4 ms·

Reading down below, it sounds like your crime didn’t really have individual victims. It cost all of us a little something in higher prices or fees or similar. I

Reading down below, it sounds like your crime didn’t really have individual victims. It cost all of us a little something in higher prices or fees or similar. In a case like that, I think it’s a lot easier to say that we as a society should forgive and forget. There is another side of the coin. Having worked with some crime victims, there are a lot of crimes out there where it’s not just some diffuse, whole society damage. Everyone thinks of the big ones—homicides and rape—and yes, of course, those are the worst. But even “just” home burglary can leave people never feeling safe in their homes for the rest of their lives. In cases where the victim never gets to move on with his or her life how much should we work towards making sure the victimizer can?

analyst74 5y ago
Punishing felons is not going to directly make people feel safe. At best it serves as indirect deterrence for future crimes. But much more effective ways of deterring crime are 1) pre-crime deterrence, like cctv, police patrol, etc; and 2) not letting crimes get away, and recidivism.
- josephg 5y ago
  Yep. There's usually 3 goals of any criminal justice system: - Punishment (criminals should be made to suffer) - Deterrence (we want to discourage crime in society) - Rehabilitation (Criminals are also citizens. Ideally they can become a contributing member of society, instead of wasting away in prison as a burden on everyone) Any intervention should be assessed based on these criteria. For example, increasing prison sentences might be beneficial for punishment, have no impact on deterrence (most criminals assume they won't get caught) and in the US system, make rehabilitation harder. And this is a theme. In general, the US on the whole seems to be strangely obsessed with punishment as the primary goal of its criminal justice system, compared to the systems in other countries. (Eg Norway - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNpehw-Yjvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNpehw-Yjvs ). The result is prison system which has one of the world's highest recidivism rates and more inmates per capita than any other country in the world. (With a corresponding financial cost to the taxpayer). Interventions which decrease the capacity for criminals to be rehabilitated make this obviously worse - For example, having news articles about the perpetrator online, forever. Here in Australia the media isn't allowed to identify criminal defendants in most cases, which is as it should be. This also decreases crime - eg, the NZ shooter a few years ago was never named so he couldn't be painted as a hero, and to avoid copy-cat incidents. Flogging sounds barbaric, but I bet lots of criminals would rather be flogged than suffer the dehumanizing system y'all have right now. (And if they wouldn't, you could flog them harder without also getting in the way of rehabilitation). Having a perminant cloud over your head when you look for housing or when you meet a new partner sounds simply inhumane. There has to be some punishment for most crimes for a which is enough, after which the perpetrator deserves a truly fresh start. If you don't believe that, maybe the monster is you.
  - WhyNotHugo 5y ago
    The order in which you name those three items is weird. The main goal is rehabilitation, and, to a certain extent, deterrence. Punishment was a goal a medieval ages, and, though it still it in some countries in modern times, it's still a medieval practice. You want to _educate_ those who do wrong so that they do better (e.g.: rehabilitation). Punishment would only result in resentment.
    - josephg 5y ago
      Plenty of people want criminals to suffer. Eg, from earlier in this thread: > In cases where the victim never gets to move on with his or her life how much should we work towards making sure the victimizer can? Ie, “the perpetrator should suffer at least as much as the victim”. I’m sympathetic to the argument that this is medieval and not aligned with humanist ethics. But plenty of people, at least in the US obviously think this way.
      - brokenmachine 5y ago
        I know I shouldn't read reddit comments, but I always find it alarming how many people want to throw people in jail immediately for any minor infraction.
        josephg 5y ago
        Personally I blame children's cartoons (and comic books, superhero movies, and so on). The core tension in those stories centers around a hero and a villain. The hero is always good and the villain is always bad. If the world truly worked that way, it really would make sense to just throw all criminals in jail and leave them to rot in prison forever. If you commit a crime, thats proof you're one of the baddies, so if you ever get out of jail the assumption is you'd just commit more crimes. The Joker is never rehabilitated in prison. People justify this sort of thinking by pointing to psychopaths and mass murderers. But they're a tiny fraction of the felon population. Most people in jail are mostly normal people who have been poorly socialised. (Hence Norway's tiny recidivism rate. Norway's prison system is