Prison as punishment

[mlmooney89]

Now we all know that I'm for the death penalty so yall shouldn't be surprised that I think this scenario is a bit naïve.

They killed someone, yes it was an accident but they knew that texting and driving a multi ton killing machine is dangerous. They made the decision that their text was more important than another life. It is no different than drinkin and driving. You kill a person and get community service and a fine?! How will that deter people from texting and driving? If people are texting and driving they already care about their own lives more than others. The idea of decades in jail is what deters people from doing illegal things, not picking up trash on the side of the road.

So what if they feel guilty for what they did, it doesn't bring the life they took back. I'm a big baby and feel guilty for days if I run a red light, doesn't make what I did any less illegal. The person texting and driving literally killed another human being. There needs to be more punishment than a slap on the wrist (which is what probation is) and to pay money.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I once came up with a way to revamp the penal system as follows:

1. Every effort should be made to rehabilitate first offenders.

2. Second offenders eat the third offenders.

3. There are no fourth offenders.

This plan did not meet with widespread approval.

Boru

[vorlon13]

we want folks to accurately ascertain risks of various actions

texting while driving and the potential of killing other people was insufficient to deter the activity in this case


Adam Smith commands we up the ante.

[The Grand Nudger]

They killed someone, yes it was an accident but they knew that texting and driving a multi ton killing machine is dangerous. They made the decision that their text was more important than another life. It is no different than drinkin and driving. You kill a person and get community service and a fine?! How will that deter people from texting and driving? If people are texting and driving they already care about their own lives more than others. The idea of decades in jail is what deters people from doing illegal things, not picking up trash on the side of the road.

-That's the deterrence motivation...sure...but..they also knew that they'd go to jail for texting and driving if they hit someone....and they still did it.  

So, is it an effective deterrent, after all?

Theres the notion in that, implied but not directly expressed...that it's the rules and punishments that deter us from some x. Let me ask you, are the rules and punishments the reason that you don't murder...or is it simpler than that? Like, maybe, you don't want to? Conversely, if you did want to, would the existence of the rules and punishments stop you? If the rules could be removed or lessened from you...say you were placed in an active conflict zone and handed an assault rifle, would you? In a nutshell, are you a killer, and if so, always or only sometimes? If not....never? We're strange creatures.

[The Grand Nudger]

 An example for this case may be sentencing him to a subsistence life style while having to care for motor vehicle victims for the 10 years as his only job or means of support. If he does not agree or adhere, then he can do the time. 

I think that's actually pretty nice...I mean, we'd only give the choice to people who we think can be trusted to stick to it - obviously, we don't give some recalcitrant piece of shit the option to farm it and do cs.  The idea that those who break the social contract are better put to use in contributing to the society than in being caged..which, frankly appears to hurt the society on many levels, as well as harming the individual themselves..is a good one in principle.

I suppose that's easy to consider though, in the context of crimes that harm people. How about prostitution? Possession, w or w/o intent to distribute? Do we put these folks on farms, or make them work, somehow in a capacity that speaks to their crimes? I know that the easy answer is "those things, maybe, shouldn't be crimes" - but bare with me, they are, so...would that be more appropriate than incarceration or fines, in those cases?

[Minimalist]

Why do we punish? If there is no other purpose to it, the only reasons we could come up with are "justice" and acting as a deterrent.

The deterrence part is horseshit.  No one commits a crime in the first place in the expectation of being caught therefore any hardened criminal is out of the mix there.  Someone who snaps and reacts with violence is a whole other story but the thought of prison is not going to enter your mind when you decide for whatever reason to beat the shit out of someone.

One cannot dismiss the possibility that we punish because we are still essentially barbarians.

[robvalue]

The thing is, people already know they could go to jail for killing people with their car yet obscene amounts of people continue to use their phone at the wheel. So as a deterrent, it's not working. Would more people use them if the "punishment" became more akin to community service? I don't know. But it seems unlikely on the face of it. I like the idea of him being used to go around talking in schools and such. Maybe education and encouraging responsibility are at least as important here as having a deterrent.

When I mentioned being sorry, of course I refer to cases where the result is an accident. If you deliberately did something, how sorry you are is of less importance. And I agree using this to make any decisions is problematic; it would probably only highlight a psychopath or similar unable/unwilling to mimic remorse.

In this particular case, it was an accident. The guy didn't mean to kill anyone. Of course, he is accountable. But what does anyone gain by him being in jail for 10 years? Is there a better alternative? As a rough suggestion, how about being banned from driving and being indebted to society in some way, being forced to "pay back" in a positive way, with prison time being reserved for refusal to adhere?

This happened in the UK?

I don't know if the law is the same but usually this is considered negligent homicide or manslaughter, depending on the level of negligence. DUI, using your phone such as this guy did, things like that. I also don't know the maximum stretch something like that can earn you, but according to news reports they always get about 8 to ten months, sometimes even probation.

Which I think to be the right kind of punishment. Since the have to make ammends in some form of shape. Usually by having to pay a tidy sum to the relatives or the injured. Which is hard to do once you're behind bars. Insurance won't cover behavior like that, after all.

Yeah, in the UK I believe. I haven't fact checked anything so the sentence might not be accurate but it's not too important to the discussion.

[Catholic_Lady]

This is a discussion I had with my wife recently, regarding something we heard in the news. A guy was using his phone at the wheel, and crashed into another car killing several people. He was given a jail sentence, around 10 years I think.

This got me thinking about the suitability of such a sentence. I think it's an interesting point to discuss. To me, the primary purpose of prison is to remove dangerous people from society. The secondary purpose, where possible, should be to rehabilitate them. This could sometimes be achieved simply by stopping them doing what they were doing, and giving them a new environment in which to reflect. The third and least important is punishment.

Why do we punish? If there is no other purpose to it, the only reasons we could come up with are "justice" and acting as a deterrent. The second I can understand the pragmatic value in, although it feels unsatisying to me when applied to adults.

In this particular case, it was an accident. The guy didn't mean to kill anyone. Of course, he is accountable. But what does anyone gain by him being in jail for 10 years? Is there a better alternative? As a rough suggestion, how about being banned from driving and being indebted to society in some way, being forced to "pay back" in a positive way, with prison time being reserved for refusal to adhere?

The immediate problem would be people suddenly not caring about running people over by accident. Would this really follow?

I'm not saying the current or alternate "punishments" are right or wrong, I'm very much unsure what would be best. I'm interested in peoples' thoughts!

I've thought about this before myself, and it's a great question.

I find myself torn on this issue. I'd say I'm a believer that prison should be about keeping society safe and about rehabilitation. Just as you said. I do not believe in the death penalty as I see it is not necessary to keep society safe and don't believe in that sort of "punishment."  

However, I can see how a punishment for negligence that ends up taking other people's lives accidentally can work as a way to encourage people to be careful. It can be a reinforcement by giving the person consequences for his negligent actions, so that people think twice before careless behavior. In that sense, it does fall under the category of "keeping society safe." 

Though I'd say 10 years for that is a bit much. Five tops.

[Catholic_Lady]

I agree that punishment for the sake of punishment is useless.  I like your idea of taking away his licence and creating some kind of of payback system instead.  Lots of community service, talks at high schools or other groups about the very real consequences of texting and driving.

But why does our current system work the way it does?  I guess because basic eye for an eye type retribution is easier and more emotionally satisfying for many than the harder work (harder for the victims emotionally, harder for everyone really) of real rehabilitation and prevention.

If it was my family who had been killed through someone else's negligence, I'd probably feel the same anger and desire to just hurt that person.  But from a distance, we can see how futile that really is.

^I like this, actually.

[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.