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It doesn’t prevent crime
Because rehabilitation is more effective
Punitive justice won’t change the way people think, the cycle will just repeat
Things like the death sentence don’t work, because people are still murdering, even though they know that they face execution for it
It’s a pointless punishment
It’s a pointless punishment
Idk, there are some pieces of shit that just need a bullet to the head. Serial killers/rapists don’t need rehabilitation. They need to be erased.
I want to preempt this by apologizing if you are a victim yourself, or at least say I don’t speak for all victims. That said, threatening violence - unless as immediate defense - is not moral within my view. I’ve been raped and had loved ones violently murdered. I would not wish pain on those responsible. I want them to understand and grow as people. Maybe it will never happen, and I can accept that. I can’t accept loosening my moral standards and sinking to their level.
Sequestering them from society is more preferable. Requiring therapy. Community service.
I’ve been in therapy off and on for years. One piece of advice a therapist gave me that I’ll never forget is to never stop being an idealist.
rehabilitation is better
however, we do have to do something with those billionaires and oligarchs
Let’s rehabilitate them with forced poverty.
Let’s get rid of poverty for everyone. No one deserves to live poor.
We should force the people who were super greedy and became dragons with hoards of cash to work for the public in a service job like janitor or old person care. Maybe that will make them think about other people.
Or perhaps we can rehabilitate them with a guillotine.
Relieve them of their heads
That’s what shallow graves are for
For me, personal justice almost has to be punitive. But I’m an asshole. And more importantly, I’m not society, just an insubstantial slice of it. Any study on how to deal with crime shows that punitive measures rarely, if ever, increase the wellness of society. Rehabilitation, understanding, hippie dippy shit, has a much greater positive impact on society, as hard as that may be to stomach. Facts are facts, regardless of feelings.
Well, it isn’t that punitive measures serve no purpose. They do. But that purpose doesn’t decrease the chances of a given crime occurring by other people, nor does it prevent the same people repeating a crime. To the contrary, the way most prisons work, chances are that anyone going on comes out with less options, and more knowledge of crime, so even if they don’t repeat the same offenses, they’re put in position to do others out of necessity.
But it does seem to make people feel better when someone else gets punished for doing something wrong. Which, in theory, is going to reduce vigilantism and mob justice. In practice? I dunno, I haven’t seen enough data to form an opinion about that specific matter.
Generally, the reason it shouldn’t be the main goal of a justice system is lack of efficacy. It just doesn’t do what people want it to do. So, what’s the point of that?
If your goal is to reduce crime, and reduce recidivism, rehabilitation has shown to do a better job. Prisons should be the last resort for non violent crimes, not the first. Even then if prisons hope to do more than isolate repeat offenders, they would need to have more intensive measures to help people change.
Before we can answer that question usefully, tell us what you think just is, and what purpose it serves.
To punish the wrongdoer in a fair and just way and protect the public.
That’s awfully circular.
Justice is doing what’s just? Um.
What defines justice, what goal does it achieve, and how does punishment fit into that?
The world has had punitive justice systems for hundreds of years. It doesn’t work. The countries trying restorative and rehabilitative justice systems are seeing amazing results.
Punishment is part of justice. Seeing that somebody who does wrong intentionally and with malice suffers, proportionally, is part of the lesson that the justice system teaches.
In my opinion, punishment is important for the victim (to see that they are protected, and to satiate any craving for extra judicial revenge), society at large (to demonstrate that there is a governing body that will not let people get away with causing harm), and for the criminal themselves (to show that harmful acts will result in reprisal).
It crucially can’t be the whole lesson, though. There has to be guidance, forgiveness (on a legal level), and a corrective path available to people who hurt others. Punishment on its own often just perpetuates systems that produce criminality, and isn’t enough to effectively reform people who have done wrong.
I don’t think criminal law can be useful without punishment.
In criminal law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. In criminal law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court
I did find https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_law#Objectives_of_criminal_law interesting.
