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I'm generally against punishment for punishment's sake; obviously if a serial killer is running loose, they should be locked up as a matter of making sure they

I'm generally against punishment for punishment's sake; obviously if a serial killer is running loose, they should be locked up as a matter of making sure they don't kill more people, and maybe that even applies to non-violent crimes as well. What I don't like is the American take [1] of locking people up for years and years and then ruining their remaining lives with a felony conviction making them forever unemployable, all to stroke some kind of cosmic idea that we are "even" for whatever they did. If you look at other countries that have a much higher emphasis on reformation, and less of an emphasis on "punishment", they have a measurably lower recidivism rate. That's basically what I'm getting at; I don't really believe in "punishment" as some cosmic good, I believe in maximizing safety and reformation. [1] Just a disclaimer, I'm American.

kipchak 3y ago
It's hard to say how effective it is but an aspect of that sort of punishment is general deterrence which became more common versus reformation approaches in the 80s and 90s, where the intent is to increase the perceived risk of the crime. I think generally more approach on reformative punishment in the US would be good, but there also still examples where deterrence is useful. One more recent example is DUI enforcement and license revocation,[1] or tax evasion jail time. The goal isn't entirely to reform those who commit the crime, or keep them from being able to commit further crimes, but to increase the percentage of people not committing crimes by changing the perceived risk to reward ratio. [1]https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/809950.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/809950.pdf
dotnet00 3y ago
You call it 'cosmic good', but there's nothing cosmic about it, the victims are often right there in court, and it isn't exactly justice if all they get for the suffering that was inflicted on them is to get to see their offender get some therapy and let out to live his life. Eg, a rape victim is likely going to have at least mental scars for much of the rest of their life, there's nothing cosmic about the rapist having to suffer for at least a comparable length of time for inflicting that on the victim.
- idontpost 3y ago
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- tombert 3y ago
  I don't believe that two wrongs make a right. I also don't believe the world is a video game where "suffering points" are counted. I of course feel bad for any victim of a violent crime like murder or rape, but I don't really see how it benefits the world to have the rapist "suffer at least for a comparable length of time as the victim". A rapist should obviously be put in jail to prevent them from raping other people, so I'm not saying that they should be free from consequences, but no, I don't think the world is better place because we have a bureaucratic reenactment of "I Spit on Your Grave". Maybe in some isolated case a violent offender will feel the punishment and pain they're getting and then empathize and feel like they brought it on themself, but I think in a vast majority of cases, the offender has already rationalized what they're doing and just gets increasingly mad at the system. How exactly would you even measure a "comparable length of time of suffering"?
  - pseg134 3y ago
    I’m sure you realize how abnormal your opinion is. Most people and societies disagree with you. You shouldn’t speak as of your ideas are inherently correct.
    - tombert 3y ago
      I'm not sure why you are saying this. I never claimed my ideas are inherently correct, I didn't try and provide a syllogism or proof or anything, I just said what I believe. I agree they're not terribly common. That's fine if people disagree.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    If it is true that retribution does not have deterrence value, and anything we do along that line will just make the criminal more sullen and likely to reoffend in the future, why not just toss the key and be done with it? Life sentences for everyone. Recidivism rate 0%.
mvdtnz 3y ago
Here in New Zealand the current government came into power 6 years ago with a policy of reducing the prison population by 30 per cent. Not by increasing focus on prevention of crime, but by locking up fewer people. They achieved this target, and as a result crime - especially violent crime - has skyrocketed. I think you live in a sheltered little bubble. In fact we know from your first post in this thread that when you're personally impacted by crime you quickly change your tune, much like hundreds of thousands of former NZ Labour voters.
- tombert 3y ago
  > In fact we know from your first post in this thread that when you're personally impacted by crime you quickly change your tune, That's actually not what I said. I was disclosing a potential bias but I never said that I "changed my tune". I was mugged about two month ago and had my expensive iPhone stolen out of my hands. I filed a police report and reported the phone stolen to Apple, but I very explicitly said that I didn't want to press any kind of criminal charges on the off chance that the phone is recovered and the thief was caught.
  - quesera 3y ago
    > iPhone stolen out of my hands People still steal iPhones?? I thought the non-reusability of parts had eliminated that problem. Sorry to hear about your misadventures, I hope you were not injured.
    - tombert 3y ago
      > People still steal iPhones?? I thought the non-reusability of parts had eliminated that problem. This guy did! Snatched it right out of my hand. I of course did the iPhone lock on "Find My", and since I reported the IMEI number to the police I don't think they'll be able to easily activate it, so I suspect that the phone is probably on the bottom of the Hudson now. He did lightly shove me, but I wasn't really "injured" at all; not a scratch on me outside of my ego.
- shinryuu 3y ago
rootusrootus 3y ago
> If you look at other countries that have a much higher emphasis on reformation, and less of an emphasis on "punishment", they have a measurably lower recidivism rate. I have trouble finding good evidence for this. Easy enough to find cherry picked numbers when someone is trying to make a point, but what I see is that the data on recidivism is pretty noisy and subject to a number of parameters that can make it hard to compare across jurisdictions. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivism-rates-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...

