# How should society deal with criminals?



## .   1

G'day culturer@s
How should society deal with criminals?

Robert


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## maxiogee

Good question.

It depends on the severity of the crime.
It also depends on the style of the crime.

Some offences are such that a fine - hefty to the person upon which it is being impossed, is enough to demonstrate society's disapproval, and to act as both a deterrent and a punishment.
I think not enough offences are dealt with in this way.

Some offences are such that financial sanctions alone are not sufficient measure of how society views them.
These offenders may need to be deprived of certain things we all take for granted. One fine example of this is day release from prison. The offender is free to continue to earn an income for their family but loses their personal liberty at night for a pre-set length of time. Not as 'pointless' as just locking someone up for X years, and not as punitive on their family members - who did nothing wrong (usually).

Other offences are such that society only feels safe when they think that the offender will never be free to offend again.
I suppose that there are two types of offence which most countries see in this category - murder and rape.
I am not so sure about the figures for rapists, but I have heard that the majority of murders are committed by family members in circumstances which are unlikely to arise again, and as such the offender generally poses no threat to anyone else.


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## PPatience

punish and rehab.. and rehab is more important than punishing... Prisons usually dont punish, they  produce more dangerous criminals!


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## Nunty

I learned something interesting about the Israeli prison system recently. There are a number of prisons for men, allowing for people to be incarcerated at different levels of security (restriction), for treatment of the psychiatrically ill and the mentally disabled, for substance abusers, for people desiring a very religious environment. 

There is only one prison for women.(*) Most of its wings are substandard and overcrowded. There is a "drug-free"wing, but after completing the very structured program, the women are returned to substandard cells in general population. The prison wing known as "Saviyon"(after a rich people's neighborhood) is considered luxurious because it is up to standard. Housed there are murderers serving life sentences and white collar criminals.

I find this last remarkable. Well, for the life sentences, I understand. But better conditions, not on the basis of good behavior, but because she committed a more prestigious crime (blackmail, smuggling, embezzlement, computer crime...). How bizarre is that? And how far is that from the luxury suites for drug barons that we read about in another thread.

Society should protect itself by locking up some people. I see no reason to be inhumane to them. Deprivation of liberty, autonomy and personal privacy is enough. Medical care should be available at the same level as it is to the rest of the population, and should not be contingent on disciplinary issues. There should be some kind of incentive for people inside the prison to behave appropriately and productively. Privileges could include work or more desirable work, contact visits, free postage, private TV (with earphones!), nicer cell block, extra outside time, permission to cultivate a small garden...

Most people become criminals because their life was on that track from the beginning. Some people become that way because they are what we call in Hebrew "wounded by life" or because they made bad decisions. Some people commit crimes because they have a treatable psychiatric or psychological disorder, and some because they have a disorder known as antisocial personality, which is, as yet, untreatable. In the best of all possible worlds, each of these groups (and the others I did not name)  would be handled differently by the prison system.


(*) However, Palestinian women being held on security offenses are sometimes held in more or less separate areas in high-security institutions for men, and some of the Israeli (Jewish or Arab) women prisoners needing close medical supervision are held in the Prisons Service Medical Center.


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## Kajjo

maxiogee said:


> Other offences are such that society only feels safe when they think that the offender will never be free to offend again.


Right, such cases just do exist.



> I am not so sure about the figures for rapists, but I have heard that the majority of murders are committed by family members in circumstances which are unlikely to arise again, and as such the offender generally poses no threat to anyone else.


Right, there are a lot of murders which scenario is unlikely to repeat itself. However, there are a lot of murders like sexually driven murders of children which proved again and again the high likeliness of repetition.

Kajjo


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## .   1

How should society deal with criminals who are not insane?

Robert


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## Kajjo

. said:


> How should society deal with criminals who are not insane?


Let me start by asking, whether we agree on the following statements:

a) In general, we have to find means to minimise future crimes, i.e. to protect society.

b) The way how we treat criminals should focus on how best to avoid future harm to society, i.e. by recidivism or imitation of the crime. 

c) The victim is more important to protect and care for than the perpetrator.

Kajjo


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## maxiogee

Kajjo said:


> Right, there are a lot of murders which scenario is unlikely to repeat itself. However, there are a lot of murders like sexually driven murders of children which proved again and again the high likeliness of repetition.


 
That's my point - *are* there a lot of such murders, and even when there are, are there therefore a lot of such offenders. My feeling is that there are very few.


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## Kajjo

maxiogee said:


> That's my point - *are* there a lot of such murders, and even when there are, are there therefore a lot of such offenders. My feeling is that there are very few.


Whatever their number might be: In case of such people they need to be incarcerated to protect society. Each offender needs to be treated in the best possible way, i.e. the way best suited to protect society from future harm. Maybe there are few of these offenders, so what?

Kajjo


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## Setwale_Charm

Kajjo, for the umpteenth time I totally agree with you!! No, truly, you are a most wonderful German!!


