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Well, punitive generally means make them suffer, which likely counteracts progress towards rehabilitation. If you can accept "comprehending and accepting your

Well, punitive generally means make them suffer, which likely counteracts progress towards rehabilitation. If you can accept "comprehending and accepting your crimes and their consequences, and having a genuine desire to return to society as a member of it looking to make a positive contribution" as punishement then they are compatible. But you want to transition somebody psychologically from being in the out-group "criminals" to re-joining the in-group of law-abiding citizens, and most purely punitive measures actively make a person feel further pushed into the out-group. You want strong incentives and support towards positive re-integration. I always thought that repeat offences ought to be the most damning statistic for prisons, and their performance and budget should mostly be influenced by success on that metric. Profit from holding prisoners and their labour are basically negative incentives to improve the repeat offending rates.

throwaway894345 5y ago
I mean, that’s one hypothesis among many. An alternate hypothesis is that prison should be uncomfortable and unpleasant as a deterrent. I think it’s overly simplistic to say that punishment is about suffering—parents might punish a child for bad behavior, but the goal isn’t to make them suffer (and indeed being grounded is hardly “suffering”) but rather to teach them good behavior. So we can at least say that in some cases punishment is compatible with rehabilitation. Notably, there can be a kind of dignity in discipline, and I think there’s a subtle distinction between that kind of dignified correction and cruelty. I can imagine a prison system with a redemptive quality where prisoners feel they’ve labored to redeem themselves to society (this requires society to esteem them accordingly to some degree) and learned a valuable trade in the process. I think liberals (myself included) would do better to cast that vision for prison reform, rather than the current messaging which IMO comes across as hyperbolic (e.g., “literal slavery”) and naive (prison should be a comfortable place and the rest will work itself out).
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "An alternate hypothesis is that prison should be uncomfortable and unpleasant as a deterrent." But countless studies have shown that it's not an effective deterrent.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    I'm not sure they've shown that prison is ineffective as a deterrent, but I've heard of studies which indicate that returns on increasingly punitive measures diminish. "Prison is a not an effective deterrent" means that no one factors it into their calculus about whether or not to commit a crime, and that seems very hard to believe. To be quite clear, I don't believe that prison's sole value is a deterrent. I think there's an element of justice (criminals should have to pay for their crimes), an element of deterrence (prison should make criminals think twice--this feels intertwined with 'justice' and yet distinct), an element of rehabilitation (to the extent that we can rehabilitate prisoners, we should), but mostly I think there is significant social value in protecting innocent people by keeping harmful people away from innocent people. Even if the deterrent effect is nil and even if you don't believe in justice (or for many of my fellow liberals, you reserve 'justice' for crimes that offend you, such as white collar crimes), I would still keep prisons around for the protection of the innocent. That said, I have an optimistic view on the potential for prisons.

throwaway894345 5y ago

I mean, that’s one hypothesis among many. An alternate hypothesis is that prison should be uncomfortable and unpleasant as a deterrent. I think it’s overly simplistic to say that punishment is about suffering—parents might punish a child for bad behavior, but the goal isn’t to make them suffer (and indeed being grounded is hardly “suffering”) but rather to teach them good behavior. So we can at least say that in some cases punishment is compatible with rehabilitation. Notably, there can be a kind of dignity in discipline, and I think there’s a subtle distinction between that kind of dignified correction and cruelty. I can imagine a prison system with a redemptive quality where prisoners feel they’ve labored to redeem themselves to society (this requires society to esteem them accordingly to some degree) and learned a valuable trade in the process. I think liberals (myself included) would do better to cast that vision for prison reform, rather than the current messaging which IMO comes across as hyperbolic (e.g., “literal slavery”) and naive (prison should be a comfortable place and the rest will work itself out).

pmoriarty 5y ago
"An alternate hypothesis is that prison should be uncomfortable and unpleasant as a deterrent." But countless studies have shown that it's not an effective deterrent.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I'm not sure they've shown that prison is ineffective as a deterrent, but I've heard of studies which indicate that returns on increasingly punitive measures diminish. "Prison is a not an effective deterrent" means that no one factors it into their calculus about whether or not to commit a crime, and that seems very hard to believe. To be quite clear, I don't believe that prison's sole value is a deterrent. I think there's an element of justice (criminals should have to pay for their crimes), an element of deterrence (prison should make criminals think twice--this feels intertwined with 'justice' and yet distinct), an element of rehabilitation (to the extent that we can rehabilitate prisoners, we should), but mostly I think there is significant social value in protecting innocent people by keeping harmful people away from innocent people. Even if the deterrent effect is nil and even if you don't believe in justice (or for many of my fellow liberals, you reserve 'justice' for crimes that offend you, such as white collar crimes), I would still keep prisons around for the protection of the innocent. That said, I have an optimistic view on the potential for prisons.