There is absolutely nothing 'humane' about locking up someone for eternity.And no,they can't have a "good" life in prison even with a whole lot of facilities.Keeping someone locked up for eternity is much worse than stealing money and it's even far worse than raping someone.And it's nearly as bad as death penalty.Like I said, give them a choice-either you get gang raped for several days or you get life in prison.And possibly a 100% will eventually choose the former option. Just because you are not applying violence doesn't make you the nice guy.Rather, in many ways what you are doing to them is far worse than anything they might have ever done. The idea of locking up a thief for ever is just ridiculous.Most of times the money gets recovered when the thief gets caught.If it doesn't,a large part of it can get replaced,thanks to insurance.And there are also a lot of security systems and security groups that can help prevent stealing in the first place.And if there is no insurance either,how about giving the thief an unwanted job,so that they are forced to earn the money untill they pay back the amount that they stole?that's what I call tit for tat. Did you even watch the documentary I linked to?Did you understand what I was trying to say by bringing up 2 algorithms Tit for Tat and Friedman?Punishing and forgiving is a better strategy than having a permanent grudge on someone. Or,instead of locking someone up for eternity,why not increase the sentence every time he reoffends? I think we are looking for security in the wrong place.I am sure we can be both forgiving and yet design better security features for ourselves.It's not either we are secure or we give temporary sentences.We can be both forgiving and secure if we only want that solution. Now,there is a group of people that may be simply mentally damaged.For example let us say sadistic serial killers or serial torturers.Now these guys may indeed be beyond help with current technology.And I actually don't mind too much if these people actually get death sentences coz at least it saves money.Although perhaps it is better to keep them imprisoned in hope that a technology to cure them will arrive in future,but i am not sure. However,most people that go to prison are not like that.Even Hitler or Laden are most likely normal,although I can't be sure.They probably did what they did firstly because of what they believed and secondly because they were in power.Unfortunately they do not understand the value of human life and therefore wanted to kill a certain group.Now if we are willing to do the same to certain groups,how are we different?Life in prison is almost as bad as death sentence. Personally the only group that I feel very little sympathy for,are the really violent ones.Others,I think we can forgive. Statistics doesn't have a brain.I am not saying statistics can't be helpful,but they can be easily misleading.One particular study showing that 50% or 60% burglars reoffend doesn't give you the whole picture.There is a lot of information missing.HOw long were they kept?How were they treated?What was the probability of getting caught?And how about trying a different treatment to see if that cuts out the reoffending?The problem is ,if we lock them up for eternity ,we can never test new treatment. I think we are starting with a pessimistic approach that these criminals are beyond help.And there is something wrong with this very attitude.We are also very keen on glorifying how much of a victim we are,but we don't care at all when it comes to punishing harshly.It's selfish and cowardly.We have become too intolerant.
DNA Re the death sentence. In the USA, on average, it costs two and a half times the amount of money to execute a criminal compared to imprisoning him for life. The reason is that the man on death row will, in desperation, push through appeal after appeal to try to survive. Each court case will cost megabucks. The taxpayer is much, much better off with putting the guy behind bars for life. Of course, you can save money by refusing to hear appeals. Most people would not consider this humane. Let me add that my proposal is not about forgiveness versus not forgiving. it is simply about preventing harm to innocent people. Recidivist criminals are going to keep offending. That is what their record proves. So why release them? Releasing such people is, in fact, stupid. Keeping a criminal behind bars cost about $ 100,000 per year. Releasing them will, in many cases, cost society millions of dollars per year. And that is not counting the human cost of being a victim of crime. Again, releasing them is just plain stupid.
Perhaps design some sort of collar with a small bit of explosive that can only be detonated via a highly encrypted signal that requires no less than two activation keys that belong to two people. Then, send em to boot camp/basic training, and send them overseas, giving them an eight years tour of duty. If they serve their tour with distinction, and no "excessive" infractions, they come home, are given a full year of psychotherapy and rehab, given the opportunity to go to a school of their choice, and, once graduated with a skill they can use, are released. Total "rehab" time, twelve years. If they have multiple infractions on their service record, they go back for another round of training and a four year tour, then try again. The explosive neck collar thing is merely to ensure they don't try to just "run off" or some such... I couldn't think of a better way to ensure they dont' just escape... The whole idea here is that they 1) Get a chance to PROVE that they are willing to become disciplined and listen to orders and the like 2) Are given a chance to learn a skill/trade/whatever so they can become productive members of society 3) Have no avenue for escape 4) Can be quickly "dealt with" if they decide to become overly hostile/aggressive. I also would like to say - child rapists get no such chance... I am of the opinion that a child rapist deserves nothing less than death. To do such a thing to a CHILD ... I have no words to express how I feel about that. I have two good friends who were raped (both by stepfathers), one when she was 12, the other when she was 14... I would like nothing more than to see those bastards hang for what they did.