essentially a complex socialisation program.) I don't think its a coincidence that cancel culture is also missing a notion of repentance. Why would that guy who masturbated in front of some women ever change? Better just burn the evildoers, to cure society of evil. There is much better fiction for young minds. Anime is great at this - there are very few characters in anime who are simply evil. Most of the antagonists are also sympathetic characters, and usually the heroes of their own stories. Eg, Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke. Pixar does great work here too - Inside Out doesn't have an antagonist at all. And Les Miserables recursively makes this the motivation behind its policeman antagonist - "Once a thief / Always a thief. What you want you will always steal". And the moral climax of the movie - when our (criminal) hero has the (policeman) antagonist at his mercy. The policeman wants the criminal to kill him, because even though he would die, he would die vindicated in his beliefs. And instead our hero lets him go.
zamadatix 5y ago
Depends on the goal, are we trying to make sure their life is worse than the victims to it's own end or are we trying to optimize the outcome for society by preventing future damage and removing as much as we can? If the latter then the inability to negate the effects on the victim alone probably isn't the driving factor on how we create the optimal outcome for society. Especially for crimes where a permanent separation of the criminal from society (e.g. death or imprisonment for the rest of their life) is deemed excessive or too expensive and recidivism can result in more damage than the initial crime if the goal is to expressly ignore integrating them back into society.
f38zf5vdt 5y ago
As a victim/survivor/whatever of several violent crimes, I would rather it never happened. Whatever broken system we had in place that created people so desperate that they had to harm people appears the problem. If the people aren't causing problems for anyone else, more power to them. The only thing society owes me is that someone else should not have to deal with the shit I had to go through.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  All murderers, for example, are “desperate” people that “had to” kill? Nothing is ever anyone’s fault, just broken systems all the way down?
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    Let me spin your question back at you: Do you not acknowledge that yes, many (not all) crimes are committed as a result of desperation, addiction, or otherwise poor community conditions that could be prevented by better social services?
    - bradleyjg 5y ago
      Determinism has some thorny philosophical issues. Couldn’t we just as easily say that right wing voters that don’t want to provide better social services are that way because of their upbringing and societal conditions? Soon we have nothing left to talk about because everything is inevitable.
      - unethical_ban 5y ago
        You didn't answer the question, and I don't think it's that thorny. I'll get back to your question after you provide a direct response to mine. Edit, in case you got upset: Philosophy is important and well and good, but it is a game too often played by online trolls to ask questions, and never answer those posed to them. So when I ask a direct question and you throw back a counter, and then change the subject to the philosophy, I have to wonder if you really had any interest in debate in the first place.
evandijk70 5y ago
Of course it's awful if a victim is scarred for life due to a crime. But how does society (or the victim) benefit from making sure the criminal is also scarred for life?
- SiVal 5y ago
  How does society benefit? Society benefits if those who haven't yet scarred victims for life decide not to do so because they themselves might suffer like their intended victims.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    That is the "deterrence" wing of the list above. Shouldn't that primarily be the job of the criminal justice system? If someone is free after a punishment, and seems repentant, do you think it is the job of uninformed/half-informed citizens reading a local police blotter from 10 years ago to shame someone for their past?
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  I don’t say necessarily that we need to make sure the criminal is scarred for life, but what time, money, and attention is going into rehabilitating victims of crime?
jl2718 5y ago
Maybe unpopular, but I don’t think the victim’s pain and suffering should be relevant in determination of guilt, sentencing, or reintegration, just as a victim’s resiliency is obviously not. The important thing is the demonstrated intent and willingness to do harm, or inability to control their harmful behavior, because that is what we can expect more of.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  The actual pain should not be an influence, yes. The 'usual' influence, however, should be, as it's directly related to the willingness to cause harm (imo).
  - jl2718 5y ago
    Sure, but there are many popular cases where the courtroom was used as a sympathy circus to establish both guilt and impact. It should be against jurisprudence to allow this.

