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There's some weird push right now to advance not punishing crimes as a legitimate way to deal with criminals. If you Google Search right now for "does punishing

There's some weird push right now to advance not punishing crimes as a legitimate way to deal with criminals. If you Google Search right now for "does punishing crime work", all the top results are studies on how punishing crime is evil, we need compassion not conviction, yada yada. People seem to be seizing on these studies to say "look, punishing crime doesn't work, and since you disagree with this study, you're against science and you don't deserve to be listened to." Honestly, I think the reason there are no studies proving that punishing crime works, is because it's such a brain-dead obvious conclusion that I'd guess nobody ever felt the NEED to make such a study. Society has been punishing crime for thousands of years. We've all changed our behavior to avoid punishment. If you've ever had a pet it should be perfectly obvious that avoiding punishment is an innate behavior baked into every animal and OBVIOUSLY it works to deter bad behavior. It's something as obvious to me as 2+2=4, or water is wet, or the sky is blue. Fortunately there are other cities out there with actual sane leaders. But as long as SF keeps pushing this politically-motivated, head-in-the-sand "compassion not conviction" nonsense their city will continue going to shit.

happytoexplain 4y ago
I tried Googling "does punishing crime work", and I got results about how some studies show it's ineffective, which is true and relevant - this does not imply that we should not punish crime for some definition of "punish", and I don't get any results about how it's "evil", or "yada yada". >I think the reason there are no studies proving that punishing crime works, is because it's such a brain-dead obvious conclusion that I'd guess nobody ever felt the NEED to make such a study. It's pretty easy to imagine how punishment might not have an appreciable effect on certain crimes in certain contexts, so it's confusing to assert that your conclusion is "brain-dead obvious". Punishment as a concept is indeed obvious, but only because it serves as an obvious outlet for our angry emotions, not because it "obviously" works effectively and in all cases. You're injecting really strongly biased/unthoughtful wording into your opinion, which is a needless distraction.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- PKop 4y ago
  This is only true if you believe that the purpose of punishment is rehabilitation. Depending on how severe the punishments it absolutely can affect crime rates. This is a very simple problem to solve. Remove the people from the streets. Punish drug dealers with severe, harsh penalties. Keep escalating until it stops. Do you think if we rounded up all the criminals and put them in jail, the crime wouldn't decline? Of course it would. It is only a matter of will and degree of punishment/enforcement.
  - readthenotes1 4y ago
    I think part of the problem is that we are not willing to foot the bill to put all the criminals in jail. On a somewhat quibbling note, I will point out that violating traffic laws makes one a criminal, and I am pretty sure you have exceeded the speed limit. You probably do not mean to put all the criminals in jail. And that raises the question of which criminals to put in jail which makes it much harder. Addiction is lifelong so you're going to put drug addicts in jail you would need to use a life sentence. Based on my TV understanding of the penal system, this will not cure the addiction. Also, if you put all the criminals in jail what you're really doing is providing a fertile breeding ground for criminal education, which is also not very healthy for society assuming you plan to ever let criminals out. And of course we do also have the escape from movies and Australia as previous investigations of how to best deal with high crime rates
    - PKop 4y ago
      >And that raises the question of which criminals to put in jail which makes it much harder. Why is this hard? Is there a problem with speeding that is lowering quality of life to the degree that violent, property, drug and homeless loitering is in major cities? Cmon man, we are all smart people here. The manufactured moral dilemmas are such a waste of time. We can all conceive of hierarchies of crime, and right now unenforcement is the major problem so are we really at risk of jumping to extremes where speeding tickets lands someone in jail for a long time? Now, if speeding results in physical harm or car accidents, then at the very least those breaking them should lose their license. If that becomes an issue, then escalate until the problem is solved to a degree that makes a city a pleasant place to live. Maybe the problem is there are too many competing defintions here for what people think is desirable for a city..but open drug use, homeless/mentally ill squatting on sidewalks and harassing people, un-punished property and violent crime, mass theft at retail businesses etc seem fairly obvious to me maybe you have a different preference and like this stuff. >Addiction is lifelong so you're going to put drug addicts in jail you would need to use a life sentence. Yea maybe. I'd rathr have a nice clean city than concern myself with rehabilitation of hard drug users. Getting hooked on this stuff already means one has ruined their own life. Why do we have to allow them to ruin ours too? Close your heart to sentimentality, or maybe direct that sentimentality to the people doing the right thing, not using drugs and trying to be productive citizens. Where is the empathy for them? This is the major blocker to solving these problems. I feel much worse for the good citizens who have to suffer living around this mess, than anyone addicted to drugs and whose behavior necessitates removing them from society so the rest of us can get on with our lives unomolested. This mentality of hyper sympathy for what are essentially mindless zombies wreaking havoc (at some point the drugs preclude people from rational thought) is the core of why US cities have become so bad. It may be true that to clean up the streets requires abandoning the aversion to harsh punishments for these and other people. If collectively we cannot cross that chasm, then we're doomed to live in filth that will only get worse.
alienicecream 4y ago
The silver lining is that the bleeding hearts who champion this nonsense now have to live among the results of it. WFH is great but here's one reason to support back-to-the-office policies.

