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I found this line from the article particularly interesting: “The court concluded that the 20 years served are sufficient for meeting the goals of incapacitati
by nlh 6y ago
I found this line from the article particularly interesting:
“The court concluded that the 20 years served are sufficient for meeting the goals of incapacitation, deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation.”
Deterrence and rehabilitation (yeah, right) I knew were “goals” of the US prison system, but I never realized that “incapacitation” and “retribution” were actual legally-stated goals.
- aspenmayer 6y agoMaybe we’re the bad guys?
- beervirus 6y agoThere are different theories of criminal punishment (i.e., different people subscribe to different philosophical justifications). Incapacitation is basically a special case of deterrence, in that you're deterring the individual who's in prison. Retribution is a little more controversial, but plenty of people see it as a valid goal.
- melq 6y agoTechnically speaking, retribution is a punishment dealt to someone for committing a crime, so any prison sentence is an act of retribution.
- WillDaSilva 6y agoI'd argue that if the intention is entirely to rehabilitate (and incapacitate if necessary) then a prison sentence would only incidentally be a punishment.
- melq 6y agoIf the intention was to rehabilitate, then they wouldn't have sentenced a non violent offender to 2 life sentences. Giving someone a life sentence means you (or the justice system at large) are either unwilling or unable to rehabilitate that person.
- WillDaSilva 6y agoDon't get me wrong - I don't believe that the US "justice system" is at all concerned with rehabilitation. Giving 2 life sentences to a non violent drug offender is ridiculous.
- dahfizz 6y agoYou don't give someone a life sentence to rehabilitate them. At some point, you have to recognize that certain people are dangers to society and need to be "incapacitated" from causing further harm.
- lorenzorhoades 6y agoLike Australia, but more expensive and brutal.
- creddit 6y agoIncapacitation makes sense, no? Would we not want to incapacitate a serial killer's ability to serially kill? If we really believe crime is bad then we should want to incapacitate people from committing crimes.