Again, we have to rely on statistical methods. If experience shows us that when we release ten convicted rapists, on the average four of them repeat their crimes, I don't see what choice we have but to not ever release another convicted rapist. I entered this discussion by listing my priorities, and I insist that protection of society against a reasonably likely threat is a more important goal than being kind to a convicted rapist. As I also pointed out in my first post, once you commit a felony you automatically give up certain rights. In some cases, one of those lost rights is the right to try to prove that you have reformed, especially when a significant number of people just like you don't. Of course I recognize the potential injustice in this, but the universe isn't perfect and this is just the best we can do. Sorry 'bout that. Of course. Please excuse my inaccurate choice of words. It's because you have oversimplified the argument. You have to do a real cost-benefit analysis. The cost of making the wrong decision about a petty thief is several orders of magnitude lower than doing so with a murderer. In the last actuarial analysis I saw, which was more than a decade ago, the average American valued his life at $7,000,000. That's a cold bureaucratic look at the dilemma but it's a good place to start if there's nowhere else. If the average petty thief's loot is $700, then a murder is exactly one million percent higher in weight. Have you ever talked with a rape victim? She might disagree with you. Many of them feel like they are locked up for life: in fear, shame and distrust. I don't know who you're quoting on that but it certainly isn't me. We can take a chance on a thief. It's a tougher decision to take a chance on a serial killer. I've lost your context but I really hope you are not including murderers in that scenario. In the case of murder, our first priority simply has to be reducing the probability of reoffending as close to zero as possible.
I have to admit I agree with Fraggle that, with thieves, you have to do a cost benefit analysis. However, I would like to point out that some thieves do enormous damage to society. I was talking to a policeman not long ago, whose beat was the city of Christchurch in New Zealand's South Island (population just under 400,000). He told me that the police were aware of two extended families (including uncles, cousins, second cousins, grandparents, children etc) who were responsible for 80% of all burglaries in that district. Now what a boon to Christchurch if all those family members could be rounded up and put into lifetime quarantine! That is 30,000 people each year who will not undergo the emotional trauma and financial loss of being burgled. The criminal families might complain, but the cost to them is massively outweighed by the benefit experienced by those 30,000 people every year. Of course, that is not practical, since we have to prove each is guilty and give each a fair trial. But I hope the benefits of locking up recidivist and long term burglars is seen in this example.
Fraggle The problem with people like you is that you don't understand anything other than business and money.You measure human life in money.(I certainly wont sell my life at 7million,not even at 7 googleplex).You measure human emotions with money.You value a 2 penny saving or profit more than being kind.I would rather be rich of heart than be rich economically. I want to do a statistical analysis too.Let's say the average thief is given a punishment of 5 years for the first crime and (5 times n)years,for the nth time he is caught.I want to know how much the average countrymen lose per year under such a law.A little less than 1$ perhaps?Ah,what a huge loss! You also totally avoided my suggestion to make them work untill they pay the stolen money back.I think that's a much better idea than life imprisonment. The problem that I have here is that there isn't a single reliable method to estimate the likely danger from a convicted rapist.Much of it is guess work based 1 or 2 rare available statistics.Not to mention statistics doesn't have a brain.It misses a lot of crucial info on factors that can be controlled. EVERY guy who is now free has a certain percent of chance,NON ZERO might I add, to commit these crimes->So why not lock everyone up for complete protection. That's horrible logic.You don't give away certain rights,your rights are taken away by society.That's precisely what I am debating here.A temporary taking away of rights is OK with me,a permanent taking away of rights is inhumane from my point of view. And it isn't the best we can do. Locking up a person for eternity isn't the only way to be secure.A better way to be secure is to build better defenses and better surveillance systems.Another is for government to provide insurance to all these people that pay tax.Another is -there is also the matter of personal responsibilities to be safe.Another is to make killing weapons only available to those who are safe to give and in real need of protection.Another is to do more research on non-lethal weapons for increasing personal security.Also,how about doing something for so called criminals.We do give chocolates to silence our kids.Why not make sure everyone gets proper food and basic living requirements so that they don't have to steal?Why not make sex-work legal so that they don't have to rape?Why not create violent video games for those who have real violent tendencies?I think a lot of criminals are either depressed or horribly bored .Why not treat them with proper medicines.You don't need to lock up someone to give medicines. And if someone is still too suspicios ,how about using detectives to track how they are behaving after the release for a few years. And they Lie,so I disagree with them. If they were given a choice of being raped again and being locked up for life,i bet nearly 100% will chose the former option.I certainly know which option I would chose. Do you not realise that there is a difference between a temporary "feeling" of locked up for life and being actually locked up for life?Something that is invisible,unprovavble and overhyped by media and pseudoscientists - I take such things with suspicion. Don't get me wrong,I know that (violent) rape is a horrible crime,but it's still overrated.Every crime that is sex related is over rated. ______________________________________________________ I think we have become little crybabies crying over every possible danger and glorifying how harmed we are.And we have become too hateful and cry for blood too easily.Basically we are so selfish that we can only see harm when it happens to us. We have to try to understand the criminals.Some of them ,may be even majority of them ,may be vastly misunderstood.Although some such as sadistic serial killers might indeed be defective beyond help.