analyst74 5y ago

Punishing felons is not going to directly make people feel safe. At best it serves as indirect deterrence for future crimes. But much more effective ways of deterring crime are 1) pre-crime deterrence, like cctv, police patrol, etc; and 2) not letting crimes get away, and recidivism.

josephg 5y ago
Yep. There's usually 3 goals of any criminal justice system: - Punishment (criminals should be made to suffer) - Deterrence (we want to discourage crime in society) - Rehabilitation (Criminals are also citizens. Ideally they can become a contributing member of society, instead of wasting away in prison as a burden on everyone) Any intervention should be assessed based on these criteria. For example, increasing prison sentences might be beneficial for punishment, have no impact on deterrence (most criminals assume they won't get caught) and in the US system, make rehabilitation harder. And this is a theme. In general, the US on the whole seems to be strangely obsessed with punishment as the primary goal of its criminal justice system, compared to the systems in other countries. (Eg Norway - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNpehw-Yjvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNpehw-Yjvs ). The result is prison system which has one of the world's highest recidivism rates and more inmates per capita than any other country in the world. (With a corresponding financial cost to the taxpayer). Interventions which decrease the capacity for criminals to be rehabilitated make this obviously worse - For example, having news articles about the perpetrator online, forever. Here in Australia the media isn't allowed to identify criminal defendants in most cases, which is as it should be. This also decreases crime - eg, the NZ shooter a few years ago was never named so he couldn't be painted as a hero, and to avoid copy-cat incidents. Flogging sounds barbaric, but I bet lots of criminals would rather be flogged than suffer the dehumanizing system y'all have right now. (And if they wouldn't, you could flog them harder without also getting in the way of rehabilitation). Having a perminant cloud over your head when you look for housing or when you meet a new partner sounds simply inhumane. There has to be some punishment for most crimes for a which is enough, after which the perpetrator deserves a truly fresh start. If you don't believe that, maybe the monster is you.
- WhyNotHugo 5y ago
  The order in which you name those three items is weird. The main goal is rehabilitation, and, to a certain extent, deterrence. Punishment was a goal a medieval ages, and, though it still it in some countries in modern times, it's still a medieval practice. You want to _educate_ those who do wrong so that they do better (e.g.: rehabilitation). Punishment would only result in resentment.
  - josephg 5y ago
    Plenty of people want criminals to suffer. Eg, from earlier in this thread: > In cases where the victim never gets to move on with his or her life how much should we work towards making sure the victimizer can? Ie, “the perpetrator should suffer at least as much as the victim”. I’m sympathetic to the argument that this is medieval and not aligned with humanist ethics. But plenty of people, at least in the US obviously think this way.
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      I know I shouldn't read reddit comments, but I always find it alarming how many people want to throw people in jail immediately for any minor infraction.
      - josephg 5y ago
        Personally I blame children's cartoons (and comic books, superhero movies, and so on). The core tension in those stories centers around a hero and a villain. The hero is always good and the villain is always bad. If the world truly worked that way, it really would make sense to just throw all criminals in jail and leave them to rot in prison forever. If you commit a crime, thats proof you're one of the baddies, so if you ever get out of jail the assumption is you'd just commit more crimes. The Joker is never rehabilitated in prison. People justify this sort of thinking by pointing to psychopaths and mass murderers. But they're a tiny fraction of the felon population. Most people in jail are mostly normal people who have been poorly socialised. (Hence Norway's tiny recidivism rate. Norway's prison system is essentially a complex socialisation program.) I don't think its a coincidence that cancel culture is also missing a notion of repentance. Why would that guy who masturbated in front of some women ever change? Better just burn the evildoers, to cure society of evil. There is much better fiction for young minds. Anime is great at this - there are very few characters in anime who are simply evil. Most of the antagonists are also sympathetic characters, and usually the heroes of their own stories. Eg, Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke. Pixar does great work here too - Inside Out doesn't have an antagonist at all. And Les Miserables recursively makes this the motivation behind its policeman antagonist - "Once a thief / Always a thief. What you want you will always steal". And the moral climax of the movie - when our (criminal) hero has the (policeman) antagonist at his mercy. The policeman wants the criminal to kill him, because even though he would die, he would die vindicated in his beliefs. And instead our hero lets him go.

