Putting criminals back in society vs holding them in prison for punishment.

[mutantllama]

I think this is a pretty well talked about topic on this forum, especially when someone brings Varg up.


Anyways I'm for putting the criminals back into society rather then having them be locked up just as a punishment.

 

[A1a23]

The number of incarcerations(in the U.S) has been increasing substantially in the recent years and it hasn't benefited society for shit and not to mention its expensive as fuck. It really kinda depends on the crime really but i believe that many of these people should receive alternate treatments/punishments.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Prison =/= punishment, prison should = rehabilitation. Usually.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

Do the crime, do the time.
You kill someone or rape someone. You should be put down.
No rapists should ever get a second chance. But they do, all the fucking time.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Rape and violent sexual assault in general are just fucked up things that definitely deserve mental institutional rehabilitation to the fullest power of the government, or really long jailtime with no chance for parole. That's one thing other than like 1st degree murder that I can't stand seeing on the news.

 

[yngwie1029]

if they r in there for something stupid they should let them out

 

[MasterOLightning]

Prison generally serves the purpose of incapacitating criminals above all else.

 

[Dak]

I don't believe in the prison system/concept of justice at all. Rape and Murder get the death penalty, everything else requiring some sort of restitution in monetary form or equal injury. Putting a criminal in prison does absolutely nothing to recover anything for the victim.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

What do you mean you don't "believe in" the prison system? It exists, doesn't it? What do you want them to do, create life-reviving machines for people who get murdered when the people who are doing the murdering don't get the death penalty? I really don't see your point.

 

[Hubster]

Do the crime, do the time.
You kill someone or rape someone. You should be put down.
No rapists should ever get a second chance. But they do, all the fucking time.

This is the best post you've ever written Krig. Fucking good call man.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

It's so true though. Im tired of hearing about monsters getting out and doing more shit to innocent people.

Kill them on the spot. save the 25 cent bullet and use a god damn rope.
It's time to put fear back into the criminal mind

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I have both resounding respect and sad disappointment with that viewpoint, so I don't really know how I feel on it.

 

[Dak]

What do you mean you don't "believe in" the prison system? It exists, doesn't it? What do you want them to do, create life-reviving machines for people who get murdered?

Believe in it as in I don't believe it should exist. It is in all honesty the dumbest possible sytem outside of just letting criminals go scott free.

I know I have said this all before. Death penalty for rape and murder, repayment + at least double for theft, etc. For assault either a monetary payment or equal injury done to the criminal.

The prison system is a huuuuge drain on public resources, it does nothing to put things right for the victim, and it has never been proven an effective rehabilitation format. Putting a bad apple in a barrel of bad apples is the dumbest possible way to go about "rehabilitating" someone. In short, the system is completely worthless, other than keeping violent criminals from running free, and the death penalty would offer a better, permenant solution to that problem.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I don't see why doing something so archaic and petty as punching a criminal in the face who had at one time punched a child in the face does anything to further a justice system into workability or fairness.

Re: the death penalty...so, am I...reading right? You just want to kill all criminals who would, currently, be put in correctional facilities/prisons? And isn't "keeping violent criminals from running free" a fairly effective use of the current system? How, then, is it "completely worthless"?

 

[Dak]

I don't see why doing something so archaic and petty as punching a criminal in the face who had at one time punched a child in the face does anything to further a justice system into workability or fairness.

Re: the death penalty...so, am I...reading right? You just want to kill all criminals who would, currently, be put in correctional facilities/prisons? And isn't "keeping violent criminals from running free" a fairly effective use of the current system? How, then, is it "completely worthless"?

Why should we have to pay to keep them around? What purpose does that serve? What is the good that is accomplished?

I also like how you pick an absurd situation to try and discredit my submission. But to answer it, I don't see how locking the guy up is anymore fair or "just" than the guy getting punched in the face or paying some sort of monetary restitution.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

We pay to keep criminals out of the public's hair because, well, why shouldn't we? We don't want them here in the "midst" of society, and it's not cool to just kill everyone who commits a crime, dude.

It might be "more fair" to punch a dude in the face who punched a kid in the face, but it's petty as fuck and doesn't fix anything.

Also, all of your opinions seem to be based on absurd shit, so excuse me

 

[skeptik]

Two wrongs make no wrongs because they cancel each other out. Anybody who understands logic and very basic mathematics should be able to realize this through the simple equation of 1 + 1 = 0.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

No dude, wrongs are negative, so the equation should read "-1 + -1 = 0", obviously. I mean, it's only logical.

 

[Cythraul]

Hmmm, this is a pretty interesting and difficult issue. I don't have very well-developed views on this, but neither of these choices - retributive or rehabilitative - seems overwhelmingly desirable to me from a purely abstract, philosophical perspective. I tend to view a restitutive/restorative system of criminal justice as at least prima facie more desirable than the pure forms of either of the alternatives. I think, and I hope other people think similarly, that the primary focus of criminal justice should be directed towards the victims of crime, and I don't think what we currently have really lives up to that ideal. Thus, I think the focus of criminal justice ought to be restitution. I don't see how a purely retributive system of criminal justice would even be close to ideally just. What exactly do the victims of crime get out of this system other than whatever small amount pleasure they might get from seeing a criminal thrown in jail for some amount of time? It does not even come close to restoring the victim to his or her status quo ante condition.

A restitutive view at least addresses that issue even if there are some fundamental difficulties for the view, not to mention the difficulty of what is supposed to count as restitution in the case of murder. And anyway, it looks as though we could, at least prima facie kill two birds with one stone under such a system if we could calculate what would count as appropriate restitution for various cases in such a way that the expected chance of being caught for a crime plus the expected cost conditional upon being caught at the very least nullifies the expected chance of getting away with it plus the expect payoff.

As far as the comparative desirability of imprisonment versus rehabilitation in "consequentialistic" terms goes, I don't have much to say other than that I suspect that the perception that this is a genuine dichotomy is due to lack of imagination.

edit: I should also add that I have some sympathy for Dakryn's view, although I find his seemingly gung-ho attitude towards the death penalty somewhat worrying. He's right, however, that the prison system in this country is a huge drain on resources. Much of the growth in the prison population in this country can be attributed to drug-related convictions. Stop the drug war and get rid of these puritanical drug laws and you kill two birds with one stone.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

What would an idealized restorative system be, to you? I'm not quite sure what the term implies but it interests me, mainly because your post was actually pretty close to what I can agree with to an extent.