happytoexplain 4y ago

I tried Googling "does punishing crime work", and I got results about how some studies show it's ineffective, which is true and relevant - this does not imply that we should not punish crime for some definition of "punish", and I don't get any results about how it's "evil", or "yada yada". >I think the reason there are no studies proving that punishing crime works, is because it's such a brain-dead obvious conclusion that I'd guess nobody ever felt the NEED to make such a study. It's pretty easy to imagine how punishment might not have an appreciable effect on certain crimes in certain contexts, so it's confusing to assert that your conclusion is "brain-dead obvious". Punishment as a concept is indeed obvious, but only because it serves as an obvious outlet for our angry emotions, not because it "obviously" works effectively and in all cases. You're injecting really strongly biased/unthoughtful wording into your opinion, which is a needless distraction.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
PKop 4y ago
This is only true if you believe that the purpose of punishment is rehabilitation. Depending on how severe the punishments it absolutely can affect crime rates. This is a very simple problem to solve. Remove the people from the streets. Punish drug dealers with severe, harsh penalties. Keep escalating until it stops. Do you think if we rounded up all the criminals and put them in jail, the crime wouldn't decline? Of course it would. It is only a matter of will and degree of punishment/enforcement.
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  I think part of the problem is that we are not willing to foot the bill to put all the criminals in jail. On a somewhat quibbling note, I will point out that violating traffic laws makes one a criminal, and I am pretty sure you have exceeded the speed limit. You probably do not mean to put all the criminals in jail. And that raises the question of which criminals to put in jail which makes it much harder. Addiction is lifelong so you're going to put drug addicts in jail you would need to use a life sentence. Based on my TV understanding of the penal system, this will not cure the addiction. Also, if you put all the criminals in jail what you're really doing is providing a fertile breeding ground for criminal education, which is also not very healthy for society assuming you plan to ever let criminals out. And of course we do also have the escape from movies and Australia as previous investigations of how to best deal with high crime rates
  - PKop 4y ago
    >And that raises the question of which criminals to put in jail which makes it much harder. Why is this hard? Is there a problem with speeding that is lowering quality of life to the degree that violent, property, drug and homeless loitering is in major cities? Cmon man, we are all smart people here. The manufactured moral dilemmas are such a waste of time. We can all conceive of hierarchies of crime, and right now unenforcement is the major problem so are we really at risk of jumping to extremes where speeding tickets lands someone in jail for a long time? Now, if speeding results in physical harm or car accidents, then at the very least those breaking them should lose their license. If that becomes an issue, then escalate until the problem is solved to a degree that makes a city a pleasant place to live. Maybe the problem is there are too many competing defintions here for what people think is desirable for a city..but open drug use, homeless/mentally ill squatting on sidewalks and harassing people, un-punished property and violent crime, mass theft at retail businesses etc seem fairly obvious to me maybe you have a different preference and like this stuff. >Addiction is lifelong so you're going to put drug addicts in jail you would need to use a life sentence. Yea maybe. I'd rathr have a nice clean city than concern myself with rehabilitation of hard drug users. Getting hooked on this stuff already means one has ruined their own life. Why do we have to allow them to ruin ours too? Close your heart to sentimentality, or maybe direct that sentimentality to the people doing the right thing, not using drugs and trying to be productive citizens. Where is the empathy for them? This is the major blocker to solving these problems. I feel much worse for the good citizens who have to suffer living around this mess, than anyone addicted to drugs and whose behavior necessitates removing them from society so the rest of us can get on with our lives unomolested. This mentality of hyper sympathy for what are essentially mindless zombies wreaking havoc (at some point the drugs preclude people from rational thought) is the core of why US cities have become so bad. It may be true that to clean up the streets requires abandoning the aversion to harsh punishments for these and other people. If collectively we cannot cross that chasm, then we're doomed to live in filth that will only get worse.

alienicecream 4y ago

The silver lining is that the bleeding hearts who champion this nonsense now have to live among the results of it. WFH is great but here's one reason to support back-to-the-office policies.