Should criminals really be punished?

[United States Reborn]

Yes, criminals should really be punished.

Next.

[Rary]

Yes.

[LFPD Soveriegn]

Yes.

Can you explain what the benefit of inflicting punishing on criminals for punishment's sake is?

It gives them a reminder of what doing that thing has as a consequence, simple logic really.

[Holy Catheria]

Yes

[Rary]

Yes.

Can you explain what the benefit of inflicting punishing on criminals for punishment's sake is?

To keep murderers, paedophiles, rapists etc. off of the streets and in a small box where they belong.

[The Proud Transphobe]

Yes.

Can you explain what the benefit of inflicting punishing on criminals for punishment's sake is?

One of the reasons society institutes punishments for those who violate others' rights is to deter them from doing so in the first place. And by making good on the threats of punishment, society instills the fear of the law in the minds of those who would victimize others.

Of course, there is also the fact that if someone exhibits a pattern of disregarding others' rights, even with the threat of punishment, they should be removed from society either temporarily or permanently, so they don't continue to cause harm. But that's going a bit beyond "punishment for punishment's sake".

[LFPD Soveriegn]

It gives them a reminder of what doing that thing has as a consequence, simple logic really.

Is that why people who are imprisoned have higher reoffending rates than people given non-custodial sentences for the same crimes?
Also, you do realise that the average violent offender in these prisons is like a standard deviation less intelligent than the average person, and is thus far less capable comprehending how what is being done to them is a consequence for their behaviour, right? And also most of the people in prisons for violent offences are repeat offenders, meaning not only am I arguing they'll have trouble getting the picture compared to the average Joe, but they actually clearly haven't gotten the picture on average statistically speaking.
Also, how does being held captive in a cell, having to deal with the constant danger and humiliation of a prison and being put through a circus of bureaucratic and legal preceding as someone who probably has the mental age of a 12 year old make you think about how super super sowwy you are for what you did?

All of these things notwithstanding, it still makes more sense to simply remove these people from a public resources standpoint.

You sound angry.

Anyways I disagree that the current prison system works. It doesn't. Finlands prison system is way better, for example.

But I inherently and unconditionally disagree that prisons should be banned, not matter how much propaganda you spew it wont change my opinion.

[Rary]

To keep murderers, paedophiles, rapists etc. off of the streets and in a small box where they belong.

So you want to pay tens of thousands a year per person to house murderers, rapists and pedos and then have them come out of that housing even more dysfunctional and useless than before, because you feel spite towards them?

Well what is the alternative? This is how you get people to be terrified of going outside.

[Bombadil]

So you want to pay tens of thousands a year per person to house murderers, rapists and pedos and then have them come out of that housing even more dysfunctional and useless than before, because you feel spite towards them?

Well what is the alternative? This is how you get people to be terrified of going outside.

Greater investment into healthcare, education and services for one - few people grow up wishing to be a robber, murderer or rapist, and those are the sharp end of why the majority of people are in prison.

Do you focus on the surgery or the preventative measures that means the need for any surgery is reduced?

At best prison is a university of crime, at worst its an underfunded, profit-motivated business of atrocity.

[Rary]

Well what is the alternative? This is how you get people to be terrified of going outside.

Greater investment into healthcare, education and services for one - few people grow up wishing to be a robber, murderer or rapist, and those are the sharp end of why the majority of people are in prison.

Do you focus on the surgery or the preventative measures that means the need for any surgery is reduced?

At best prison is a university of crime, at worst its an underfunded, profit-motivated business of atrocity.

This doesn’t stop everyone who wants to commit a crime. People will still commit crimes. Do you think that just because the vast majority of people aren’t in prison, criminals shouldn’t be in prison?

[Bombadil]

..everyone who wants to commit a crime..

Yeah all those evil Penguins, Jokers and Riddlers who want to commit crime.

[Arval Va]

The primary goal of prison should be to rehabilitate prisoners. Most criminals ultimately have a reason for committing the crime - debts, mental health issues, addictions - they should get treatment and help to reintegrate into society. Finland has education and job programs for prisoners, and their system is clearly working better than traditional prisons, with a significantly lowered reoffending rate and better quality of life.

[Paipo-Paipo]

Not to be Orwellian here but yes.

