4 ms·

My (leftist) opinion is that we don't give enough pardons. By the time people get out of prison, their lives are pretty much wrecked. We should have a lot more

by jfengel 7mo ago

My (leftist) opinion is that we don't give enough pardons. By the time people get out of prison, their lives are pretty much wrecked. We should have a lot more clemency and compassion. That's what the pardon is for. If that means a ton of literal insurrectionists go free, that's fine with me. We elected someone precisely to do that. It's on the voters if we elected someone who was literally treasonous himself. I hope the insurrectionists take the opportunity to get on with their lives. I gather that quite a few have already been banned for other crimes, and that's too bad. I don't want prison to be vengeance. I want prison to make us all safer. I'd like the President to take a lot of leeway in finding people who are going to be productive citizens if they were given that gift.

eszed 7mo ago
You would probably consider me to your right, but I'm right there with you. Prison should be protective: we lock up people from whom the rest of us will not be safe unless they are segregated. Ideally it is also rehabilitatative, and once (if!) prisoners will be safe and productive members of society there is no point to keeping them locked up. If there are other methods short of prison that can render law-breakers harmless - such as restrictions on certain activities and occupations - then those should be pursued first. The ghost of this philosophy, however attenuated, can be seen in systems of pardon and parole. I acknowledge that a desire for retribution - to punish the evil-doer; make them suffer for what they've done - is a strong impulse (I feel it myself!), deeply imbedded in our tribal psyches, but it should be fought, not indulged. This seems to me to be the only moral basis for a system of justice and incarceration, though I have no idea how to nudge a society towards this model. Some northern European countries approach it.
- jfengel 7mo ago
  (In fact, I may well be nearer to your position than my description implies. I use the term "leftist" because I hate the way the term is applied to anyone who isn't a Republican. My beliefs, in the Clinton/Obama range, are "leftist" only if one is dumb enough to believe what one hears on Fox News.)
  - eszed 6mo ago
    Heh. I sometimes describe myself as "basically a communist" for the exact same reason. Actually, I lived in Europe long enough to be maybe a little left of you, but still Clinton / Obama center-right, in world historical sense. I expect we'd get along. :-)
HWR_14 7mo ago
You sound like you are advocating for commutation, not pardons. Commutation lowers the penalty given to a criminal by executive decree (which the president can also do) A pardon makes it so the conviction never happened.
- Spooky23 7mo ago
  No, it doesn’t erase the conviction, it “forgives” you from the perspective of the government. Commutation ends the punitive aspect of the conviction. I have a somewhat distant relative who was pardoned after being over-prosecuted by a zealous DA. They were a victim of a felony who did something in response that could have been charged as anything from a citation/violation to a felony, the DA’s discretion was to choose the harshest possible resolution. They still have a hard time getting work because the conviction must be reported.
  - HWR_14 7mo ago
    Thanks, I had misunderstood. It eliminates the legal consequences of conviction (unlike commutation) which is similar in a lot of ways, but it doesn't erase the conviction from the records.

by jfengel 7mo ago

eszed 7mo ago

You would probably consider me to your right, but I'm right there with you. Prison should be protective: we lock up people from whom the rest of us will not be safe unless they are segregated. Ideally it is also rehabilitatative, and once (if!) prisoners will be safe and productive members of society there is no point to keeping them locked up. If there are other methods short of prison that can render law-breakers harmless - such as restrictions on certain activities and occupations - then those should be pursued first. The ghost of this philosophy, however attenuated, can be seen in systems of pardon and parole. I acknowledge that a desire for retribution - to punish the evil-doer; make them suffer for what they've done - is a strong impulse (I feel it myself!), deeply imbedded in our tribal psyches, but it should be fought, not indulged. This seems to me to be the only moral basis for a system of justice and incarceration, though I have no idea how to nudge a society towards this model. Some northern European countries approach it.

jfengel 7mo ago
(In fact, I may well be nearer to your position than my description implies. I use the term "leftist" because I hate the way the term is applied to anyone who isn't a Republican. My beliefs, in the Clinton/Obama range, are "leftist" only if one is dumb enough to believe what one hears on Fox News.)
- eszed 6mo ago
  Heh. I sometimes describe myself as "basically a communist" for the exact same reason. Actually, I lived in Europe long enough to be maybe a little left of you, but still Clinton / Obama center-right, in world historical sense. I expect we'd get along. :-)

HWR_14 7mo ago

You sound like you are advocating for commutation, not pardons. Commutation lowers the penalty given to a criminal by executive decree (which the president can also do) A pardon makes it so the conviction never happened.

Spooky23 7mo ago
No, it doesn’t erase the conviction, it “forgives” you from the perspective of the government. Commutation ends the punitive aspect of the conviction. I have a somewhat distant relative who was pardoned after being over-prosecuted by a zealous DA. They were a victim of a felony who did something in response that could have been charged as anything from a citation/violation to a felony, the DA’s discretion was to choose the harshest possible resolution. They still have a hard time getting work because the conviction must be reported.
- HWR_14 7mo ago
  Thanks, I had misunderstood. It eliminates the legal consequences of conviction (unlike commutation) which is similar in a lot of ways, but it doesn't erase the conviction from the records.