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## maxiogee

Kajjo said:


> Whatever their number might be: In case of such people they need to be incarcerated to protect society. Each offender needs to be treated in the best possible way, i.e. the way best suited to protect society from future harm. Maybe there are few of these offenders, so what?
> 
> Kajjo


 
The "so what" is that both here and on another thread we have come to a point where people have immediately gone seeking to legislate for the extremely rare.
Society needs to take care in doing this. It is best to legislsate for the common and allow hard cases to be dealt with as need arises.


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## .   1

maxiogee said:


> That's my point - *are* there a lot of such murders, and even when there are, are there therefore a lot of such offenders. My feeling is that there are very few.


I am utterly convinced that they are extremely rare indeed.
Newspapers and televisions make sure to tell us of every example of mans' inhumanity to man and poor sad creatures that kill and maim are paraded before our eyes on a daily basis.
If there is a statistically significant number of these offenders the information is being kept secret but in these days of free press and headline grabbing scoops I do not believe this to be possible.
As always the extremestists hijak the discussion and we wind up discussing 0.000001% of the question.

.,,


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## JamesM

> As always the extremestists hijak the discussion and we wind up discussing 0.000001% of the question.


 
I can see where discussing the smallest population of crimes does not deal with the majority of the problem.  As a result, I dug up general crime statistics for California here .

Maybe a way to discuss this is to pick a particularly common crime and discuss how to deal with it.  For example, in California the largest single sub-group would be motor vehicle theft.  I'm not sure if that is true elsewhere, but at least it's a jumping-off point.  There were 251,747 vehicle thefts in 2004, according to this site.

What would you see as the best way to deal with someone who has stolen a car?  How about someone who has stolen several cars?  And, for a third possibility, how about someone who has been caught more than a dozen times over a period of five years stealing cars?  Last, what if violence (hijacking/threatening with a weapon) was involved?

Just a suggestion, since it is a common crime (at least where I live) and not even classified as a violent crime.


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## Kajjo

maxiogee said:


> The "so what" is that both here and on another thread we have come to a point where people have immediately gone seeking to legislate for the extremely rare. Society needs to take care in doing this. It is best to legislsate for the common and allow hard cases to be dealt with as need arises.


I don't think so. I tried several times to draw your attention on crimes like fraud, infrigements, petty stealing, mugging and so on. These crimes are much more frequent than capital crimes. Those perpetrators are "normal people", they have not suffered a bad childhood, drugs, or recessing economy. But nobody so far replied to that. 

But I will be happy to reply to detailled descriptions of whatever crime you prefer to discuss. Name any _important_ group of offenders and specify their relative incident rate (if you consider that important) and their typical background.

Of course, rapes and murders are more rare than copyright infringements. I do not see why we shouldn't discuss important crimes like murder or rape. If only ten proven rapes happen a year, I would be glad, but I would still like to discuss what should be done with the offenders. -- Or maybe I simply do not understand your point.

Kajjo


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## maxiogee

Kajjo said:


> I don't think so. I tried several times to draw your attention on crimes like fraud, infrigements, petty stealing, mugging and so on.
> <snip>
> -- Or maybe I simply do not understand your point.


I think you may be right.
The question seems to ask how we should deal with criminals - any criminals,  not certain types of offence and offender.

You seem to be seeing the offence - I'm thinking more of the offensiveness.
Why am I thinking like that?
Because as soon as someone settles on a punishment style or severity level for a certain offence, someone else is always going to come back with a "Ah, but what if the offender has done xyz in the course of the crime?" question.

I think the simplicity of the wording in the thread opener was an indication that .,, was looking at the concept and not the styles/severity of punishments.
I may be wrong.


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## .   1

Kajjo said:


> I don't think so. I tried several times to draw your attention on crimes like fraud, infrigements, petty stealing, mugging and so on. These crimes are much more frequent than capital crimes. Those perpetrators are "normal people", they have not suffered a bad childhood, drugs, or recessing economy. But nobody so far replied to that.


You repeatedly make the assertion that 'normal people' or 'well intergrated people' commit crimes like fraud, infringements, petty stealing, mugging and so on.
I have repeatedly opposed your opinion on this point but you have not addressed me on that point.
How many fraudsters or infringers or thieves or muggers do you know who had a happy healthy childhood free of at least one overwhelming experinece of grief or horror or neglect?

I believe that all criminals are by definition not well intergrated into society.

Robert


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## JamesM

Robert said:
			
		

> I believe that all criminals are by definition not well intergrated into society.


 
Given that, wouldn't it make more sense to talk about "habilitation", then, instead of "rehabilitation"? I'm serious. It might make quite a difference if there weren't an assumption of a well-integrated life "gone wrong", but perhaps a life that has never really gotten the hang of integration into society.


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## Kajjo

. said:


> You repeatedly make the assertion that 'normal people' or 'well intergrated people' commit crimes like fraud, infringements, petty stealing, mugging and so on. I have repeatedly opposed your opinion on this point but you have not addressed me on that point.