kipchak 3y ago

It's hard to say how effective it is but an aspect of that sort of punishment is general deterrence which became more common versus reformation approaches in the 80s and 90s, where the intent is to increase the perceived risk of the crime. I think generally more approach on reformative punishment in the US would be good, but there also still examples where deterrence is useful. One more recent example is DUI enforcement and license revocation,[1] or tax evasion jail time. The goal isn't entirely to reform those who commit the crime, or keep them from being able to commit further crimes, but to increase the percentage of people not committing crimes by changing the perceived risk to reward ratio. [1]https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/809950.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/809950.pdf

dotnet00 3y ago

You call it 'cosmic good', but there's nothing cosmic about it, the victims are often right there in court, and it isn't exactly justice if all they get for the suffering that was inflicted on them is to get to see their offender get some therapy and let out to live his life. Eg, a rape victim is likely going to have at least mental scars for much of the rest of their life, there's nothing cosmic about the rapist having to suffer for at least a comparable length of time for inflicting that on the victim.

idontpost 3y ago
[dead]
tombert 3y ago
I don't believe that two wrongs make a right. I also don't believe the world is a video game where "suffering points" are counted. I of course feel bad for any victim of a violent crime like murder or rape, but I don't really see how it benefits the world to have the rapist "suffer at least for a comparable length of time as the victim". A rapist should obviously be put in jail to prevent them from raping other people, so I'm not saying that they should be free from consequences, but no, I don't think the world is better place because we have a bureaucratic reenactment of "I Spit on Your Grave". Maybe in some isolated case a violent offender will feel the punishment and pain they're getting and then empathize and feel like they brought it on themself, but I think in a vast majority of cases, the offender has already rationalized what they're doing and just gets increasingly mad at the system. How exactly would you even measure a "comparable length of time of suffering"?
- pseg134 3y ago
  I’m sure you realize how abnormal your opinion is. Most people and societies disagree with you. You shouldn’t speak as of your ideas are inherently correct.
  - tombert 3y ago
    I'm not sure why you are saying this. I never claimed my ideas are inherently correct, I didn't try and provide a syllogism or proof or anything, I just said what I believe. I agree they're not terribly common. That's fine if people disagree.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  If it is true that retribution does not have deterrence value, and anything we do along that line will just make the criminal more sullen and likely to reoffend in the future, why not just toss the key and be done with it? Life sentences for everyone. Recidivism rate 0%.

mvdtnz 3y ago

Here in New Zealand the current government came into power 6 years ago with a policy of reducing the prison population by 30 per cent. Not by increasing focus on prevention of crime, but by locking up fewer people. They achieved this target, and as a result crime - especially violent crime - has skyrocketed. I think you live in a sheltered little bubble. In fact we know from your first post in this thread that when you're personally impacted by crime you quickly change your tune, much like hundreds of thousands of former NZ Labour voters.

tombert 3y ago
> In fact we know from your first post in this thread that when you're personally impacted by crime you quickly change your tune, That's actually not what I said. I was disclosing a potential bias but I never said that I "changed my tune". I was mugged about two month ago and had my expensive iPhone stolen out of my hands. I filed a police report and reported the phone stolen to Apple, but I very explicitly said that I didn't want to press any kind of criminal charges on the off chance that the phone is recovered and the thief was caught.
- quesera 3y ago
  > iPhone stolen out of my hands People still steal iPhones?? I thought the non-reusability of parts had eliminated that problem. Sorry to hear about your misadventures, I hope you were not injured.
  - tombert 3y ago
    > People still steal iPhones?? I thought the non-reusability of parts had eliminated that problem. This guy did! Snatched it right out of my hand. I of course did the iPhone lock on "Find My", and since I reported the IMEI number to the police I don't think they'll be able to easily activate it, so I suspect that the phone is probably on the bottom of the Hudson now. He did lightly shove me, but I wasn't really "injured" at all; not a scratch on me outside of my ego.
shinryuu 3y ago

rootusrootus 3y ago

> If you look at other countries that have a much higher emphasis on reformation, and less of an emphasis on "punishment", they have a measurably lower recidivism rate. I have trouble finding good evidence for this. Easy enough to find cherry picked numbers when someone is trying to make a point, but what I see is that the data on recidivism is pretty noisy and subject to a number of parameters that can make it hard to compare across jurisdictions. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivism-rates-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...