RE: Prison as punishment
November 8, 2016 at 4:40 pm
(This post was last modified: November 8, 2016 at 5:06 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
@ Joe
It is most -definitely- what we do have, I just don't think it's what we should have. There's no requirement that our system be based upon notions of retribution in order to incarcerate or rehabilitate or fine....but that same notion -is- behind our treatment of prisoners and the public at large (soon to be prisoners in the eyes of the prison industrial complex) as invisible people, who probably "deserve" what they got anyway if they've found themselves on the wrong end of the law.
What does killing the killer -do-, for example, and how does stating that he deserved it help to do that anyway? Who cares if he deserved it, if the reason we're doing it, in depressing reality, is to service our own wounded psyches? Does it prevent killers from killing? Or is it just another example of killers killing? Are we engaging in this sort of system for any particular effect, or -as Min put it so succinctly earlier- are we just barbarians? From where I sit, it certainly seems as though we might be enjoying a bit of loot and pillage.
The folks the next village over stole my cattle, so Imma burn down their house...and whatever valuables I can get from the ashes will fetch me a pretty penny, to say nothing of the human chattel. All of this, ofc...they deserve...for the crime of stealing my cattle, this is retribution - and it fills some hole in my life created by the loss of my livestock. I think that legitimizing the retributative model allows us to skip over some issues that, if we thought about this a different way, or indeed used a different sytem..we might have to face...and that in facing those things some of the abbuses currently endemic to our system might be reduced or even eliminated.
If, rather than saying "you deserve this punishment for breaking our laws" in regards to incarceration....what if we said "no one -deserves- this, but you leave us with no choice"? We might have to legitimately consider the second half of that claim. Same with things like capital punishment...and all the way back down the the relatively mild, fines. Do you think that we might have a different system and society before us, today, if we addressed it that way?
(all of his ignores whether or not notions of moral desert are even grounded in reality, which they may not be...but obviously that hardly matters since we're clearly capable of acting on them regardless- in itself, disturbing even if irrelevant)
Quote: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.
It is most -definitely- what we do have, I just don't think it's what we should have. There's no requirement that our system be based upon notions of retribution in order to incarcerate or rehabilitate or fine....but that same notion -is- behind our treatment of prisoners and the public at large (soon to be prisoners in the eyes of the prison industrial complex) as invisible people, who probably "deserve" what they got anyway if they've found themselves on the wrong end of the law.
What does killing the killer -do-, for example, and how does stating that he deserved it help to do that anyway? Who cares if he deserved it, if the reason we're doing it, in depressing reality, is to service our own wounded psyches? Does it prevent killers from killing? Or is it just another example of killers killing? Are we engaging in this sort of system for any particular effect, or -as Min put it so succinctly earlier- are we just barbarians? From where I sit, it certainly seems as though we might be enjoying a bit of loot and pillage.
The folks the next village over stole my cattle, so Imma burn down their house...and whatever valuables I can get from the ashes will fetch me a pretty penny, to say nothing of the human chattel. All of this, ofc...they deserve...for the crime of stealing my cattle, this is retribution - and it fills some hole in my life created by the loss of my livestock. I think that legitimizing the retributative model allows us to skip over some issues that, if we thought about this a different way, or indeed used a different sytem..we might have to face...and that in facing those things some of the abbuses currently endemic to our system might be reduced or even eliminated.
If, rather than saying "you deserve this punishment for breaking our laws" in regards to incarceration....what if we said "no one -deserves- this, but you leave us with no choice"? We might have to legitimately consider the second half of that claim. Same with things like capital punishment...and all the way back down the the relatively mild, fines. Do you think that we might have a different system and society before us, today, if we addressed it that way?
(all of his ignores whether or not notions of moral desert are even grounded in reality, which they may not be...but obviously that hardly matters since we're clearly capable of acting on them regardless- in itself, disturbing even if irrelevant)
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