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> This assumes that punishment, as dealt out by the courts, is an appropriate way of going about healing society after a crime has occurred. Yes, goodness grac

by jMyles 8y ago

> This assumes that punishment, as dealt out by the courts, is an appropriate way of going about healing society after a crime has occurred. Yes, goodness gracious, how has this of all things become the sacrosanct, canonical representation of justice? More humane societies will follow ours, and they'll look back with astonishment about our obsession with punishment to the exclusion of actual restoration.

DoreenMichele 8y ago
I'm pretty extremely compassionate, understanding, etc. I'm finding that once someone wrongs you, most people won't voluntarily make amends and it becomes absolutely necessary to play hardball. Nor can you force them to make reparations. But you can punish people. I would like to see more focus on crime prevention by helping everyone get their needs met, not criminalizing things where no one is victimized, etc. But once the deed is done, I don't know that it really works to not have some element of consequences, unfortunately.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  All I can say in response to this is: this certainly is tricky! Punishing crime has a disproportionate negative consequence on those who have already been traumatised by the circumstances of their lives. So I agree with your point about everyone's needs being met, but we can't have that until we, collectively / globally, make some significantly different choices. So we'll probably have to continue getting by with an obviously suboptimal crime and punishment system. Edit: fixed a word
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Punishing crime has a disproportionate negative consequence on those who have already been traumatised by the circumstances of their lives. Assuming this is actually true, it would be so only because we disproportionately let rich people off with a slap on the wrist, not because poor people commit more crimes. (rich and poor being imperfect proxies for whose lives suck more or less) Plenty of people are just selfish and don't care that other people got hurt, like the Theranos debacle. That hurt many people and was perpetrated by very privileged individuals, not poor schmucks whose lives sucked from the get go.

by jMyles 8y ago

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I'm pretty extremely compassionate, understanding, etc. I'm finding that once someone wrongs you, most people won't voluntarily make amends and it becomes absolutely necessary to play hardball. Nor can you force them to make reparations. But you can punish people. I would like to see more focus on crime prevention by helping everyone get their needs met, not criminalizing things where no one is victimized, etc. But once the deed is done, I don't know that it really works to not have some element of consequences, unfortunately.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
All I can say in response to this is: this certainly is tricky! Punishing crime has a disproportionate negative consequence on those who have already been traumatised by the circumstances of their lives. So I agree with your point about everyone's needs being met, but we can't have that until we, collectively / globally, make some significantly different choices. So we'll probably have to continue getting by with an obviously suboptimal crime and punishment system. Edit: fixed a word
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Punishing crime has a disproportionate negative consequence on those who have already been traumatised by the circumstances of their lives. Assuming this is actually true, it would be so only because we disproportionately let rich people off with a slap on the wrist, not because poor people commit more crimes. (rich and poor being imperfect proxies for whose lives suck more or less) Plenty of people are just selfish and don't care that other people got hurt, like the Theranos debacle. That hurt many people and was perpetrated by very privileged individuals, not poor schmucks whose lives sucked from the get go.