DNA Please remember that we are talking of the worst prisoners only. We are not discussing the first offender, or the minor offender. This thread is about serious criminals who are seriously recidivist. They are people who will not miraculously become nice guys. They are people who have demonstrated clearly by their record that they will reoffend again, and again, and again. We are talking of the mugger who will, upon release, go out and beat up innocent people, many times. The rapist who, upon release, will rape women (plural) and wreck their lives, causing enormous emotional trauma. The burglar who will smash his way into hundreds of homes each year, causing enormous damage both emotionally and financially. The drug pusher who induces hundreds of innocents into getting addicted to methamphetamine, thereby forcing them into crime, usually violent, to pay for their habit. These are people who, by their own actions, have forced society into taking drastic action. My suggestion of humane quarantine is much better than release to keep destroying the lives of innocent people. You have suggested a range of alternative measures. Certainly. Trying as many different ways as possible to change the ways of criminals is a very good thing, and a very rational decision. Society needs to experiment with as many techniques as possible. However, not for the very worst of criminals. Use novel techniques for first offenders, or those involved in minimal crime, until those techniques are demonstrated to work. If we discover potent new ways of rehabilitating the worst of criminals, I will be among those who advocate those methods with enthusiasm. But not until they are demonstrated to work. You talk of making criminals work to repay their victims. Do you think this has not already been tried? Many times in many countries? Yes it has, and it fails every time. Why? Because the criminals will not do it. How do you force them? You cannot. They are, after all, criminals who do not do what society expects. It has been said that a major sign of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result each time. Most of the measures you seem to hang your hopes on have already been tried, many times, and failed. Why do you think, like those insane people, that re-doing them will suddenly come up with a different result?
Skeptical Most of the things that I have suggested have never been tried and some others that I have suggested have been tried for brief periods and the results were positive.However such measures could only last for a while because of protests from certain groups-either moral activists or the rich businessmen. For example it is quite clear from statistics that legalizing prostitution and porn reduces rape.But some people will come up with all kinds of unproven arguments against such a measure to ban it. In Japan,government takes some responsibity for the indvidual disaster recovery.Japan indeed has one of least rates of petty crimes like theft.In fact, this kind of government-insurance was one of the main reason for the rapid rise of Japan in the last century,even after the bombing. Well the thieves are already in prison so they have no choice but to listen and work.If they don't work,their own time in prison goes up.I don't see how this can fail.Basically it's like trading -either be a good guy or spend more time in jail. I know this talks about the worst criminals,but I am not sure what that means.I am sure recidivism is a secondary factor in deciding who is the worst.The first and primary factor in judging the worst should be the actual harm done.Death is the worst damage and then damaging amount of violence and torture. Serial murderers -yes they are the worst of worst and possibly mentally damaged. but burglars? -I simply can't see them as the worst.They are evil alright,but certainly forgivable.
DNA Your statement : legalizing prostitution and porn reduces rape does not represent any kind of solution. While I agree that reducing rape is a good thing, even where prostitution is legal, rape continues to be a very big problem. Any reduction is minor. And with the worst criminals, the reduction is pretty damn minimal. Work for thieves already in prison? Yes, I have even seen that in action, and visited (as a technical consultant) a prison to set up the equipment for such a work program. The feed-back I got from the prison guards is that this program works extremely well for some prisoners, but emphatically not for the worst, who simply refuse to work. On burglars. I think you totally underestimate the harm the worst and most recidivist burglars do. I am not talking of the occasional burglary, but the really bad cases who may well knock over several homes each night. These guys may not be violent, but they still cause enormous harm to a hell of a lot of people. One burglar may well raid hundreds of homes each year. My home got burgled some years back. We lost about $ 5,000 worth of stuff. A serious burglar who raids only 100 homes per year,will at that rate, cost the home owners $ 500,000 per year. Such a person should be in prison, where the taxpayer is paying only $ 100,000 per year to keep him there. It is worth remembering that the worst burglars cost society far more than $ 500,000 per year. And I have not even begun to discuss the emotional harm. It took my wife a hell of a long time to recover emotionally from the trauma of having our home raided. Even today, ten years later, she gets distraught if I am away and she has to sleep at home alone. The emotional suffering burglars cause innocent victims cannot be calculated.