zamadatix 5y ago

Depends on the goal, are we trying to make sure their life is worse than the victims to it's own end or are we trying to optimize the outcome for society by preventing future damage and removing as much as we can? If the latter then the inability to negate the effects on the victim alone probably isn't the driving factor on how we create the optimal outcome for society. Especially for crimes where a permanent separation of the criminal from society (e.g. death or imprisonment for the rest of their life) is deemed excessive or too expensive and recidivism can result in more damage than the initial crime if the goal is to expressly ignore integrating them back into society.

f38zf5vdt 5y ago

As a victim/survivor/whatever of several violent crimes, I would rather it never happened. Whatever broken system we had in place that created people so desperate that they had to harm people appears the problem. If the people aren't causing problems for anyone else, more power to them. The only thing society owes me is that someone else should not have to deal with the shit I had to go through.

bradleyjg 5y ago
All murderers, for example, are “desperate” people that “had to” kill? Nothing is ever anyone’s fault, just broken systems all the way down?
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Let me spin your question back at you: Do you not acknowledge that yes, many (not all) crimes are committed as a result of desperation, addiction, or otherwise poor community conditions that could be prevented by better social services?
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    Determinism has some thorny philosophical issues. Couldn’t we just as easily say that right wing voters that don’t want to provide better social services are that way because of their upbringing and societal conditions? Soon we have nothing left to talk about because everything is inevitable.
    - unethical_ban 5y ago
      You didn't answer the question, and I don't think it's that thorny. I'll get back to your question after you provide a direct response to mine. Edit, in case you got upset: Philosophy is important and well and good, but it is a game too often played by online trolls to ask questions, and never answer those posed to them. So when I ask a direct question and you throw back a counter, and then change the subject to the philosophy, I have to wonder if you really had any interest in debate in the first place.

evandijk70 5y ago

Of course it's awful if a victim is scarred for life due to a crime. But how does society (or the victim) benefit from making sure the criminal is also scarred for life?

SiVal 5y ago
How does society benefit? Society benefits if those who haven't yet scarred victims for life decide not to do so because they themselves might suffer like their intended victims.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  That is the "deterrence" wing of the list above. Shouldn't that primarily be the job of the criminal justice system? If someone is free after a punishment, and seems repentant, do you think it is the job of uninformed/half-informed citizens reading a local police blotter from 10 years ago to shame someone for their past?
bradleyjg 5y ago
I don’t say necessarily that we need to make sure the criminal is scarred for life, but what time, money, and attention is going into rehabilitating victims of crime?

jl2718 5y ago

Maybe unpopular, but I don’t think the victim’s pain and suffering should be relevant in determination of guilt, sentencing, or reintegration, just as a victim’s resiliency is obviously not. The important thing is the demonstrated intent and willingness to do harm, or inability to control their harmful behavior, because that is what we can expect more of.

Sebb767 5y ago
The actual pain should not be an influence, yes. The 'usual' influence, however, should be, as it's directly related to the willingness to cause harm (imo).
- jl2718 5y ago
  Sure, but there are many popular cases where the courtroom was used as a sympathy circus to establish both guilt and impact. It should be against jurisprudence to allow this.