RE: Prison as punishment
November 8, 2016 at 3:19 pm
(This post was last modified: November 8, 2016 at 3:20 pm by TheRealJoeFish.)
I've thought a very great deal about this; I might describe the topic of criminal justice as the legal topic I've given the most thought to throughout my life and, especially, in law school. I've viewed this from a lot of angles, and come to the conclusion that the only coherent mechanism for criminal justice is retributivism.
In other words, we don't put people in jail primarily to remove dangerous people from society, although that's a secondary factor and a good one. We don't put people in jail primarily to rehabilitate them, although that's a secondary (or, unfortunately, tertiary) factor that's a very good thing when it works. Quite simply, we primary reason we put someone in jail is because we, as a society, think that person has done something that needs to be punished.
I'm more or less convinced that all other systems fail, at least in (American, or other similarly "western") society as it is today. A rehabilitationist justice system breaks down around people who can't be rehabilitated and people who do things negligently and aren't any more or less likely to do it again than the rest of the population; additionally, it breaks down around the question of probability that a person can be rehabilitated and how successfully. A preventative justice system breaks down with people who are guaranteed to keep committing minor crimes, people who are extremely unlikely to reoffend, and people who do bad things but who, for whatever reason (usually age or mental illness) we don't believe should be punished. A utilitarian justice system gets into all sorts of problems with jailing people preemptively and jailing innocent people and determining the big-c "Cost" of keeping someone in jail.
The only system that makes any darned sense when you come around to it is that criminal justice, as it exists in the west today, is first and foremost society coming together to say "if you do x, we think you deserve a punishment of y years of reduced personal autonomy (or a fine, or death, etc)." All other benefits of criminal justice are secondary, and all discussions about how to enact the "best" retributivist system amount to different interpretations of the same basic idea.
I definitely want to hear peoples' thoughts if they think I'm way off base.
In other words, we don't put people in jail primarily to remove dangerous people from society, although that's a secondary factor and a good one. We don't put people in jail primarily to rehabilitate them, although that's a secondary (or, unfortunately, tertiary) factor that's a very good thing when it works. Quite simply, we primary reason we put someone in jail is because we, as a society, think that person has done something that needs to be punished.
I'm more or less convinced that all other systems fail, at least in (American, or other similarly "western") society as it is today. A rehabilitationist justice system breaks down around people who can't be rehabilitated and people who do things negligently and aren't any more or less likely to do it again than the rest of the population; additionally, it breaks down around the question of probability that a person can be rehabilitated and how successfully. A preventative justice system breaks down with people who are guaranteed to keep committing minor crimes, people who are extremely unlikely to reoffend, and people who do bad things but who, for whatever reason (usually age or mental illness) we don't believe should be punished. A utilitarian justice system gets into all sorts of problems with jailing people preemptively and jailing innocent people and determining the big-c "Cost" of keeping someone in jail.
The only system that makes any darned sense when you come around to it is that criminal justice, as it exists in the west today, is first and foremost society coming together to say "if you do x, we think you deserve a punishment of y years of reduced personal autonomy (or a fine, or death, etc)." All other benefits of criminal justice are secondary, and all discussions about how to enact the "best" retributivist system amount to different interpretations of the same basic idea.
I definitely want to hear peoples' thoughts if they think I'm way off base.
How will we know, when the morning comes, we are still human? - 2D
Don't worry, my friend. If this be the end, then so shall it be.
Don't worry, my friend. If this be the end, then so shall it be.
