Comment by haswell

First, all claims about moral or ethical stances are subjective. So, too, the appropriate punishment. We have no accepted theory of consciousness and more scientists than ever have aligned with the idea that free will is something we experience, but not something that exists the way we think it does. But until we make some scientific breakthrough, all of these ideas are ultimately in the philosophical realm, which is why we need to reexamine them regularly.

Over the course of history, we’ve held deeply flawed beliefs as societies that all “got us $this far”. The reasons we’ve kept evolving/progressing is that we’ve changed our models of understanding when new data indicates it’s necessary. Humans stopped sacrificing children. We stopped believing in the geocentric theory. For the most part, we stopped accepting slavery. We don’t carry out a myriad of bizarre ritual based on the color of people’s hair, etc.

Many modern institutions are associated with religion because religion was pervasive during their inception. But there is no reason to cling to faith-based beliefs just to preserve the underlying principles and human wisdom that still have utility. And when the religious dogma we’re talking about is one that involves how and when we remove the most sacred of all human rights - how we imprison other humans, we better be adjusting our views to match our current understanding of the world.

And bringing up specific cities with lax policies is unrelated. A system can have teeth and enforce its laws while treating offenders as humans and avoiding punitive behaviors that are inappropriate. The issues are orthogonal.

> Incarceration works. Retribution within the confines of the law works…All I care about are outcomes.

This depends highly on your definition of “works”, and what outcomes you hope the system achieves.

The primary reason we lock people up is to protect society from people who act in ways that are considered unacceptable. This has downstream effects: deterrence and a sense of justice. But fundamentally, the point is to reduce the crimes committed to begin with, and to prevent known offenders from continuing to break the law.

There is plenty of evidence that the current system in the US creates criminal behavior on top of whatever issues it solves, and if we’re primarily focused on outcomes, not feeding the system seems just as important as trying to make sure the people who are there are less likely to end up back in.