Skeptical Legalizing prostitution and porn actually brings a significant decline in rapes,especially the stranger rapes and the more violent ones.Of course this doesn't solve the whole problem,but it gives us hope that if we are willingh,we can make things better without being too cruel.Of course not all the rapists might be willing to pay a prostitute.And it's also well known that there is a significant amount false accusation in some countries. The point is that if we really want and try,we can find better ways to be safe without being too cruel on some people. About the thieves in prison,did you check if there was a trading?That is ,the more you work,the quicker you get freed.It is also possiblle that a change in the type of work will encourage some.Anyway,it's important to keep trying different things. I know burglars cause a lot of damage,but I have problems with putting them in the "worst" category.The kind of burglars that you mention probably can't control their greed and they only know that one easy method to earn money.Otherwise why will a burglar who is a millionare after 2 years,will keep doing that?(Or may be they want to compete with other burglars about setting a world record?) Again the important thing here is probably to teach them some other way to make money.I don't know exactly what works and what doesn't but the legal system has to keep trying new things.May be for every criminal there is a unique solution.The legal system must not be static,must not be lazy and must not be rigid.It has to be creative in finding solutions,it has to be dynamic and flexible and active.
To DNA I am actually in favour of legalised prostitution, although it should be regulated so as to provide better care for sex workers. If it also reduces rape, then that is great. I am all in favour of anything that reduces crime. However, that does not alter the argument of what to do with our worst criminals. Those guys continue their crime sprees regardless of such measures. The criminals in prison where I went to set up equipment for them to work. They did not get offered reduced time, though with parole boards considering their cases, that is actually the case for the best workers. However, they did get paid, albeit at a much lower rate than workers outside prison. They could use their earnings to buy luxuries. Re burglars. I have not suggested they are in the 'worst' category. I do not think that matters. The 'worst' is murderers, but there is actually less reason to keep the average murderer in prison long term than the average burglar. The reason for this is that murder is a crime that, mostly, is carried out only once by any single criminal - though in rare cases we see serial killers. But most murderers are once only, meaning that keeping them in prison long term is a waste. Burglars, though, almost always return to their old habits, and especially the bad burglars. So there is more benefit to society from quarantine for burglars than for murderers. You see, DNA, I do not come up with ideas based on emotional views of right and wrong, or even of 'justice'. To me, the goal for how we treat criminals is simple : to stop future harm to innocent people from crimes. Pure practicality. Thus, whether a criminal is 'worst' or not is irrelevent. We need to operate in such a way to reduce future harm to society from crime regardless.
Forgive me for not going into more detail, but the discipline of cost-benefit analysis is not limited to economic transactions. However, it does take its vocabulary from business and economics, where the idea originated, so the confusion is understandable. Every decision we make is very likely to both incur a cost and accrue a benefit. If you stayed out late last night and decide to hit the Snooze button, the benefit is that you will get a little more sleep and be more cheerful and alert at the office. The cost is that your boss or co-workers might be angry at you for coming in late, you could miss a call from an important client, you may have to stay late and have trouble picking up your children on time, etc. It may be possible to actually assign monetary values to these things, but that's not the point. The point is that you have to decide if the benefit is worth the cost. Sometimes monetary evaluation helps make that decision. No one likes to evaluate human lives in dollars, but sometimes it's the only quantitative measure available. Much of the unpleasant decision-making over today's health, safety, fitness, sobriety, security and environmental issues comes down to the cost of each life saved, and what the individual, community or society could do with that money if the life were not saved. My own personal bitch is the current War on Islam (oops I meant to say War on Terror). We have spent a couple of trillion dollars on an attempt to prevent a recurrence of 9/11. Even ignoring the questions over whether this attempt will be successful in the long run, whether 9/11 was a one-time event, whether we should tally up the lives lost on both sides of the military conflict in the Middle East, whether the hundreds of millions of peaceful, moderate Muslims in places like Indonesia and Bangladesh now hate us and will start sending money to Al Qaeda, etc..., a cold-blooded economic analysis focuses our attention on the fact that 3,000 Americans died as the result of terrorism over the past ten years, so each life we're saving in the next ten years is costing us nearly one billion dollars. What else could we do with that money if we decide to let those 3,000 people die--roughly twice as many as will be killed in the same ten years by lighting and bee stings combined, risks that show up on the actuarial charts as footnotes in six-point type if at all? What might a couple of trillion dollars do for our educational system, our transportation infrastructure, health care, law enforcement, the environment? How many lives might be saved by improving the general condition of America so fewer people fall through the cracks--or literally fall through a collapsed bridge? Hell, what if we simply use it