5 ms·

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 de

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.

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.