Comment by dominotw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dominotw | Hacker News Reader

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> the point isn't to save money or reduce crime, it's to punish the bad people.

A huge part of justice system is exactly that, justice for the victims. They want the offender to be punished and pay for harm they caused. It would be unfair to the victims if govt was easy on the offenders.

Edit:

Depends on which end of spectrum you think humans are responsible for their own actions. Between,

1. People are merely the product of a zeitgeist.

2. People are 100% responsible for their own actions.

Most people think human nature is somewhere in between and our justice system reflects that thinking. Any rant saying only 1 is the right way to think about justice system has never been personally victimized or brutalized and would be singing a different tune if their loved one was a victim of some senseless/sadistic behaviour by another human being. People who live in crime free neighborhoods love to theorize about how we can be so kind of criminals and that will bring the best out of human beings.

To what end? Should we waterboard them every day? Should we implant them with pain devices that make their life hell?

What good does that do anyone? How does that make a net-improvement to the world? How does that "payment" work, exactly?

The victims' right to sadism should not trump society's right to reduced crime in the future. What we do to prisoners today increases recividism, increases crime.

RTFM[1]. Justice is not a vendetta.

[1]: http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/

"revenge: the action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands."

The idea that a victim would feel better by knowing that the perpetrator is suffering is exactly revenge by proxy.

Listen, listen, forget this entire topic for a moment and let me just say: thank you for linking me to those lectures. You just gave my brain the candy it's been craving lately in abundance that may even be too much.

> To what end? Should we waterboard them every day? Should we implant them with pain devices that make their life hell?

Nothing like the good, old reductio ad absurdum. Two can play that game, but it prevents any meaningful discussion.

> reductio ad absurdium

Let me simplify it then, with no logical fallacy: If harming those who commit crimes is a good thing, why not do it more? Why not make it worse? And who gets to decide how much is enough?

> If harming those who commit crimes is a good thing, why not do it more?

Because proportion is a good thing, too - and is pivotal for the whole concept of justice.

> And who gets to decide how much is enough?

The same instance that decides what is and what is not a crime. Ultimately: society, in one way or another. "Implementation details" depend on the era and the civilization.

The problem is that a lot of what happens in American prisons really is absurd, Kafkaesque, sadism apparently for its own sake, and yet this hasn't actually led to the reductio. When we know that other approaches are better for society in that they lead to less recidivism, and are also less painful for the criminals, and yet continue to push in the opposite direction, it's reasonable to ask if there are any limits to our appetite for inflicting pain. If we can't even ask, then imo that is what prevents the meaningful discussion.

> To what end? Should we waterboard them every day? Should we implant them with pain devices that make their life hell?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Bear_(Black_Mirror)

This is precisely the kind of medieval attitude that renders our prisons overcrowded, ineffective, and often at the mercy of racist policy makers, though.

It's absolutely the case that an effective justice system needs to make bad actions much more expensive than good actions. This is there it discourage people from taking a potentially easy-for-them-but-bad-for-victims-and-society approach.

But it's also the case that there are people who simply lack the facilities or resources to recognize this situation. Or people who's situations are so dire that these deterrents don't matter. For those people, rehabilitation is the only path forward.

The more rehabilitation we can offer, the less brutal our punishments need to be. And the more opportunities we can provide people to succeed within our modern social framework, the more compelling modest punishments will be.

> This is precisely the kind of medieval attitude that renders our prisons overcrowded

Do we really have the right to the victims that they have an attitude problem if they don't forgive their offenders. The comfort of our crime free existence is partly possible due precisely 'medieval attitude' .

> more rehabilitation we can offer, the less brutal our punishments need to be

Is there any proof to this. Would you personally accept possibility of higher crime in your neighborhood to carry out these experiments?

> the more opportunities we can provide people to succeed within our modern social framework

This is such a non solution. Yea we want to provide more opportunities for everyone, yea we want to live in crime free societies.

People who haven't been personally victimized by a brutal crime have no right to take moral high ground about the attitudes of victims. I cannot even begin to imagine the range of emotions victims go though.

People who have the moral ideals about this topic are ironically the people least affected by crime in general. Its a privilege to be on a moral high ground, who wouldn't want to be there, feels so good.

> Do we really have the right to the victims that they have an attitude problem if they don't forgive their offenders. The comfort of our crime free existence is partly possible due precisely 'medieval attitude' .

Pardon me, perhaps you're in a country with a "crime free existence." In my country, every week brings new atrocities and mass shootings. I'd expect such an effective strategy to perhaps have a lower total incarceration rate for victim-less crime and be better at prosecuting things like rape and murder.

> This is such a non solution. Yea we want to provide more opportunities for everyone, yea we want to live in crime free societies.

"Lock people up because it makes victims feel better" is equally unproductive, and we need only look at America's prison population vs our crime rate relative to our peers to see it.

> People who haven't been personally victimized by a brutal crime have no right to take moral high ground about the attitudes of victims. I cannot even begin to imagine the range of emotions victims go though.

> Its a privilege to be on a moral high ground, who wouldn't want to be there, feels so good.

Actually, it is an awful burden. But I don't think that pointing out "a failing, unfair system is not working" is a moral mountain to lecture down from. Your mileage may, of course, vary. But if you think you can browbeat me by suggesting that we must only listen to the most extreme opinions on violent crime by victims of said crime? It's both my right and duty within the context of my citizenship to disagree. I understand some people may passionately disagree, and I accept that conflict. I'm sorry if it's troubling, but I believe punitive justice is observably and obviously flawed and I will not support it simply because you say so.

> I believe punitive justice is observably and obviously flawed and I will not support it simply because you say so.

> more rehabilitation we can offer, the less brutal our punishments need to be

Do you have anything to back your main position on this matter. I am curious to learn and open to changing my position.

Except there is a lot of evidence that punishing the person who harmed them might not make the victims feel any better long term.

Curious to read more about this if you have anything.

Also wondering if ' there is a lot of evidence' proving that rehab works long term in reducing crime.

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