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> Women who murder their abusive husbands, for example, are almost never going to go and murder someone else. By your reasoning, they shouldn’t go to prison to

• klipt 7y ago
  The thing is, jail also acts as a deterrent to the first murder. If it's common knowledge that everyone gets one "murder your abusive spouse" consequence free, a lot more people might commit murders in cases where a divorce might have worked out better and less deadly.
  • crusty 7y ago
    I challenge you on "jail also acts as a deterrent to the first murder" as a cliched truism and again on "...a lot more people might commit murders..." - I mean really, you added the might because even you know you're just throwing BS against the proverbial wall.
    • RHSeeger 7y ago
      I was under the impression that it was widely considered true that the threat of jail does act as a deterrent; and that it was longer jails times (doing more so) that was open to debate. Are you arguing that, if there was no jail time for anything at all, people would not commit more crimes?
  • geofft 7y ago
    Then that's about jail as a deterrent (making society safer by discouraging future crimes), not as a form of punishment for someone who did a bad thing. It may be true that the deterrent is justifiable because it's also a legitimate form of punishment (for instance, saying "If anyone kills their spouse this year, I'll skin this puppy alive" might be a deterrent, but it's probably unjust), but it's not acting as punishment alone.
    • mendelmaleh 7y ago
      Aren't all punishments deterrents tho?
      • geofft 7y ago
        No - 'rayiner gave the example of punishing someone who killed their abusive spouse. First, the actual punishment certainly doesn't deter them from committing the same crime again in the future (they are, statistically at least, not particularly likely to marry another abusive spouse). Second, the threat of future punishment is almost certainly insufficient to dissuade them from the original act: if they feel like they're in immediate physical danger, they probably are reasoning that it would be worth it for them to risk punishment. Besides desperation, there's also passion and mental instability. There's enough cases where you might just not be thinking about the potential punishment at all when committing a crime, meaning it doesn't deter you. For mental instability, we as a society have mostly decided we're okay with reducing/eliminating punishment (and perhaps that you should be institutionalized instead); for passion we generally haven't decided that, except perhaps with the concept of "temporary insanity."
      • Normal_gaussian 7y ago
        No. A punishment fails as a deterrent if: + it is not expected + it is not understood + it is not net negative The first, not expected, fits when; one believes their actions are legal and then they are found not to be (correctly or incorrectly); one expects a different punishment to the one given, and the expected punishment was not a deterrent (often seen in fraud cases). The second, not understood, fits when one expects the punishment but failed to understand its impact on them. For example, those incarcerated may misunderstand the lasting trauma of loss of privacy, agency, and family. The third, not a net negative applies in cases where the punishment is deemed an acceptable risk or cost, or even desirable. Desirable has repeatedly been the case for the extremely impoverished or ill. Acceptable cost is seen in many corporate dealings, but mainly speeding and parking tickets for the individual. Acceptable risk is even more the corporate case (legal departments evaluate legal risk constantly) but is also the case for career criminals and moonshot criminals.
  • 6510 7y ago
    Depends on the amount of domestic abuse doesn't it? I think the rate is so high we should give the gall a medal and a standing ovation.