to reduce the federal deficit and make a brighter future for our descendants? The other side of my bitch is that during those same ten years when 3,000 people were killed by terrorists, one hundred fifty thousand Americans were killed by drunk drivers. Three of my own friends were killed in drunk-driving accidents; whereas even though I live only twenty miles from the Pentagon, I don't know anybody who knows anybody who knew anybody who was killed on 9/11. I have to go to four degrees of separation, to a co-worker whose neighbor's babysitter's teacher's cousin was a victim. And do you know how much it would cost to save those 15,000 lives every year? For about $100 a car, every manufacturer could install a breathalyzer ignition interlock in every new car. Our fleet turns over every ten years, so for twenty billion dollars--one percent of the cost of the War on Islam--we could reduce drunk-driving deaths to nearly zero. So do the ugly, business-oriented math. 15,000 lives for $20,000,000,000 is a little over one million dollars per life saved. 3,000 lives for $2,000,000,000,000 is somewhat less than one billion dollars per life saved. The difference is about two and a half orders of magnitude. Where should we be spending the money? You say you wouldn't give up your life for seven million dollars (I imagine today the figure is more like fifteen million but who's counting--not you), but have you tried to imagine a realistic scenario in which an American were given the choice? How about some hopeless middle-aged man in the inner city with a prison record (due to our racist enforcement of the drug laws) who will never be able to get a job and doesn't qualify for welfare. Fifteen million dollars will buy his family a nice home in the suburbs where his children won't be recruited by MS-13 or the Crips, where they will almost certainly graduate from high school and go on to the university education they can now afford. At 67 I have no choice but to take my end-of-life issues seriously. People are spending $50,000 on cancer treatments that extend their lives by three months and are not covered by insurance. For many Americans in these hard times $50,000 is nearly their entire estate, so when they die their widows and children will receive nothing--perhaps even a five-figure balance on next month's credit card statement. Might it not be just a teeny bit selfish of me to insist that my remaining elderly life is worth more than $50,000, so I'll spend my wife's inheritance on a medical treatment that has only a slim chance of working? Here are three scenarios, one at the national level, one at the impersonal individual level, and one at the personal level, in which it is quite rational to apply cost-benefit analysis to human life, regardless of how distasteful it may seem. You're being a little disingenuous here. (Not to mention a little inscrutable. Could you PLEASE practice using your SPACE key instead of running your sentences together so they slow down our reading??? Why be so rude to every one of your readers in order to save a few milliseconds? Practice your cost-benefit analysis skills on that!) Everyone else on this thread seems to be making it quite clear that we're only talking about serious crimes which--just like your own attitude toward life insurance--tax our cost-benefit analysis abilities. No one recommends locking up petty thieves forever, or even grand larcenists. We're talking about murderers, rapists, child molesters, and other people on whom we really don't want to take a chance on a repeat offense--people who have so distanced themselves from civilization that they have effectively opted out of the paradigm and volunteered to be treated as subhuman. And who gives a flying fuck? If you rape someone once, you are an unforgivable asshole. There is no way to atone for that act. You have become, by definition, uncivilized, and you are no longer automatically eligible for the benefits of civilization. You're going to argue semantics with the Linguistics Moderator? Civilization is not just the technologies of plant cultivation, animal domestication, city-building, metallurgy, industry and electronics that propelled us so far out of the Stone Age, and it is also not just the artifacts and institutions that we have built with those technologies. Civilization is a set of rules, many of which are unwritten or poorly written, that we all agree to, some consciously and others unconsciously, some enthusiastically and others grudgingly, that permit a species of tribal, pack-social, hunter-gatherers to override the instincts of our inner caveman and live in harmony and cooperation with complete strangers, some of whom are merely abstractions on the other side of the planet. Civilization is self-correcting and when our inner caveman occasionally breaks out and does something uncivilized, we give him a little lecture, some punishment and maybe some extra attention so he settles back into his recliner to enjoy the TV, the climate control and the food surplus that he never had in the Stone Age and forgets his natural distrust of strangers. But some people have an inner caveman who is too atavistic and does things that civilization cannot abide. The fundamental rule of civilization is: You can never kill another human being except in self-defense against someone else who lost their civilized veneer first. The reason for this is that if every one of us has to be constantly on guard against everyone else on the planet except our own family and friends, we will be devoting too much of our time and effort to self-defense and there won't be enough left to keep civilization running. We have lately added rape and child molestation to that rule, for the same reason. Guarding ourselves against rape, and guarding our children against perverts, is a qualitatively different level of effort than protecting yourself against fraud, burglary, and the lesser evils committed by the occasionally out-of-control cavemen among us. As a society we can't afford to burden our members with that responsibility. Therefore, when a person