Comment by Ekaros
3 days ago
Seems like proper punishment is only way to get deterrent effect. Or the courts to do their job. So to me this sounds like workable way, stack up the habitual offenders and send them to jail for a few months to few years setting them on straight path.
Do you have ANY evidence that sending someone to jail for a few months to a few years sets people on a straight path?
I am pretty sure the evidence shows the opposite.
Best available evidence is that:
- Punishment works to deter crime when it's immediate and high-likelihood. Particularly, if someone gets caught and faces some immediate consequence on one of the first few times they shoplift (especially the first time) then that makes a huge difference to the probability that they'll become a habitual shoplifter
- The vast majority of shoplifting is done by a small number of essentially lifelong career shoplifters. Imprisoning them is unlikely to set them straight, but taking them off the streets for long periods makes a significant impact on the amount of shoplifting the community experiences
So why we are even using it anymore? Why not then close down all the prisons? If there is no deterrent effect or rehabilitation effect. Wouldn't it be greater savings just to close it all down and let everyone out?
People don't need "rehabilitation", they need help. Nobody would need to shoplift if they could afford what they need. Prices should always be indexed to the customer's income. That's it - make it so everyone can afford things, and crime ends overnight. It works for healthcare. People with insurance pay for those without. Why not for groceries and TVs?
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No. When you look at it that way you need to consider the crime that's never committed due to the risk of being imprisoned poses. Given how shitty people in the US treat each other, just during minor disputes/traffic/misunderstandings/etc, I think it's safe to say we'd be a country overrun by murderous rapists in no time without a prison system. It would devolve into anarchy pretty quick. Think the wild west with cars and ARs and without the sheriffs. GTA becomes reality.
Yes.
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Because private for profit prison businesses can make money off them. Public is paying for private profits.
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The USA should do, perhaps, four fifths of that. Despite having 4% of the world's population it has 25% of the world's prisoners, and one of the highest crime rates in first-world countries so it'd obviously not working.
They could also consider banning substances that make people more aggressive... There's a particular artificial pesticide whose name I don't remember, which is coincidentally banned in all the places with much lower crime rates, and has been shown to alter behaviour in monkeys.
It's shocking at times to see such these ideas parroted in a community that prides itself on critical thinking. Punishment isn't rehabilitation!
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Rehabilitation and support is not what "people" want. Political parties that want more punishment seldom want to spend money even on punishments. So it becomes impossible to put people on a straight path. Having courts do their job is very expensive as well so instead people build their careers on getting fast convictions of people. The thing that helps is consistently building a society that cares, you have to know that the society will certainly react to your actions.
Having a hidden social credit system hidden and managed by a private actor seems like the worst way of doing it.
Pro money/business party wants/needs more people in prison so their private for profit prison businesses can make more money on legal slavery.
>stack up the habitual offenders and send them to jail for a few months to few years setting them on straight path.
I'm not sure if you have been to an American jail but they do not set folks on the straight path. They are basically Crime University, and the folks on the inside trade all kinds of information about how to crime more effectively, where to crime, what tactics police use and what neighborhoods are safest or most dangerous for police activity.
I was thrown in lockup for a weekend for not changing my tags after moving and letting it escalate out of control and what I saw in that inner city lockup truly shocked me. Folks had incredible amounts of illegal goods on them (despite having been searched and thrown in jail) and were openly performing transactions, sharing "industry secrets" and coordinating for future work once they were out.
If you have spent any time in an American jail or prison, I think you would be disabused of the notion that you can simply lock a criminal up for a few months and "fix" them. I would suggest that it's the opposite, a few months in jail turns a newbie criminal into a true amateur or journeyman with networking, education and future opportunities.
No, that's been disproved. Most people don't consider that they'll be caught and so the penalty isn't relevant to their thought process. What does deter is a high likelihood of being caught - so a small fine will be more effective if the detection/enforcement is sufficient. Also, it's often not feasible to tie up the courts and jails with minor offenders (e.g. speeding, using a bus lane etc).
cut off their hands as a punishment
I feel like if the rules are going to change like this, they should change fairly. A few months in jail for what would have been petty crime if not for the repetition seems excessive. If right now there's a lower cash value threshold for prosecution, the fair thing is that there should be a lower rate threshold. For example, someone shouldn't be jailed for stealing a thousand dollars worth of batteries over the course of ten years, I don't think.