People that commit crime are deviant and once we establish a pattern of deviant behavior it's difficult to get people to stop doing whatever it is that they want to do. Otherwise there would be no order and a nation could not run. it is impossible to have a functioning society if there are no repercussions for bad actions, those would be the only people left and those people would punish anyone that they feel wronged them and would not stop until that person is dead.

[Delitai]

Yes because they chose to do it. Although if it's a mental problem than they should've been locked somewhere

[The Rio Grande River Basin]

Yes; but no. I support a Swedish style justice system; instead of punishing and leaving them to reoffend, teach them the skills they need, let them work, allow them to live lives.

[Orcuo]

Yes, period.

[Page]

I only believe in punishment insofar as it yields desirable changes in behavior, but I am altogether against retribution. Ergo, while I have to acknowledge that there are some Jeffrey Dahmer and Anders Breivik types who must be locked up in some way, I am against any intentional inflicting of suffering. Any suffering experienced by such people should only be incidental to what is necessary for keeping the rest of us safe. But no matter how fucked up a person is, I would never support intentionally making them miserable. Lock up the serial killer but let them read all the books they want, watch all the TV they want, wear what clothes they want, eat decent food, etc.

And as I've said many, many times here on NSG, I don't believe in crime. I think crime is a bullshit concept meant to control us. If you can be convinced it's wrong to consume a plant because the government says it's illegal, then you can be convinced it's right to rape and murder if the government says that's legal.

[Page]

Can you explain what the benefit of inflicting punishing on criminals for punishment's sake is?

It gives them a reminder of what doing that thing has as a consequence, simple logic really.

It's funny, you could say the same thing about protesters burning down a police station - it's just a reminder to our government that there are consequences to their actions.

[Rary]

Well what is the alternative? This is how you get people to be terrified of going outside.

Non custodial sentences with actual vocational programs and community involvement that require you being cooperative and not a complete monkey to not breach would make sense for a lot of people convicted for this stuff unironically (put them in a managed environment with no reason to offend where they still get to feel some autonomy, privacy and creature comforts like a halfway house, and see how they are predisposed to respond).
If someone is going to habitually reoffend against persons and breaches their shit like a monkey it makes more sense to just take them out back like old yeller since investing the amount of public resources in them endless court cases and prison takes is clearly not worth it.
I'm proposing that whoever is the governing body simply look at people convicted of crimes as human material, and see whether they are capable of behaving in a more desirable manner than they previously did. If they're not, it absolutely makes sense to permanently remove them from the community. If they are, it makes no sense to send them to prison when more effective options are available.
Also, one of the reasons you're probably terrified of going outside is probably the massive overreach of law enforcement. Not because the police are evil racist George Floyd killers or anything (controlling for the amount of crime blacks commit, police are more likely to target whites, probably because they know there will be no repercussions for doing so and they want to power-trip) but because we live in a state of anarcho-tyranny (look that term up) in which the state allows a controlled disaster of rabble to run around and terrorise the people while ordinary law-abiding people have to fear the law and state more than criminals do. The chaos caused by this fucks with regular people and strengthens the power of the state. It's pretty much illegal to defend yourself from these violent thieving urban gentlemen while they can rob and stab in broad daylight, and when some journalist questions the local police they'll just claim they're "still investigating" and shrug it off. Good example here, what did this couple do wrong, what were they supposed to do? And what happened to the rioters outside their house ready to rob them? Also, places like the UK and Australia have stolen cars lying in front of suburban driveways with stickers from police saying they know the car is stolen and to stop calling (too lazy to go out and return it to its owner), while people are arrested for facebook posts and given stalking charges for doing journalism work on local politicians.

I feel like a lot of this ridiculousness is the fault of state overreach and mismanagement. If the state were not intervening, disarming etc, communities would most likely just band together and lynch criminals. In South Africa, when there's riots, because the local police are useless rich neighbourhoods get private contractors (in Durban it's usually Indians, they ride around in four wheel drives with guns it's actually pretty cool, look it up) to protect them, and they will shoot. This is the kind of stuff that happens when you get a dysfunctional brazilified society with a bloated government run by oligarchs shielding itself with handouts to special interest groups, it somehow becomes worse for crime rather than better the more resources you funnel into the state

Just so you know, I support giving law enforcement the powers they need to defeat criminals. Anyway, these “communities” cannot be trusted to deal with criminals. This is an idiotic idea.

[Rary]

..everyone who wants to commit a crime..

Yeah all those evil Penguins, Jokers and Riddlers who want to commit crime.

