4 ms·

He was not born a drug wholesaler. He made that choice…twice! Rehabilitation is not the sole or even primary goal of incarceration. Nor should it be. But I do a

He was not born a drug wholesaler. He made that choice…twice! Rehabilitation is not the sole or even primary goal of incarceration. Nor should it be. But I do agree. People who’ve done their time shouldn’t have to wear a permanent scarlet letter. I just have little sympathy for repeat offenders of very serious felonies. This guy wasn’t a small time street dealer. He is probably partly responsible for many fentanyl overdose deaths.

macintux 3y ago
> Rehabilitation is not the sole or even primary goal of incarceration. Nor should it be. I don't understand this perspective at all. "We shouldn't punish them after they've served their time, but let's make sure they don't leave with any new job prospects either."
- overrun11 3y ago
  Of course it's not the primary goal. The primary goal is to remove people from society so they cannot continue to inflict harm on others.
gavinray 3y ago
This is a nuanced topic. I think I probably have more firsthand experience with this subject than most. All I can do is share my own viewpoints: 1. It's not uncommon for hard-opiate users to willingly ingest or even seek out fentanyl. I have multiple dead friends whom I asked repeatedly not to even stop using heroin/fent, but just to consider smoking it instead of shooting it. Opiate addicts live on the razor's edge between life and death where they're alright with taking the gamble every time they push the plunger. It's sad, and heartbreaking, but it is what it is. (My father and his wife are dead from an opiate overdose as well, fwiw. Suspected fentanyl.) 2. There's a very solid chance, given his background and history, that the author was also using himself. If you live with a hard-drug addiction, you eventually become a husk of a person and you will hurt even the people who love you the most, so that you can keep using. Again, sad and heartbreaking, but it's the nature of the demon. One of the worst parts of getting sober isn't often the withdrawal, but coping with the regrets and memories of the decisions you made while using. None of this is to say what was done is okay, or that people ought to have sympathy. But what I do mean to do, is shed some light on what these sorts of situations are really like.
- macintux 3y ago
  > There's a very solid chance, given his background and history, that the author was also using himself. The author chimed in here and acknowledged that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38231933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38231933
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Rehabilitation is not the sole or even primary goal of incarceration In the US, it is evidently an anti-goal: the US incarceration system is structured as if it were deliberately designed to do the opposite of rehabilitation, to take people who are minor and nonviolent criminals and turn them into major and violent criminals.
haswell 3y ago
From a purely moral/ethical perspective, this doesn’t withstand scrutiny. The foundational ideas underlying the justice system are inherently religious (in the literal sense) in that they depend on a world view that takes at face value the notion of free will, and assumes that all causal factors are under the control of the perpetrator. The more we learn about the mechanics of the brain, the less we have a reason to believe in what people typically mean when they say someone did something freely and of their own accord. This is not to say that people who do bad things shouldn’t be locked up for it. Negative consequences are still important. But the other things we attach to incarceration: retribution/revenge/punishment depend on dubious moral/ethical viewpoints that do not withstand scrutiny and are rooted in old religious moral dogma. There is a category of brain malfunction that puts someone in the category of a “survivor” deserving our sympathy, support, and respect. And not long ago, those same survivors were looked at as social pariahs for the misfortune of being born with a deficient brain. But when the malfunction (or collective systemic factors) leads someone to break the law, we’re predisposed to fall back to the deeply entrenched Judeo-Christian viewpoint that insists we are all free to make choices, and this freedom means the wrong choice is sin, and therefore a direct moral indictment. Except the person who steals food out of necessity has no choice in the place of their birth. No control over growing up in economic circumstances that make it more likely they’ll get caught in the broken prison system. We can retroactively judge the person who deals drugs, but if everything else was equal and we had their brain, we’d have done the same thing. And again, none of this means that serious crimes aren’t serious or that incarceration isn’t necessary, but we need to fundamentally shift the framing of why we do it, and what is or is not acceptable while doing it.
- next_xibalba 3y ago
  Your entire response relies on subjective claims. None if it is objective, factual, or falsifiable in the sense of say, physics. So, in effect, what you're saying is, "I have a better opinion." I disagree. The Judeo-Christian viewpoint that you deride got us this far. The last 30 years of peace and prosperity (which was created by and from the societies founded in Judeo-Christianity morality) has given way to a mindrot in the West. One of the features of this mindrot are the luxury beliefs that you're espousing. Incarceration works. Retribution within the confines of the law works. In case you're unsure about this, look at the miracle that is El Salvador since they threw all the gang members in prison. Meanwhile, San Francisco, for example, continues to slowly implode under the type of beliefs and their attendant policies enabled by a drift away from the "Judeo-Christian viewpoint". You can philosophize all you want. All I care about are outcomes. I'd much prefer the El Salvadorian type of outcome over that of San Francisco.

