RE: Prison as punishment
November 9, 2016 at 2:14 pm
(This post was last modified: November 9, 2016 at 2:21 pm by Regina.)
To be frank I think he honestly deserves jail if he was stupid enough to ignore constant warnings about driving safely and killed people as a result. The length of time he got was right, he didn't kill deliberately so I don't think a life sentence would be fair, but I just think if you've killed people you should automatically lose your right to freedom (at least temporarily).
I'm not soft on this at all. I can understand advocating against the death penalty, I agree people shouldn't be killed, but I think concepts of punishment are necessary. Consequences are necessary, otherwise (going into the deterrent argument) you're just going to have a nihilistic society where a) people do what the fuck they want and b) people take the law into their own hands as a response. Maybe I don't trust people enough to have a hippy-dippy society where we don't punish criminals, but eh, that's how I feel.
That being said, I can see the argument about not imprisoning people who do not really hurt others, like drug offenders or for petty theft. Those are often people who just need help being put on the right path, rather than being dangerous people who need locking up.
I'm not soft on this at all. I can understand advocating against the death penalty, I agree people shouldn't be killed, but I think concepts of punishment are necessary. Consequences are necessary, otherwise (going into the deterrent argument) you're just going to have a nihilistic society where a) people do what the fuck they want and b) people take the law into their own hands as a response. Maybe I don't trust people enough to have a hippy-dippy society where we don't punish criminals, but eh, that's how I feel.
That being said, I can see the argument about not imprisoning people who do not really hurt others, like drug offenders or for petty theft. Those are often people who just need help being put on the right path, rather than being dangerous people who need locking up.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
