7 ms·

Whenever I talk to people about the death penalty and harsh punishments such as torture, I like to point out just how irrational criminals often are. People do

by M_Grey 10y ago

Whenever I talk to people about the death penalty and harsh punishments such as torture, I like to point out just how irrational criminals often are. People do not commit a crime (most times) expecting to be caught, and so the penalty phase isn't a factor. There are many reasons why people act that way, but the bottom line is that they do. The result is that the only way to impress upon people that crime "doesn't pay", is to make the rate of solving crimes in general much higher. That's... REALLY hard, expensive, it's nuanced and it takes time. Making punishments more draconian is easy, stroke of the pen easy, and it makes angry people feel good. They can't imagine that harsh punishments don't send some kind of message, because to them it does. Sadly...

corin_ 10y ago
> The result is that the only way to impress upon people that crime "doesn't pay", is to make the rate of solving crimes in general much higher. There's actually two sides to it: you can lower the upside to crime, or raise the upside to non-crime. Things like better education, job creation, better social security benefits, etc. all contribute to lowering people's need/desire to commit crimes.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Very true, but that's even more of a nuanced and difficult long-term project, and too often it's easy for politicians to frame it as "soft on crime". For better or worse people really resent seeing criminals enjoy a standard of living that even begins to approach their own. That's another reason to raise the general standard of living, because until you do, people will just think in terms of, "Well I had it worse."
- aninhumer 10y ago
  And in making people better off, you're also raising the downside to crime, because of all the nice things people have that they wouldn't get in prison.
- taneq 10y ago
  Exactly. The criminal justice system is designed to control people who have something to lose. The penalties they can apply have far less impact on people with very little to lose. For some reason, not much airtime is devoted to discussing how we could motivate people to obey the law by giving them something to lose.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    That's not hard to understand for a few reasons. First, it's not a simple 10 second sound bite, it doesn't get ratings. Second, a lot of people don't want to hear it, they're still into the fantasy of "bootstraps" for everyone. Finally, the vast majority of media is owned by large companies who want no part in spreading such a message even if it did get ratings and appealed to their audience. Which it doesn't.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
> People do not commit a crime (most times) expecting to be caught, and so the penalty phase isn't a factor. > The result is that the only way to impress upon people that crime "doesn't pay", is to make the rate of solving crimes in general much higher. If you're trying to impress upon people that crime doesn't pay, doesn't it also make sense to focus on creating the impression that the rate of solving crimes is higher? You don't have to catch more bike thieves, you just have to make them believe that they're going to get caught.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Sure, if you can accurately create that impression among the population of likely bike thieves. Not so much if you're only impressing that upon the average citizen.
  - rogerdpack 10y ago
    Though I suppose the population of bike thieves once was part of the "average citizenry"
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      That's a good point, although I'm not sure if it's accurate. I wonder what patterns of bike theft have looked like for the last 150 years or so.
    - posterboy 10y ago
      but the avg citizen doesn't have reason to care about the likelihood of getting caught.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        In a place like Japan of course, where the odds of being caught are higher, and the social consequences of stealing a bike are devastating, you do see less of that kind of crime. Emphasis on "See".
throwaway2016b 10y ago
The main benefit of the death penalty is not deterrence, it is eugenic. Remove all of the irrationally violent from the gene pool for a few generations and you will soon have a population so much less prone to violent crime that you will forget why you had a death penalty in the first place. Until, that is, you start importing foreigners that have never had the violent culled from them, and all hell breaks loose in want of a solution that doesn't sound "racist." To be blunt, this is one of the most fundamental differences between the most successful ethnic groups, and the least.
- JimmyAustin 10y ago
  In 2014, the US executed 34 inmates. If you think that is enough to remove "the irrationally violent" from a country with a population of over 300 million, you might need to go back to a statistics class. Not to mention that if any of those inmates had children, the irrationally violent gene would live on anyway.
  - throwaway2016b 10y ago
    >In 2014, the US executed 34 inmates. If you think that is enough to remove "the irrationally violent" from a country with a population of over 300 million, you might need to go back to a statistics class. You're right, it isn't nearly enough. I am talking about the effect from the past when execution was an immediate and extremely common punishment, not an ordeal that costs millions of dollars and years of retrials and appeals. I was not necessarily advocating for eugenic programs today; I think the problem is better solved for most countries by stricter boarder controls and ending the insane policies of unrestricted immigration of violent unassimilable men. But if I were, the death penalty is not the only way to go about it; mandatory sterilization for violent criminals would have the same effect, given time and the willingness to use it consistently. >Not to mention that if any of those inmates had children, the irrationally violent gene would live on anyway. Yes, but you will get many of the irrationally violent before they can sire any children. Over generations this compounds and you end up with Swedes instead of Somalians. I cut this out from my original post, but I'll add it now. Every people came from nothing. Every people had their times of feast and their times of famine. Social capital does not come from wealth, wealth comes from social capital. From being able to trust that your neighbor is probably not going to murder you and your family in your sleep. And so you see that some groups bounce back from crippling poverty and brutal wars. And others have merely found more advanced ways to kill their neighbors.

by M_Grey 10y ago

corin_ 10y ago

> The result is that the only way to impress upon people that crime "doesn't pay", is to make the rate of solving crimes in general much higher. There's actually two sides to it: you can lower the upside to crime, or raise the upside to non-crime. Things like better education, job creation, better social security benefits, etc. all contribute to lowering people's need/desire to commit crimes.

