Prison as punishment

[TheRealJoeFish]

@RealJoe

I don't think that anyone's disputing that we -don't- put people in jail, primarily, to remove dangerous people from society, but that maybe that -should- be the reason we do so, primarily.  That perhaps these are the only sorts of people who should be in jail, in the first place, and that other means of addressing other crimes would be more suitable -to- those crimes.   For example.

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@ Mooney

In the end he killed himself so I reckon good things come to those who wait? lol

ROFLMAO!  Hi-five!

But I understand where you are coming from in that people shouldn't need the fear of punishment to deter them from doing evil but some people do. Maybe not most people but what about the people that do hit and runs? They only look at it in the light of they will go to jail if they tell anyone. Instead of getting first aid and possibly saving the person they just leave. That happens way too often...

Right, but obviously, they know..if they get caught, they go to jail....and it;ll be even worse.  They still do so.  Did the threat of punishment do anything, in that example?  Are the people who do stop and help only doing so to shave a few years off a possible sentence?  I guess I'm just not convinced that the fulcrum for what people will or wont do really lies at the point of a rule against it.

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You are right, I do a lot of is/ought in my post without really being careful about the two.  I should clarify: 1) I think retribution is the primary factor motivating the criminal justice system, for whatever reason, and 2) I think retribution should be the primary factor motivating the criminal justice system, because it's the only system that works/is intellectually coherent.

And, I should clarify - I also think that a deterrence-based criminal justice system breaks down in a bunch of ways similar to those I mentioned for other systems: it doesn't work for psychopaths, it doesn't work for careless/naïve people, it doesn't work for people who don't mind going to jail (or in the case of fines are rich or in the case of death are suicidal).

I guess what I'm getting at is this: I'd like to see broad recognition that a retributivist criminal justice system is what we have and what we should have, and then, once we view it in that light, we can work on maximizing other aspects of it while being wary of the fact that a retributivist system is, like Thump says, very susceptible (more so than other systems, at times) to emotion or inconsistency.