4 ms·
That's if you're oriented on policy goals like getting the debt where it's owed by providing consequences that aren't crippling and keeping the individual who o
by wwweston 8y ago
That's if you're oriented on policy goals like getting the debt where it's owed by providing consequences that aren't crippling and keeping the individual who owes it in the best position to actually repay.
There are people who think in very different terms, where the primary goal is protecting a moral norm they have in mind, and the focus (possibly even "obsession") is going to be doing that by exacting a punishment as a disincentive and example. Taking away a privilege is an obvious choice. Whether it's related is unimportant; what's important is whether it hurts. If the cascading effects are considered at all to someone who thinks like this (and I want to stress here that involves a level of analysis that may be second nature for you but is quite likely actually a stretch for many of the people I'm talking about here) then those cascading effects may well be considered good: the fact of making a debt less likely to be repaid is secondary to making it harder for the subject deserving of the punishment. The pain is the point.
Now, you might respond "is there evidence that this kind of punitive approach actually leads to overall better outcomes?" And that's a very good question, but again, it's the kind of question someone who cautiously approaches the question of punishment with considerations of counterproductivity in mind would ask.
- lisper 8y agoYes, some people choose to cut off their nose to spite their face. I'm not one of those people. I think people who are willing to make life worse for everyone in service of some moral ideology are idiots, and they make me question the wisdom of democracy. But that's just me.
- braythwayt 8y agoDemocracy works elsewhere, don’t condemn it because it cannot magically make one country a better place.
- wwweston 8y agoMy values and yours probably overlap -- I'd agree that whatever penalties you might hand out to someone not making child support, taking away a DL is counterproductive. But I think it's probably a values/temperament issue, which isn't necessarily an intelligence issue, and might need different solutions.
- braythwayt 8y agoThe evidence is that incarceration just doesn’t work to deter crime or discourage recidivism. But America has the largest prison population in the world, and IIRC, the largest proportion of its own citizens in prison. In a country that values punishment over any empirical improved outcomes, I wouldn’t hold my breath for people to care that taking a driver’s license away for unpaid support will end up hurting the children involved, or society as a whole.
- saltyhitler 8y agoCall me a radical but I don't understand why we put people in jail and just leave them there to rot. Empathy, it seems is our deterrent. I for one am a proponent for the death sentence or medical human testing as an alternative. We would of course make sure to do this to inmates who are incapable of changing or adapting behavior to conform, and also only to those who we are 100% committed crimes. We can give them all the resource in the world so they can find their place in society and "fit" in. However, if they don't, then can help greater society by being subjects to human testing for medication or other alternatives, and if not, they get the death sentence. Not only can this speed up our progress in achieving our medical goals, such as, cure for cancer and the likes. But it can save the government some money which they can use for other things like education.
- cazum 8y agoGreat, let's start by making bad usernames illegal and you can be the first to try out the program.
- wwweston 8y agoI didn't really need someone to come along and serve as an example of not only some of the forms of thinking I talked about above but also as "criminal as sub-human other (not decent folks like me and mine)", but I guess it's a convenient underscoring of the idea that some people approach society very, very differently.
- saltyhitler 8y ago