# Society's right to punish



## Nunty

Spinning off from the capital punishment thread, I would like to propose the following for discussion. Quoting from my last post in that thread:It is possible that we have, at least for the time being, finished discussing the pros and cons of capital punishment and their respective arguments, and that we should now -- in a new thread -- begin a discussion on the limits ("if any", I suppose one should add) imposed on the right of a society to punish. Such a topic could and should include issues such as indeterminate vs determinate sentences, parole, prison conditions, torture, restitution to victims, repercussions on offenders' innocent family members and many other facets of the question; it could include the philosophical questions of punishment and vengeance, as well as issues of rehabilitation and "redemption" as one contributor put it.​Does society have the unrestricted right to punish offenders? Should "the punishment fit the crime"? How? Are prisons for punishment or for rehabilitation, or should a distinction be made on the basis of the crime? On the basis the personal characteristics of the convicted person? 

What about pre-trial detention? When, if ever, should this be allowed? Under what conditions? Is a person "innocent until proven guilty"?

Who (what sort of corporate body) should oversee conditions of detention before and after trial?

Should society invest resources in the families of the prisoners? In the victims/families of victims? 

In short, does "society" in the person of the police and prisons departments, have any restrictions on its right to punish? Does it have any concomitant obligations? If so, what are they and who should enforce them?


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## .   1

I think that society has a prime responsibility to protect.
This protection must apply to convicted criminals.
I believe that punishment is counter productive.
I believe that the judicial system should focus on rehabilitation.
The crime has been committed. There is nothing that can be done about that in most cases so the judicial system should focus on the offender and the most efficient manner of easing that person back into society if there is a possibility of rehabilitation but punishment or maltreatment almost certainly destroys any possibility of rehabilitation.
The criminals mucked up and they do not need someone ramming that down their throats every day.
There are reasons why hoodlums are hoodlums and not rocket scientists.
Most hoodlums do not smack themselves in the forehead with a mallet in order to obtain their life skills.
Most hoodlums have lived lives that posters to this forum would have difficulty even imagining.
Society has failed them and punishment only compounds the problem.

.,,


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## LV4-26

I have a problem with the concept of punishment, whether it's inflicted by society or by individuals (parents, teachers,...).
My problem is, any way I look at it, I can't imagine such a thing as punishment for its own sake. Society punishes
- as a means of deterrence (to the attention of the culprit and of would-be offenders)
- to protect society from the offender by excluding him/her temporarily from it.
- to appease a desire for vengeance, generally expressed by offended individuals.

I don't know if you're following me. My impression is that, ultimately,  society's motivation to punish is never really to "give the offender what (s)he deserves" but always to send the message that "any potential offender will be given what (s)he deserves". That's what it's really interested in, not actual "retribution".

Correction/redemption, to me, starts when the sinner comes to hate his/her own sin (mind you, I did *not* say hate him/herself). Punishment may or may not contribute to that. In any case, I don't think punishment is the decisive factor to foster correction.

EDIT : I used the word "deserve" because I reckon that's the idea behind the concept of punishment. But I don't like it. Asserting what one "deserves" is highly theoretical and subjective.


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## winklepicker

. said:


> I think that society has a prime responsibility to protect.
> This protection must apply to convicted criminals.
> I believe that punishment is counter productive.
> I believe that the judicial system should focus on rehabilitation.
> The crime has been committed. There is nothing that can be done about that in most cases so the judicial system should focus on the offender and the most efficient manner of easing that person back into society if there is a possibility of rehabilitation but punishment or maltreatment almost certainly destroys any possibility of rehabilitation.
> The criminals mucked up and they do not need someone ramming that down their throats every day.
> There are reasons why hoodlums are hoodlums and not rocket scientists.
> Most hoodlums do not smack themselves in the forehead with a mallet in order to obtain their life skills.
> Most hoodlums have lived lives that posters to this forum would have difficulty even imagining.
> Society has failed them and punishment only compounds the problem.
> 
> .,,


 
Hooray! Someone talks sense. Would you like a job as prime minister of the UK?