commits one murder, one rape, one child molestation, he has broken the fundamental rule of civilization. Hardly anyone does this with deliberation and cost-benefit analysis, but the fact that he can do it at all, even in a moment of weakness, is evidence that his inner caveman is not under enough control to be allowed to live among us. The American legal system, for all its faults, still on the balance errs on the side of the defendant, so once he has been convicted and sentenced, we can very comfortably forget about him and write him off as an uncivilized oaf. If you think executing him would be nobler than locking him in a cell for life, I'll entertain your argument and so would a lot of other people. But what we do not want to do is let him back out among us, so long as there is a non-zero probability of a repeat offense. Yes there surely are some convicts for whom the reality of imprisonment has shocked their inner caveman into a unshakeable lifelong commitment to behaving in an exemplary civilized manner. If we can identify them with unerring accuracy then sure, let's parole them after a few years. I'll even settle for something less than unerring accuracy. A hundred of us are going to be killed by bees this year and we don't worry about it, so if a mere hundred of us are killed by "reformed" murderers whom we misidentified, a rational cost-benefit analysis tells us to let it slide. But murder is one of the top ten causes of death in America, and among teenagers it's one of the top three or four. That makes it a major risk--far greater than terrorism, for example--and we have to be pretty cold-blooded in our management of that risk. To summarize, when a person violates the fundamental rule of civilization and kills another human being except in self-defense, he has defined himself as uncivilized, and he is therefore no longer eligible for the benefits of living in a civilization. At this point it is up to us to decide what we consider humane, in other words what is our obligation as civilized people to deal with someone who is not civilized. Sure, prevention is always better than prosecution. But a great many murders are committed with common household implements and bare hands. Please stop injecting non-capital crimes into this discussion. It's a red herring. The title of the thread is "The Worst Prisoners" and thieves and con men patently do not fall into that category. Many people in social work insist that rape is more often a crime of violence rather than one of sexual frustration. Rapists who are castrated still go out and violate women with broomsticks, or simply beat the crap out of them. Yeah yeah yeah. I'm as progressive as the next retired hippie and I certainly want to exhaust all other avenues before locking someone up and throwing away the key. I don't think you need to belabor this point. In most jurisdictions every out-of-control caveman will be analyzed by an expert or two to decide whether a little remedial parenting or some good medicine will restore his veneer of civilization. Unless of course he's a member of an unpopular demographic group, and that's a different problem that is beyond the scope of this thread. Again, I suggest that you actually talk to a couple of rape victims before so glibly putting words into their mouths. If you can find one who will admit it, much less discuss her feelings. This is a place of science and scholarship so in accordance with the scientific method I hereby invoke the principle of peer review and ask you to provide the evidence that supports that assertion. If you'd like to edit it and add the words "I think" that would be okay. But stating it as if there's some authority behind it requires you to cite that authority as soon as someone challenges it, which I just did. I am certainly not aware of any respected faction of professionals who think that our current attitude toward rape (and presumably child molestation?) is excessive. Quite the contrary, they seem to be pushing us toward the point where rape is considered to be on a par with murder and child molestation is perhaps even worse. Prostitution is legal in Nevada, except for the major population centers. Brothels pay prostitutes wages, they work regular hours, have vacation, sick leave and other standard benefits, and are given monthly medical exams. They perform a rudimentary medical inspection on each prospective client, using their own instincts and training, and are given considerable latitude in turning them down with a full refund. The last I heard, which was admittedly several years ago, there had never been a case of HIV infection among Nevada's licensed prostitutes. I believe the situation is essentially the same in Amsterdam and other places where prostitution is legal and licensed. I have encountered this argument before. Many murders are crimes of passion: finding one's spouse in bed with a stranger, being betrayed by a so-called friend, seeing one's child beaten up by cholos. These are, arguably, ordinary civilized people who were pushed over the limit by tragedy. I already stated that we are only allowed to kill people in self-defense, but I can understand one of us extending that instinct to unforgivable, harmful behavior that falls short of life-threatening. It's been postulated that once a decent, ordinary citizen like you and me has actually taken the life of another human being and must spend the rest of our lives living with that horror, we will never be able to do it again, and are therefore actually a lower risk to civilization than the average person who has never committed murder.
Fraggle Re murder. I did not suggest we condone or forgive murder. A person who kills another must be punished. However, if the risk of reoffending is very small, that punishment does not have to be excessive. However, a long term recidivist burglar, whose individual crimes do less harm than a one-off murderer, still has a reoffending risk of nearly 100%. Hence, after serving their time, releasing a one-off murderer makes sense, while releasing a recidivist, nasty burglar does not.
