people that can't function in society as criminal than sick and historically Insane Asylums have been really nasty places. However, I don't see the advantage of keeping criminals in the same place as the insane.
[+] [-] screaminghawk|10 years ago|reply
Some people do not have the money to pay compensation. Some people will avoid community service. Some people will disobey home detention orders. What do we do with these people now?
[+] [-] lossolo|10 years ago|reply
I really would like that authors of that kind of articles go to areas where there is a lot of gang activities and live there for couple of months. I am sure they would change their mind.
[+] [-] maus42|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chillingeffect|10 years ago|reply
Here's an incident that took place last week in a town near me:
A man with a beer and a condom approached a random couple on the sidewalk and declared his intention to have sex with the woman. When she declined, two of his brothers and a fourth man appeared from behind a bush, beat the man into submission and dragged the woman back to their apartment. They barricaded the door and raped her. The criminals had multiple previous charges including DUI and were illegal immigrants AND they had sneaked into the U.S. a 2nd time.
But I suppose letting them "live with and be closely supervised by a family" will straighten them out. /s
What the author doesn't acknowledge is that prison is the best thing we have come up with so far. We all want something better, but we don't have it. And his touchy-feely concepts are perhaps adequate for shoplifters and soft-drug offenders, but not a family of gang rapists.
The true problems with the prison system are the overwhelming numbers of non-violent offenders who are disproportionately ethnic minorities. It would also be a good idea to improve rehabilitation efforts.
[+] [-] noir_lord|10 years ago|reply
It's not just about punishment it's about protecting law-abiding members of society.
[+] [-] gist|10 years ago|reply
I agree.
Deterrent factor is huge. Most if not almost all people fear having to spend time in prison. And there is no question that it guides their behavior. And the people who don't fear being in prison don't need less of a reason to be out there. Prison is punishment. No way to compare that type of loss of freedom with home detention.
For all the crime committed now, there is no question that crime would increase if the punishment weren't viewed as taking away a liberty in a consequential way.
[+] [-] bostonfriend|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sophacles|10 years ago|reply
So his solution is to provide a harsher middle ground, that provides more punishment and more "benefits" of prison, without needing to send all offenders to prison.
In fact the solution keeps prisons around - partly for the violent offenders in your example, partly for those that don't get the message from the middle ground.
[+] [-] smsm42|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aidenn0|10 years ago|reply
He merely points out that punishments less severe than prison (i.e. fines) are ineffective against the poor, while prison is poor at rehabilitation.
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Furthermore his suggestion of deferred sentences would work great to imprison someone with multiple minor charges, as you mention these perpetrators having.
[+] [-] whitegrape|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pitt1980|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clamprecht|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|10 years ago|reply
Nixon improved the system to ensure better voter turnout for his kind (20% less democrates votes and get blacks from the streets), Clinton improved the system for more cheap slave labour (which worked great for centuries to make the US the greatest country of all) and helped private prison incentives. Mandatory sentencing, war on drugs, reducing accountability on law enforcement and justice.
Actually helping improving the crime rate is not the goal, the goal is entirely business and political. The crime rate went down due to Roe v. Wade btw, getting poor people access to birth control. That's why the right-wing states are fighting that. It would diminish their advantages of the current imprisonment system.
[+] [-] mbcrower|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] winter_blue|10 years ago|reply
For everyone else (incl. white-collar criminals, non-violent drug offenders, etc.), we need to figure out a more cost-efficient, recidivism-minimizing corrections system.
[+] [-] levemi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eggestad|10 years ago|reply
The real reason for imposing sanctions is that 80% of law abiding people would break any and all laws if there was not a threat of sanction.
[+] [-] worik|10 years ago|reply
Exporting prison space! Wow!
[+] [-] TheGuyWhoCodes|10 years ago|reply
The main problem with prisons is that they seem like a waste of tax payer funds.
Why should I sentence someone for pre-meditated murder for 20 years? Wouldn't it be better to just off him? Same with rapists. If the crime was done to intentionally harm another person that person is a danger to society. The economics are also not in favor of keeping criminals like that.
For all other crimes the prison should help rehabilitate that person and if possible pay for his incarceration to offload the burden on the tax payer.
[+] [-] cphuntington97|10 years ago|reply
My personal view is that if someone needs to be separated from society for the good of society or for themselves, it should be done in the most humane and least restrictive way possible.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jasonjei|10 years ago|reply
In fact, some of these wrongdoers actually are very intelligent, and having them make amends with their intellect could be a just way to perform community service. Anyone able to chime in? I'm not well informed on the different views, so I'd like to gain some insight to this view.
[+] [-] levemi|10 years ago|reply
He's not ashamed of all the hurt he's caused.
You think someone like that shouldn't be in prison? Ok, well if you do I still disagree. That guy belongs where he is for the time he has to be there for.
[+] [-] svachalek|10 years ago|reply
That sort of system is very biased towards the upper classes though. Those who have access to the education and resources and connections to pull off this sort of crime end up punished lightly if at all, while those of similar character who are stuck robbing liquor stores are locked away for years, even though the overall damage they inflict may be minor in comparison.
[+] [-] beeboop|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Glyptodon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hockeybias|10 years ago|reply
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