Well, you can define "normal people" as those completely keeping to all rules, laws and moral codes. I guess, there are not many normal people then! Thus, it is easy to see that "the average, normal guy" having a job, a family, _appearing_ to belong to a community might also be criminal in certain, specific context. It is widely known that some priests abuse small boys, that many rich guys tend to tax fraud, that almost all teenagers are drawn to copyright infringements, that "the nice uncle" is molesting his nieces or neighbor daughter, that a hit-and-run driver or drunken driver can be every doctor, manager or lawyer. Criminals are not "outside", are typically not excluded from society. They belong to society and we have to deal with them or at least with what they did.



> How many fraudsters or infringers or thieves or muggers do you know who had a happy healthy childhood free of at least one overwhelming experinece of grief or horror or neglect?


Honestly, I do not know. But I personally know _very many_ people who had a really bad childhood, lost parents in the World War II, had to starve and freeze, to live in unheated huts, could only wash once a week with warm water -- and they all are honest, law-abiding, loving people who successfully raised happy children. It is highly unfair to all those people to excuse unacceptable behaviour of criminals with bad childhood. Most people understand right and wrong, and some of them just decide for wrong: not always, but in single instances.



> I believe that all criminals are by definition not well intergrated into society.


You can do so _by your definition_ which is not completely unreasonable. However, in my opinion, this definition does not reflect reality and does not help to answer the title question.

Kajjo


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## Kajjo

JamesM said:


> It might make quite a difference if there weren't an assumption of a well-integrated life "gone wrong", but perhaps a life that has never really gotten the hang of integration into society.


Yes, but do you really believe that? Does the wife murdering her husband after ten years of marriage really had "never gotten the hang of society"? There are only quite a few perpetrator groups like drug addicts, a certain range of prostitutes, criminal gang members where I could see you argument being true.

Kajjo


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## .   1

Kajjo said:


> It is widely known that some priests abuse small boys,


 Do you consider a paedophilic priest to be normal or well intergrated?



Kajjo said:


> that many rich guys tend to tax fraud,


Do you consider a rich thief to be normal or well intergrated?



Kajjo said:


> that almost all teenagers are drawn to copyright infringements,


I am sure that our kids will appreciate you comparing them to the other creatures you have dredged up to support your claim.
Virtually none of my daughter's friends break copyright because they enjoy the bling of the booklets and the flash of the colourful covers.
I am not sure that I agree with you that almost all teenagers are drawn to copyright infringement.
Perhaps you have more experience in this area than do I.



Kajjo said:


> that "the nice uncle" is molesting his nieces or neighbor daughter,


Do you consider a paedophile civilian to be normal or well intergrated? 
I would suggest that anybody trying such a stunt on my daughter will be easily recognisable for the rest of his life and I have read posts from people here which indicate that they would probably use a blunt hammer to nail such a creature to a tree.



Kajjo said:


> that a hit-and-run driver or drunken driver can be every doctor, manager or lawyer.


Do you consider morons who drive while drunk are normal or well intergrated? Hit and run drivers are splashed all over the media at every opportunity and police spare no resources in hunting them down. There is nothing but opprobrium directed towards any hit and run driver.

Laws are not an imposition on a society. Laws come from within a society.
Laws are enacted by a society because most members of that society want to live that way and are therefore highly critical of any members who flout the mores of that society.
It is very difficult to maintain cogency in an argument where the examples must range from a paedophilic priest to a teenager copying a song and try to come up with a cap to fit both heads.

.,,


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## Kajjo

. said:


> Do you consider a paedophilic priest,a hit-and-run driver, [...] to be normal or well intergrated?


Yes, I think so. We appear to have a different definition of "integrated". If you would not know about the cited crimes, you would think the person is integrated -- he would appear to be absolutely normal -- with a job, family, normal spare time interests and so on. He only becomes non-integrated for you as soon as you know he is criminal. Maybe we just collide on terms rather than content. Certainly, there are people that are not integrated in normal society, e.g. drug addicts, gang members, ghetto inhabitants.



> Laws are not an imposition on a society. Laws come from within a society. Laws are enacted by a society because most members of that society want to live that way and are therefore highly critical of any members who flout the mores of that society.


I agree.

Kajjo


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## .   1

Kajjo,
Is it possible that you are intending to say that some criminals give the appearance of being intergrated while others criminals are obvious?

Robert


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## Nunty

y 





Kajjo said:


> [...]Maybe we just collide on terms rather than content. Certainly, there are people that are not integrated in normal society, e.g. drug addicts, gang members, ghetto inhabitants.[...]


By "integrated" do you mean "member of middle or upper-class social classes"? I have serious difficulty with the idea of painting ghetto inhabitants as a group with the same brush as drug addicts and gang members. 

One other point: are you talking about social or psychological integration?


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## Poetic Device

Consider the situation and the person.  Is this their first offense?  How did it occurr?  How did the oters occurr?  What kind of an offense is it?  Is it capapble of being corrected?  Is the person psychologically sound?  Then decide based on those and similar questions what to do with the perp. (No capital punishment, though.)


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