Crime and Punishment

[Abramul]

In our modern, 'sensitive' corrections system, criminals are given luxuries such as TV, three full meals a day, etc.

 

Is this the way to make people regret their actions? I say:

 

Keep them hungry, but nourished

Make them work - not necessarily economically productive, but hard labor.

For crimes against society, like drug dealing, bring back the stocks, and let stores set up rotten produce stands nearby

For the most serious offenders (death-row type, in US), drop them on some island in the mid-Pacific

[ThetaOrionis01]

I suppose it depends what purpose you think a justice system should accomplish.

 

Protect society from danger?

Revenge?

Re-education to transform offenders into productive members of society?

Repayment of the offender's debt to society?

 

There are definitely some offenders that society has to be protected from - offenders who show no guild or remorse for their actions, and whose likelihood of reoffending is high.

 

For others, though, if your emphasis is on revenge - ie make them suffer for what they did - you are ruling out the last two options. And is it better if prisoners regret their actions because of the personal consequences for themselves - ie unpleasant conditions in prison - or because they learn to empathise with their victims, and come to regard their actions as wrong?

 

I think the main purpose of a criminal justice system and the punishments it applies should be to maximise the benefit and minimise the damage to society. Whether prison is always the best punishment is then debatable.

[Switch]

I have to agree with Theta. While part of me would like some of the scum in those places to suffer, in the end it's pointless. We'd just be sinking to their level. Just keep em locked up. Being stuck in a concrete monstrosity for 20+ years or even a couple years is hardly pleasant, even if there is TV. :P

 

And if some can realise what they've done is wrong and actually become normal people, all the better. Just have to be careful the system doesn't get screwed around with and they end up letting re-offenders go (which I get the impression happens much more than it should!).

[CrazyGilbert]

yeah, thats why criminals after they get released they realize that they cant live on there own and that they cant socialize as human beings so they do another criminal offence so they can be pampered. This is stupid. They should do work and labour, maybe forced into an army or something and kept hunrgy as you said.

[Malchik]

It is not at all as simple as that.

 

People are put in prison for many different reasons. Sometimes as in Guantanamo Bay they are imprisoned illegally by so-called civilised nations. Sometimes they are wrongly imprisoned because of errors in the justice system. (More often that works the other way round BTW.)

 

People can and sometimes do reform. Sometimes the intelligence level of the offender is too low to regard them as normal. If a woman kills her husband after he has physically abused her for years is she equivalent to a woman who kills him because she wants to marry a younger man?

 

If you believe that certain acts are ethically wrong and that the wrongdoers should be punished (and most of society backs you up) then punishment is what the offenders will get. But if we enjoy giving the punishment it does, as Switch points out, reduce us to the level of the offender. I could further debate that in a sense it makes us share part of the responsibility for the crime but it is not relevant to this thread.

 

Because the subject is so complex there is no one solution. To prevent injustice all prisoners have to be treated the same way and treated as human beings themselves. I don't imagine being in prison is the cosy life you portray, Abramul, but hopefully I won't have to find out the hard way.

[Stanhead]

Well I believe that with minor offences, simply being in prison is punishment enough, and prisoners (If you want to call them that. I do.) shouldn't be submitted to hunger and should atleast get basic cable. I don't believe in hard labour for these kind of people.

 

For the most serious offences, the prisoners should have to perform hard labour 18 hours a day for the rest of their sentence. Prison suicides may be up, but then again, they are doing society a favour by doing this. Prison guards should be given tasers and allowed to use them if a prisoner steps over the line (for the most serious offenders, the line should be moved 2cm away from them. And it is a VERY thin line :laugh2: ) at all.

 

In conclusion, the more serious the offence, the worse the offender gets treated.

[Switch]

If you wanted to kill off a sizable chunk of the prison population then your idea would work Stanhead. :P The taser thing would just lead to corrupted prison guards walking about hurting prisoners for kicks.

 

You were joking, right? ;)

 

In an ideal society every prisoner would be treated as an individual and all aspects of what the crime was and why they did it taken into account when deciding a punishment, rather than having just a handful of generic sentences that vary slightly depending on severity. As Malchik said, things aren't so black and white. Some of the sentences for rape are ridiculously small (at least they are in the UK) considering the severity of the crime.

[Stanhead]

Yes I was joking. BTW Switch, you MUST remember me? Remember? No? OK.

[CrazyGilbert]

:laugh2: :laugh2: :laugh2: tasers?!?!?

 

im sure that would be legal!

 

that made my day!

[Stanhead]

Like I said, I was joking.