Comment by Aeolun
3 years ago
I think for all the criminals that are going to be released back into society at some point, recidivism should be at the top of our mind, not punishment.
If you can stop them from doing it again by locking them up in comfort for 10 years instead of discomfort for 20, then that is what we should do (assuming that doesn’t cause more people to do it in the first place).
> If you can stop them from doing it again by locking them up in comfort for 10 years instead of discomfort for 20, then that is what we should do.
You're never going to stop many of them from reoffending. Even the "best" rehabilitation programs have crime rates far above the general population.
The additional 10 years is 10 more years where they can't hurt innocent people. The justice system exists for the benefit of society and innocent citizens, not criminals.
> assuming that doesn’t cause more people to do it in the first place
Why would you ever assume that? Punishments absolutely have a deterrent effect.
If locking large numbers of people up for inordinately long times prevented crime, the United States would be the safest place in the world. We have 5% of the world's population but 25% of the world's prison population. We are one of a dwindling number of countries that will lock up a child for life (there was a SCOTUS case baring automatic life sentences for minors, but it leaves a loophole wide enough for a semi to allow judges to still impose life without parole to children). We've doubled down on it again and again. Looking at the results, this approach obviously doesn't work.
Given our status as a massive outlier, could it be that our current system of mass incarceration is a driver of crime? I see signs that point to yes. Many people I have talked to have said the main thing being locked up taught them was how to be a better criminal. Prisons break families. Children grow up without parents. At one of the conferences for the heads of the Departments of Corrections for US states, a question was asked of all 50 heads: are prisons effective at making society safer? About 8 said yes. About 7 said they were unsure. The remaining 35 said no.
We've tried highly punitive mass incarceration for decades and it's failing horribly. I'm not smart enough to know the correct answer, but I can say that it seems obvious that the answer is not to lock more people up for longer.
> If locking large numbers of people up for inordinately long times prevented crime, the United States would be the safest place in the world.
Comparing between countries with massively different demographics is pointless. The US simply has far more criminality than other wealthy nations.
> We've tried highly punitive mass incarceration for decades and it's failing horribly.
That's not my take-away. We had a massive and growing crime problem in the US in the 60s and 70s and pursued a policy of mass incarceration as a solution.
It worked. Crime went down a lot since we started mass incarceration.
Over the last decade, and particularly since 2020, we've been reversing that policy and seeing the impact: spiking violent crime and unsafe cities.
I don't know how you can possibly look at this and think it "doesn't work." I'm sure criminals prefer a policy of catch and release, but I'd rather bring back mass incarceration.
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The US imposes life sentences on minors? Do I read that right or am I misreading this comment?
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> The additional 10 years is 10 more years where they can't hurt innocent people. The justice system exists for the benefit of society and innocent citizens, not criminals.
By this logic we should just never release them. Should we keep the 80% that would not reoffend locked up to prevent the 20% that would from doing so?
Should we increase the sentence from 10 to 20 years to make that ratio 60% to 40%? Then we prevent more crime, and the would be criminals are off the street longer.
Maybe if we decrease the comfort of the cells and general state of the prisons, we can get the rate to 20% to 80%? Then we can practically say we’re justified to keep those 80% off the street.
> Why would you ever assume that? Punishments absolutely have a deterrent effect.
Because most people aren’t stopped by the deterrent effect. It’s perfectly possible the net negative effect of locking people up for a longer time is larger than the extra deterrent effect [1].
[1]: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterr...
> By this logic we should just never release them.
The problem with that is it removes the deterrence effect—if you're going to get the same punishment for murder as for shoplifting, criminals will exercise no restraint.
> Should we keep the 80% that would not reoffend locked up to prevent the 20% that would from doing so?
Why are you just making up numbers? The majority of violent criminals reoffend after release, often very soon after. [0]
> Because most people aren’t stopped by the deterrent effect.
Sure, most people don't commit crime because they're not morally bankrupt criminals. The point of policies is not to prevent normal people from committing crime.
Deterrence absolutely has an impact on criminal behavior. Why do criminals brazenly rob and openly deal drugs in San Francisco, but not in Miami? They know they won't be published in SF.
[0] https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...
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> You're never going to stop many of them from reoffending.
would seem to contradict:
> Punishments absolutely have a deterrent effect.
?
Both can be true. Most violent criminals will commit another crime after release, but the severity and swiftness of that crime will depend on how likely they are to be punished for it.
Even if punishment had no deterrent effect on recidivism it could still be effective at deterring youths from going down a criminal path.
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Yeah the punishments for the war on drugs has worked SO WELL. /s