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Comment by simmanian | Hacker News Reader

I think the key difference is I'm focusing on allowing people to live with others they can synergize well with. I oppose the focus on punishing (torturing) criminals. I do not believe we should permanently exile all violent criminals into wilderness. I believe they should live in a safe and healthy environment where they can thrive. We shouldn't let someone who's likely to murder people out on the streets with no help to get them reintegrated just because they did their time. At the same time, there's no reason we should keep someone locked up when they have truly changed. Give criminals a healthy environment where they can thrive and even be happy. Give criminals a chance to join back when they really want to.

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Maintaining a sufficient level of physical security to reliably confine violent criminals while also giving them a safe and healthy environment where they can thrive would be extremely expensive. It sounds great in theory, but most citizens wouldn't be willing to pay more taxes for it. (And yes I'm aware we could find the necessary funds by slashing military spending but realistically that's not going to happen.)

That depends on how you define "violent criminal".

I've been convicted of an assault charge before, do I qualify?

Well that would depend on the specific facts of your case, which is why we give judges some flexibility in sentencing. There's a huge difference between punching someone in a bar brawl versus pistol whipping a store clerk during an armed robbery.

Both have the potential to kill.

I think the point they're making is obvious. Being a pedant doesn't further discussion.

You make various odd connections there that are just not true. Violent criminals do not thrive together with other violent criminals. By definition those are people who have trouble fitting in a society. There's a high chance of various bad things happening and so you need rules and guards and so on. It would never be a free society when talking about bad criminals and not small offenders.

That's all reasonable, but a bit utopian.

There are tons of serious pragmatic issues with your suggestions, as well as serious political questions about how to convince people to implement them.

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