Fraggle You simply can't value everything in monetary terms.The world is far more complicated than that.It's simply impossible to factor in everything.Sure there are benefits and harms, but any proper way to calculate them as a single quantity simply does not exist.Sure ,we can do more specific calculations,meaningful calculations -but those who try to compute the complex joys and sorrows of life are fooling themselves. So,I will not go any further in this direction. That's a very personal opinion.And very narrow as well.I do not agree with that.There are many times you do irreversible damge,but not everyone of them are of equal seriousness.There must be a limit to every punishment,especially if you have done it only "once".And everyone deserves a second chance,once you have paid a heavy enough price for what you did. He hasn't defined himself as anything.He has merely broken a rule made by certain group of people in that civilization that not every civilized person might agree with.And the rule for deciding what to do with a person who has broken a certain rule is also not witten in stone,but is decided temporarily by some people in power. The line between the caveman you talk about and a civilized person is very thin.We are all constantly crossing that line.Some people just find it easier to go to the caveman side and some people just have too much power to do damage once they go there.The fact that you don't give a "flying fuck" if that person is killed or permanently dismantled means that you acquired that hatred from the caveman side. The only difference between you and the rapist is that your hatred is something the majority can understand,but nobody quite understands why the rapist hates young women so much(other than the rapist and a select few,that is).The attitude is that "who cares,they are immoral anyway".And it is exactly here that I want to object- we have to try to understand why they do such things.We have to try to understand how he has experienced things in his life and to try to heal the damage. I mean we don't give rapists short sentences,do we?A singe false accusation of rape can ruin an innocent person's entire life,without any solid proof. I don't believe in words,I believe in action.We can actually test this theory very easily.Give someone who has got lifetime sentence from the court an alternative-get raped today and get entirely free OR remain locked for ever.Let's see how many choses the former option.My personal estimate is that close to 100% will chose that,provided - the freedom is total and the person's anonymity is kept.I certainly know which option I will chose in that situation.It is a no brainer. There is no science here .There is only pseudoscience ,cargo-cult science run to support various self-interest agendas.That's what most of social and behavioral sciences are.That's what a large part of psychiatry is.Respected professionals have opposed many of the ideas and most of them get sacked and disrespected for proposing any politically incorrect idea,so most of them are very careful.I am not going to bother looking for sources to satisfy you coz right now,I am both tired and I don't have that much time.But if I do manage the time,I will someday make a thread about this,possibly with some sources. Skeptical mentioned the seriousness of emotional impact his wife has had after the burglary.I know people who commit suicide for failing an important exam.However,I do not believe the event of theft or failing the exam alone is the cause for such trauma.Not all people react in a similar fashion to these events because some people are just raised too fragile.There is no fire without a combustible substance.And the psycological effects of sexual crimes are much stronger when there is a substantial negative programming about human sexuality.There are actually studies that show this.So by this whole "sex is bad" thing with the media,we are only making the problem worse. And paedophilia?It must be the most over rated crime in history. I mean with rape you actually know that there was violence ,provided the accusation is correct.If there was an actual rape and the woman isn't doing drama to "teach someone a lesson",then I can understand that something horrible was actually done.But with child molestation - the rules are so bizzare that it's confusing to say the least.Teenagers exchanging nude photos of each other,little kids playing doctor-doctor,a grandparent fondling a child and perhaps touching the genitals unintentionally in the process,even photographing a nude(and sometimes even clothed) minor with permission from entire family are all supposed to be "molestation".Probably the funniest of these laws is that downloading a CARTOON of a seeemingly underage nude can send you to prison for decades.I could care less if this "molestation" remained confined to actual act of sex with a sexually immature child,but the current laws are just ridiculous and incomprehensible.If you don't think these laws are exessive,either you have got no sense, or you are mistaking the prison for an amusement park. _________________________________ Coming back to safety and criminal release. And again finally ,I actually do want a statistical analysis of how to best punish these criminals.I also do want better methods to make estimetes about the likelyhood of reoffending.But the sentence for every criminal has to be finite,even if very very very long. The first thing we have to understand is that there are a large number of accidental deaths and tragedies and losses which we have no control over,despite being completely unexpected.Now we have to calculate the no.of years for each prisoner in such a way that the total expected damage due to criminals on release does not exceed more than 5% of these unexpected losses after we do our best to prevent reoffending.But the number of years should be finite and the calculation should take into account the magnitude of his crime and his likelyhood to reoffend(which is always less than 100%).I think that is a very reasonable price we can pay to build a more humane society.This 5% is only a fraction of the total amont of unexpected loss that happens every year. One particular thing that has to be kept in mind is that people who have crossed 65 are very very unlikely to reoffend,whatever the nature of their crimes.And after 75,I just don't see the point of keeping someone in prison. I really don't want to defend a criminal.It's a pain.But wherever I see,there is a complete lack of concern,among the majority,about how cruel we are to the criminals.It's like if you have once made a mistake,you are not human anymore.It's like no one understands the value of forgiving. I just want to remind you that something like 20-25 years in prison is a long long time.People do change in that time - a lot. When children in a family make mistakes,we don't lock them up for ever.We tell them why it's wrong,sometimes punish them,but then we expect them to eventually learn and grow.When adults in the society make more horrible mistakes,we give more horrible punishments.But eventually,there must be some forgiving and some scope given to change and learn and become a more responsible citizen. At any rate I am getting bored.I don't think I will be able to keep replying forever.Probably one of my last posts here.