macintux 3y ago

> Rehabilitation is not the sole or even primary goal of incarceration. Nor should it be. I don't understand this perspective at all. "We shouldn't punish them after they've served their time, but let's make sure they don't leave with any new job prospects either."

overrun11 3y ago
Of course it's not the primary goal. The primary goal is to remove people from society so they cannot continue to inflict harm on others.

gavinray 3y ago

This is a nuanced topic. I think I probably have more firsthand experience with this subject than most. All I can do is share my own viewpoints: 1. It's not uncommon for hard-opiate users to willingly ingest or even seek out fentanyl. I have multiple dead friends whom I asked repeatedly not to even stop using heroin/fent, but just to consider smoking it instead of shooting it. Opiate addicts live on the razor's edge between life and death where they're alright with taking the gamble every time they push the plunger. It's sad, and heartbreaking, but it is what it is. (My father and his wife are dead from an opiate overdose as well, fwiw. Suspected fentanyl.) 2. There's a very solid chance, given his background and history, that the author was also using himself. If you live with a hard-drug addiction, you eventually become a husk of a person and you will hurt even the people who love you the most, so that you can keep using. Again, sad and heartbreaking, but it's the nature of the demon. One of the worst parts of getting sober isn't often the withdrawal, but coping with the regrets and memories of the decisions you made while using. None of this is to say what was done is okay, or that people ought to have sympathy. But what I do mean to do, is shed some light on what these sorts of situations are really like.

macintux 3y ago
> There's a very solid chance, given his background and history, that the author was also using himself. The author chimed in here and acknowledged that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38231933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38231933

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Rehabilitation is not the sole or even primary goal of incarceration In the US, it is evidently an anti-goal: the US incarceration system is structured as if it were deliberately designed to do the opposite of rehabilitation, to take people who are minor and nonviolent criminals and turn them into major and violent criminals.

haswell 3y ago

From a purely moral/ethical perspective, this doesn’t withstand scrutiny. The foundational ideas underlying the justice system are inherently religious (in the literal sense) in that they depend on a world view that takes at face value the notion of free will, and assumes that all causal factors are under the control of the perpetrator. The more we learn about the mechanics of the brain, the less we have a reason to believe in what people typically mean when they say someone did something freely and of their own accord. This is not to say that people who do bad things shouldn’t be locked up for it. Negative consequences are still important. But the other things we attach to incarceration: retribution/revenge/punishment depend on dubious moral/ethical viewpoints that do not withstand scrutiny and are rooted in old religious moral dogma. There is a category of brain malfunction that puts someone in the category of a “survivor” deserving our sympathy, support, and respect. And not long ago, those same survivors were looked at as social pariahs for the misfortune of being born with a deficient brain. But when the malfunction (or collective systemic factors) leads someone to break the law, we’re predisposed to fall back to the deeply entrenched Judeo-Christian viewpoint that insists we are all free to make choices, and this freedom means the wrong choice is sin, and therefore a direct moral indictment. Except the person who steals food out of necessity has no choice in the place of their birth. No control over growing up in economic circumstances that make it more likely they’ll get caught in the broken prison system. We can retroactively judge the person who deals drugs, but if everything else was equal and we had their brain, we’d have done the same thing. And again, none of this means that serious crimes aren’t serious or that incarceration isn’t necessary, but we need to fundamentally shift the framing of why we do it, and what is or is not acceptable while doing it.

next_xibalba 3y ago
Your entire response relies on subjective claims. None if it is objective, factual, or falsifiable in the sense of say, physics. So, in effect, what you're saying is, "I have a better opinion." I disagree. The Judeo-Christian viewpoint that you deride got us this far. The last 30 years of peace and prosperity (which was created by and from the societies founded in Judeo-Christianity morality) has given way to a mindrot in the West. One of the features of this mindrot are the luxury beliefs that you're espousing. Incarceration works. Retribution within the confines of the law works. In case you're unsure about this, look at the miracle that is El Salvador since they threw all the gang members in prison. Meanwhile, San Francisco, for example, continues to slowly implode under the type of beliefs and their attendant policies enabled by a drift away from the "Judeo-Christian viewpoint". You can philosophize all you want. All I care about are outcomes. I'd much prefer the El Salvadorian type of outcome over that of San Francisco.