M_Grey 10y ago
Very true, but that's even more of a nuanced and difficult long-term project, and too often it's easy for politicians to frame it as "soft on crime". For better or worse people really resent seeing criminals enjoy a standard of living that even begins to approach their own. That's another reason to raise the general standard of living, because until you do, people will just think in terms of, "Well I had it worse."
aninhumer 10y ago
And in making people better off, you're also raising the downside to crime, because of all the nice things people have that they wouldn't get in prison.
taneq 10y ago
Exactly. The criminal justice system is designed to control people who have something to lose. The penalties they can apply have far less impact on people with very little to lose. For some reason, not much airtime is devoted to discussing how we could motivate people to obey the law by giving them something to lose.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  That's not hard to understand for a few reasons. First, it's not a simple 10 second sound bite, it doesn't get ratings. Second, a lot of people don't want to hear it, they're still into the fantasy of "bootstraps" for everyone. Finally, the vast majority of media is owned by large companies who want no part in spreading such a message even if it did get ratings and appealed to their audience. Which it doesn't.

pavel_lishin 10y ago

> People do not commit a crime (most times) expecting to be caught, and so the penalty phase isn't a factor. > The result is that the only way to impress upon people that crime "doesn't pay", is to make the rate of solving crimes in general much higher. If you're trying to impress upon people that crime doesn't pay, doesn't it also make sense to focus on creating the impression that the rate of solving crimes is higher? You don't have to catch more bike thieves, you just have to make them believe that they're going to get caught.

M_Grey 10y ago
Sure, if you can accurately create that impression among the population of likely bike thieves. Not so much if you're only impressing that upon the average citizen.
- rogerdpack 10y ago
  Though I suppose the population of bike thieves once was part of the "average citizenry"
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    That's a good point, although I'm not sure if it's accurate. I wonder what patterns of bike theft have looked like for the last 150 years or so.
  - posterboy 10y ago
    but the avg citizen doesn't have reason to care about the likelihood of getting caught.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      In a place like Japan of course, where the odds of being caught are higher, and the social consequences of stealing a bike are devastating, you do see less of that kind of crime. Emphasis on "See".

throwaway2016b 10y ago

The main benefit of the death penalty is not deterrence, it is eugenic. Remove all of the irrationally violent from the gene pool for a few generations and you will soon have a population so much less prone to violent crime that you will forget why you had a death penalty in the first place. Until, that is, you start importing foreigners that have never had the violent culled from them, and all hell breaks loose in want of a solution that doesn't sound "racist." To be blunt, this is one of the most fundamental differences between the most successful ethnic groups, and the least.

JimmyAustin 10y ago
In 2014, the US executed 34 inmates. If you think that is enough to remove "the irrationally violent" from a country with a population of over 300 million, you might need to go back to a statistics class. Not to mention that if any of those inmates had children, the irrationally violent gene would live on anyway.
- throwaway2016b 10y ago
  >In 2014, the US executed 34 inmates. If you think that is enough to remove "the irrationally violent" from a country with a population of over 300 million, you might need to go back to a statistics class. You're right, it isn't nearly enough. I am talking about the effect from the past when execution was an immediate and extremely common punishment, not an ordeal that costs millions of dollars and years of retrials and appeals. I was not necessarily advocating for eugenic programs today; I think the problem is better solved for most countries by stricter boarder controls and ending the insane policies of unrestricted immigration of violent unassimilable men. But if I were, the death penalty is not the only way to go about it; mandatory sterilization for violent criminals would have the same effect, given time and the willingness to use it consistently. >Not to mention that if any of those inmates had children, the irrationally violent gene would live on anyway. Yes, but you will get many of the irrationally violent before they can sire any children. Over generations this compounds and you end up with Swedes instead of Somalians. I cut this out from my original post, but I'll add it now. Every people came from nothing. Every people had their times of feast and their times of famine. Social capital does not come from wealth, wealth comes from social capital. From being able to trust that your neighbor is probably not going to murder you and your family in your sleep. And so you see that some groups bounce back from crippling poverty and brutal wars. And others have merely found more advanced ways to kill their neighbors.