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That's an argument for improving our justice system, not eliminating a punishment altogether. 20 years in jail for an innocent person is no less horrible.
by aaron-lebo 10y ago
That's an argument for improving our justice system, not eliminating a punishment altogether.
20 years in jail for an innocent person is no less horrible.
- icc97 10y agoIt's the acceptance that no justice system can be 100% perfect. As repeated in many other comments, it gives the innocent person a chance to be released, which is better than the zero chance. Also as you say - 20 years in jail is a serious punishment, so it isn't eliminating the punishment, it's just only using a reversible one. It also allows for improvements in the justice system over time.
- kafkaesq 10y agoThat's an argument for improving our justice system, not eliminating a punishment altogether. Empirical evidence strongly suggests that such a reform is extremely unlikely to happen -- and that in particular, we basically will never have a system win which the false conviction rate is not simply unacceptably high. So again, the argument is to at least design for "fault-tolerance", and not impose categorically irreversible sentences in the first place. 20 years in jail for an innocent person is no less horrible. If you were let out of jail after 20 years, I think you might disagree. But the bigger point is that the 20-year sentence can at least be appealed (and if overturned, substantially mitigated) if new evidence emerges that's relevant to your case -- as it very frequently does, in fact.