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> I'm appalled about about the lightness with which prison rape jokes are thrown around. That often happen in US and not in many other societies. I'm even mor

> I'm appalled about about the lightness with which prison rape jokes are thrown around. That often happen in US and not in many other societies. I'm even more appalled that in some states the family of a murder victim is allowed to witness the execution of the perpetrator. They even cheer. It's all connected to the "just world" fallacy and the idea that people that cause suffering "deserve" to be punished and made to suffer.

rayiner 8y ago
I think there is some reversal of cause and effect. The fact is that the US has always been much more violent and less stable than Western Europe. The murder rate in the US was 5-10x higher than in the UK over the entire 20th century. That includes during the period before prohibition and between prohibition and the drug war, and before there was meaningful gun control in either country. So it may be that US attitudes are the result of a more violent and less stable society. Good evidence for that is the fact that there was a trend toward increased focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment in the 1960s. Capital punishment was illegal in the US from 1967-1977. But crime started to skyrocket at the end of the 1960s. Following about a decade behind that, particularly in the 1980s, you saw a “war on crime” that led to longer sentences, increased incarceration, etc. But all that was a lagging indicator—it was a response to increasing crime rates. The increase in incarceration rates followed behind the increase in crime rates, and incarceration rates didn’t actually catch up until violent crime peaked in the 1990s. That all suggests that harsh attitudes towards punishment are a reaction to high crime rates.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  You are not providing any evidence that links desire for punishment with high crime rates. You are talking about "longer sentences, increased incarceration" and that's not the point. Ironically, large part of modern psychology and neurology has developed in the US.

rayiner 8y ago

I think there is some reversal of cause and effect. The fact is that the US has always been much more violent and less stable than Western Europe. The murder rate in the US was 5-10x higher than in the UK over the entire 20th century. That includes during the period before prohibition and between prohibition and the drug war, and before there was meaningful gun control in either country. So it may be that US attitudes are the result of a more violent and less stable society. Good evidence for that is the fact that there was a trend toward increased focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment in the 1960s. Capital punishment was illegal in the US from 1967-1977. But crime started to skyrocket at the end of the 1960s. Following about a decade behind that, particularly in the 1980s, you saw a “war on crime” that led to longer sentences, increased incarceration, etc. But all that was a lagging indicator—it was a response to increasing crime rates. The increase in incarceration rates followed behind the increase in crime rates, and incarceration rates didn’t actually catch up until violent crime peaked in the 1990s. That all suggests that harsh attitudes towards punishment are a reaction to high crime rates.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago
You are not providing any evidence that links desire for punishment with high crime rates. You are talking about "longer sentences, increased incarceration" and that's not the point. Ironically, large part of modern psychology and neurology has developed in the US.