As an example, estimates vary, but somewhere between 50 and 80 per cent of the UK's crime (and around 50% of its huge prison population - the largest in Europe) is drug-related.

Drug users are patients not criminals. If we legalised all drugs, allowed users to register and get what they need on prescription, we would

a) put the drug barons out of business
b) reduce prison populations
c) give these people at least a vague hope of rehabilitation
d) CUT CRIME

Why don't we? Because it's politically incorrect to tell the truth.


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## Amityville

Drugs are a very big problem, I agree. The current policy of giving very long sentences to drug 'mules', presumably as a deterrent, has no effect on the barons. Not so sure that legalisation would solve the problem as easily as that though.


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## cuchuflete

I'd like to begin by saying that I have seen some rare and encouraging displays of common sense in this thread.

However—isn't there always one of those 'howevers' lurking about somewhere?—the entire conversation will be
fairly useless unless and until we take on a prior topic:  What is the definition of a right?

Ever so many threads in this forum consist largely of moralists of one persuasion or another trumpeting their sincerely held views of which practice in which nation is good or bad or in violation of "basic rights".  Rare is the thread in which anyone bothers to acknowledge the obvious, that "rights" vary from place to place, from society to society.  That some prior government may have signed some UN or League of Nations or other document does not automatically confer 'rights' on people, other than, perhaps, in a strictly and narrowly legal sense.
The definition of 'rights' has a quirky habit of changing over time in most societies, and not all societies move in tandem. 

This is not an off-topic aside.  It is the underpinning of any meaningful discussion of what rights a single society may have, and may be more than a little useful in avoiding the frequent bashing of practices in one society by people who assume basic, and different, rights in another.  

Robert has written, wisely, "I think that society has a prime responsibility to protect."  Agreed.  In carrying out that responsibility, different societies will make different choices, within or beyond the locally determined "rights'
agreed to by members of the society, or imposed by a dictator in contravention of such agreed upon rights.


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## Nunty

Cuchu, would you like to start us off by giving your working definition of "a right", the "rights" of a society and the "rights" of an individual?


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## .   1

cuchuflete said:


> However—isn't there always one of those 'howevers' lurking about somewhere?—the entire conversation will be
> fairly useless unless and until we take on a prior topic: What is the definition of a right?


I am of the opinion that in the context of the question the understanding of 'rights' has been perfectly understood by all who have contributed and to spin the discussion off into a definition of 'rights' has the potential to clog the thread.
Should you be interested in discussing 'rights' as an abstract concept I believe that a new thread would be appropriate or this thread will most likely become enmired and eventually choke from chasing it's own tail.
The thread question posed is already complex enough.



cuchuflete said:


> The definition of 'rights' has a quirky habit of changing over time in most societies, and not all societies move in tandem.


I did not take this interpretation from the thread question.
I did not see a question about seperate societies or nations. I saw a question about society in general.
I did not see a question about society under Ghengis Khan or Adolf Hitler.
I did not see a question about society in 1,000BC or 1,000AC.
I responded to a question about society in general today and this is the question that I think was posed.

Robert


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## .   1

winklepicker said:


> As an example, estimates vary, but somewhere between 50 and 80 per cent of the UK's crime (and around 50% of its huge prison population - the largest in Europe) is drug-related.


It has been reported that the most significant result of America's War On Drugs has been a tripling of it's prison population.

Robert


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## cuchuflete

. said:


> I am of the opinion that in the context of the question the understanding of 'rights' has been perfectly understood by all who have contributed


 and I am of the opinion that some assumptions may have been made, but that the definition of that key word "rights" has been ignored. I'll give you one so simple you may savor it or choke on it, as the spirit moves you:

A right is that which the regime in power legislates or imposes, legally or illegally.  All other claims of rights, "innate", "inherent", "basic", "divinely inspired" etc are a bunch of hot air.  They are a wish list agreed to by some or many, but without force until and unless the powers that be come to agree and embody them in law.  