Did you even read my message?

[Rary]

Just so you know, I support giving law enforcement the powers they need to defeat criminals. Anyway, these “communities” cannot be trusted to deal with criminals. This is an idiotic idea.

Why not? How do you think people like thieves or rapists were apprehended and brought to someone like the local shire reeve or something for most of history?

By the police investigating allegations against them?

The police don't exist to "defeat criminals" lmao have you interacted with them for more than 2 seconds

Then what the fuck is their purpose? Police exist to do one thing. That one thing is to stop people from breaking the law and punish them.

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

Punishing criminals only makes sense if you believe in free will, which I am not too sure I do.

If you do there are a number of approaches:

Retributive Justice:- which is to punish offenders in proportion to the offence committed. Backward looking and only concerned with punishment.

Utilitarian Justice:- which is tailored to producing the best outcome for society n the future. Forward looking, aims to deter the offender and others in the future (so could include making an example of a famous person and giving them a harsher sentence), or incapacitate the offender to prevent further offences by locking up, tagging, etc., and through rehabilitation.

Restorative Justice:- where the offender is seen to have committed a crime against an individual rather than the state, and is aimed at making the offender repair the harm done to the victim, and through that improve themselves.

(All this is stolen from Who's in charge: Free will and the science of the brain by Michael S. Gazzaniga)

I can see some benefits of restorative justice, but I largely lean towards utilitarian justice. Retributive justice is just dumb in my view.

[Floofybit]

Without punishment, one will never truly change

[Page]

Non custodial sentences with actual vocational programs and community involvement that require you being cooperative and not a complete monkey to not breach would make sense for a lot of people convicted for this stuff unironically (put them in a managed environment with no reason to offend where they still get to feel some autonomy, privacy and creature comforts like a halfway house, and see how they are predisposed to respond).
If someone is going to habitually reoffend against persons and breaches their shit like a monkey it makes more sense to just take them out back like old yeller since investing the amount of public resources in them endless court cases and prison takes is clearly not worth it.
I'm proposing that whoever is the governing body simply look at people convicted of crimes as human material, and see whether they are capable of behaving in a more desirable manner than they previously did. If they're not, it absolutely makes sense to permanently remove them from the community. If they are, it makes no sense to send them to prison when more effective options are available.
Also, one of the reasons you're probably terrified of going outside is probably the massive overreach of law enforcement. Not because the police are evil racist George Floyd killers or anything (controlling for the amount of crime blacks commit, police are more likely to target whites, probably because they know there will be no repercussions for doing so and they want to power-trip) but because we live in a state of anarcho-tyranny (look that term up) in which the state allows a controlled disaster of rabble to run around and terrorise the people while ordinary law-abiding people have to fear the law and state more than criminals do. The chaos caused by this fucks with regular people and strengthens the power of the state. It's pretty much illegal to defend yourself from these violent thieving urban gentlemen while they can rob and stab in broad daylight, and when some journalist questions the local police they'll just claim they're "still investigating" and shrug it off. Good example here, what did this couple do wrong, what were they supposed to do? And what happened to the rioters outside their house ready to rob them? Also, places like the UK and Australia have stolen cars lying in front of suburban driveways with stickers from police saying they know the car is stolen and to stop calling (too lazy to go out and return it to its owner), while people are arrested for facebook posts and given stalking charges for doing journalism work on local politicians.

I feel like a lot of this ridiculousness is the fault of state overreach and mismanagement. If the state were not intervening, disarming etc, communities would most likely just band together and lynch criminals. In South Africa, when there's riots, because the local police are useless rich neighbourhoods get private contractors (in Durban it's usually Indians, they ride around in four wheel drives with guns it's actually pretty cool, look it up) to protect them, and they will shoot. This is the kind of stuff that happens when you get a dysfunctional brazilified society with a bloated government run by oligarchs shielding itself with handouts to special interest groups, it somehow becomes worse for crime rather than better the more resources you funnel into the state

Just so you know, I support giving law enforcement the powers they need to defeat criminals. Anyway, these “communities” cannot be trusted to deal with criminals. This is an idiotic idea.

You had some accidental leftist insight lol. You implicitly acknowledge that cops are outsiders who are not part of the community they police.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Depends on the crime. I don't see a need for retributive justice for petty crimes and other such things when we could just rehabilitate them, but I have little issue with society dropping the hammer on murderers, rapists etc.