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/ronhuff.htm 10,000 People wrongfully convicted every year according to a study. (Only serious crimes)
To DNA No-one is going to argue about doing research on the best way to deal with criminals. Nor is anyone going to argue against improved methods of dealing with criminals if and when we find such methods. Personally, I think the best method of dealing with a serious criminal is to send him/her to the appropriate hospital for therapy that will for ever stop that character reoffending. After which, we release him. The sad thing is that we cannot do it. Our knowledge of human behavioural science is insufficient to design any such treatment. Until we learn to do something like that we are faced with the need to deal with criminals who keep reoffending and cause enormous harm to society and to the decent and innocent people who become their victims. If we are faced with a choice of harming a recidivist criminal or harming innocent and decent members of society, I will choose to harm the nasty bastard who has been repeatedly convicted. On pedophilia. I cannot comment on what happens in your country, but people committing those very minor crimes you described will not be harshly punished in mine. However, an adult who rapes a prepubescent child will get a long term prison sentence. Pedophilia is, in fact, one of those crimes that has a high reoffending rate. Serious pedophiles should not be released. I will, however, admit that you have a point in relation to those released after age 65. I have no problem with making that the end point for quarantine sentences, unless they reoffend after release, which does occasionally happen even with those oldsters. To understand what I am getting at, you have to move your goal from protecting criminals to protecting society.
The thread of this title is "How should we treat the worst prisoners", not "How should we treat the worst criminals". "The worst prisoners" are criminals who, while serving a sentence, fight the system at every turn and bite the hand that feeds it whenever they can. They're the ones who are always found with weapons or are in a gang or constantly fighting other prisoners... they're people who are in for 15 years and their actions while in prison changed that to a life sentence. I am not addressing rapists and murderers per se- for example a gang youth can be in for gun possession and while in prison kill another prisoner to get cred... this kind of beast. Rapists, child molesters and murderers should get a prison sentence based on the severity of their crime and even in that case there should be some glimmer of hope for most of these people to one day walk out of prison. "25 to life" should mean exactly that. It should be the job of prisons to attempt to reform prisoners. And prisoners should have some basic human rights- even the worst of them. I think we should be addressing how we treat the worst prisoners- 23 hour lockdown for life with one hour out a day to exercise in a slightly larger room and that's it. How many prisoners deserve this degree of mental imprisonment? Very few I sincerely hope. I'd say out of the million prisoners in jail, this should apply to 1% or less. How long could you last in solitary max before you cracked? I wouldn't last long for sure. I have never been incarcerated but have heard stories from people over the years and overall it's the mental aspect of prison- not physically being there- that is the punishment. It's the fact that that cell door slams shut on you every night that breaks a man. Now imagine that cell door being closed 23 hours a day! Can't we do better than that???
Skeptical I kind of agree with your best method of dealing with criminals.But untill we learn perfectly about how to heal them,I think there must be a point at which we are willing to give them the benefit of doubt,after they have served a long enough time. I am glad that you agree on some upper limit of imprisonment period.Personally, my intial model of 25 years in prison plus 10 years of tracking for the very worst automatically makes most of these criminals 60+ when they are totally free again. I think you are mistaken,I do care about the protection of society.But if the society and criminal are mutually exclusive, then I am only suggesting that we make the priority of society over criminals 99 to 1 ,rather than 100 to 0.I am only saying that the concern for criminals should not be 0. I think I can see what you mean now.I think you are talking about those who make the most trouble in the prison and have the least amount of self control. I think it is important to try out a lot of things rather than being static with one particular approach.For example we can give Kittamaru's method a try. One of the things that we musn't do is generalize.I always say that.I think it's possible that there is a unique solution for every criminal.If method A works for group X,apply method A to group X.Try something different for other groups. That's an interesting solution.Worth a try.Many of them are criminals because they lack self control.It is well known that the military discipline can bring many totally loose character in line.