Accordingly, some jurisdictions have the right to execute convicted prisoners.  Other jurisdictions have the right to use torture (I don't happen to agree with that, but my opinion is worth a bucket of spit.) to attempt to extract information or coerced confessions.  Other authorities have the right to attempt rehabilitation, while the same or other authorities may choose, by legal right, to attempt 'correction' or rehabilitation.   

A right does not exist because the participants in this thread agree with one another.  That's called a wish list item.  

Sister asked a difficult question.  I suggest that she or we define terms, or the conversation will be
about what we would like, rather than what is.    The question was not stated in the conditional.




			
				N-T said:
			
		

> Does society have the unrestricted right to punish offenders?



If you don't define "right", then the answer is "yes".  The answer is also "no", and "under some circumstances".  What ought to be and what is don't always coincide.




			
				 . said:
			
		

> The thread question posed is already complex enough.  Yes, it is.
> 
> I did not take this interpretation from the thread question. That the question didn't state it means that the questioner either didn't think about it, or held a preconception, which you may share.
> I did not see a question about seperate societies or nations. I saw a question about society in general. Do you believe that one size fits all?
> I did not see a question about society under Ghengis Khan or Adolf Hitler. Are you perhaps suggesting that society under different rule has different rules?  That would be logical.
> I did not see a question about society in 1,000BC or 1,000AC.  No problem assuming the present, in the knowledge that your answers would have been judged to be dead wrong fifty or a hundred years ago, and are likely to be wrong fifty years hence.
> I responded to a question about society in general today and this is the question that I think was posed.  And under your assumptions, your answer was clear and sensible, for your society.
> 
> Robert


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## winklepicker

cuchuflete said:


> A right is that which the regime in power legislates or imposes, legally or illegally. All other claims of rights, "innate", "inherent", "basic", "divinely inspired" etc are a bunch of hot air.


 
As Robert Heinlein said, there are no rights - only privileges.


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## .   1

G'day Cuchu,
I do not understand what you are doing here but you have made the question far too complex for me to answer.
I hope to see some discussion of the punishment aspect at some later stage.
See ya

Robert


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## xarruc

Society's membership carries responsibility. One of those is that you will obey the rules that society imposes on itself. Nobody is expected to obey all the rules all the time. That is why a sliding scale of punishments exists - starting with a warning and ending with permenant exclusion from the society. 

If you don't have any rules then society doesnt exist, as what more is it than a collective of individuals agreeing to a whole load of historical compromises. (ranging from formal laws to etiquette) If you have rules you have to have some form of upholding them. 

The same goes for Wordreference forum as it does to countries.


What are the options available for preventing people breaking the rules? If you can't come up with a better alternative to the current system then 
you are only proposing anarchy.


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## cuchuflete

. said:


> G'day Cuchu,
> I do not understand what you are doing here but you have made the question far too complex for me to answer.



I guess, Robert, that what I am doing is finding a severe fault with the original set of questions.  Unless and until one defines *which* society, the question is not only, as you pointed out, complex.  It is wide enough to drive trucks through.  We may all happily agree about "our" society, but whatever answers we come up with will collide with the equally genuine and moral, logical, and 'correct' contrary answers of some other society.   Thanks for helping me realize why I was so uncomfortable with the original questions.   They imply that there is a single set of 'correct' answers we might seek, when in fact there may be a multitude of equally 'correct' answers for distinct cultures.  

The highlighted portions of the post below are eloquent in saying something similar.




xarruc said:


> Society's membership carries responsibility. One of those is that you will obey *the rules that society imposes on itself*. Nobody is expected to obey all the rules all the time. That is why a sliding scale of punishments exists - starting with a warning and ending with permenant exclusion from the society.
> 
> If you don't have any rules then society doesnt exist, as *what more is it than a collective of individuals agreeing to a whole load of historical compromises*. (ranging from formal laws to etiquette) If you have rules you have to have some form of upholding them.



"The collective of individuals agreeing to a whole load of historical compromises" obviously differs among different nations.  Thus the definition of society, and of its rights, is not the same for one and all.


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## geve

cuchuflete said:


> It is wide enough to drive trucks through.


Can we call it a philosophical debate then?  If the problem lies with the word "right", why not rephrase: 
"Does society have the unrestricted right to punish offenders?" => Must society unrestrictively punish offenders?


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## TRG

Nun-Translator said:


> Spinning off from the capital punishment thread, I would like to propose the following for discussion. Quoting from my last post in that thread:It is possible that we have, at least for the time being, finished discussing the pros and cons of capital punishment and their respective arguments, and that we should now -- in a new thread -- begin a discussion on the limits ("if any", I suppose one should add) imposed on the right of a society to punish. Such a topic could and should include issues such as indeterminate vs determinate sentences, parole, prison conditions, torture, restitution to victims, repercussions on offenders' innocent family members and many other facets of the question; it could include the philosophical questions of punishment and vengeance, as well as issues of rehabilitation and "redemption" as one contributor put it.​Does society have the unrestricted right to punish offenders? Should "the punishment fit the crime"? How? Are prisons for punishment or for rehabilitation, or should a distinction be made on the basis of the crime? On the basis the personal characteristics of the convicted person?


I think the first question should read, "Should society have...". Clearly every country and sometimes subcountries (states) already have the right to unrestricted punishment of criminals. It is a right that I believe comes with sovereignty and I suspect is recognized by legal systems the world over, and probably internaltion law as well. If restrictions are to be placed on this inherent right, from what authority are they to come? God? The UN? Who?



> What about pre-trial detention? When, if ever, should this be allowed? Under what conditions? Is a person "innocent until proven guilty"?


Most criminal justice system could not function without some provision for pretrial detention.



> Who (what sort of corporate body) should oversee conditions of detention before and after trial?


It's not too clear what your asking here. We have jails and prisons and someone is responsible for operating them whether they are run directly by the government or the government subcontracts the operation of the prison. Is this the question?



> Should society invest resources in the families of the prisoners? In the victims/families of victims?


To the extent that the society in question has any social welfare programs the families of prisoners are/should be as eligible as anyone else. On the second part, I have a friend who works for the district attorney's office, and part of his job is "victim's advocate". He works with victims or victim's families to try to gain restitution from the defendant or other social programs that have been set up to provide aid to crime victims. This seems appropriate to me. 



> In short, does "society" in the person of the police and prisons departments, have any restrictions on its right to punish? Does it have any concomitant obligations? If so, what are they and who should enforce them?


 
There presently do not appear to be any restrictions whatsoever. You can make a case that there should be, but lacking a world government, (which is never going to happen), it's never going to happen.




. said:


> I think that society has a prime responsibility to protect.


The first responsibility should be to protect the innocent.


> This protection must apply to convicted criminals.


If you break society's rules, your protections are going to and should change. As far as what protections the convicted are afforded, it is up to the society in question. You can be put to death, so they can take away everything. 


> I believe that punishment is counter productive.


I think it often is, but there are clearly instances where people have been punished for a crime and it made them change. I don't think you can say it never helps.


> I believe that the judicial system should focus on rehabilitation.


This seems to express the belief that given sufficient effort, everyone can be rehabilitated. I doubt that you could find one person whose career is in the criminal justice system who would agree with that.


> The crime has been committed. There is nothing that can be done about that in most cases so the judicial system should focus on the offender and the most efficient manner of easing that person back into society if there is a possibility of rehabilitation but punishment or maltreatment almost certainly destroys any possibility of rehabilitation.


I disagree. There are people who have proven by their actions that they are not fit to live free among ordinary people. I say keep'm locked up as long as necessary.


> The criminals mucked up and they do not need someone ramming that down their throats every day.


If being incarcerated equals ramming their screw-up down their throat every day, what's the alternative?


> There are reasons why hoodlums are hoodlums and not rocket scientists.


True, but what are the reasons?


> Most hoodlums do not smack themselves in the forehead with a mallet in order to obtain their life skills.


I'm going to pass on this one.


> Most hoodlums have lived lives that posters to this forum would have difficulty even imagining.
> Society has failed them and punishment only compounds the problem.


I grew up on a farm and the neighboring farm family had a boy who was one year younger than me. We both attended the same rural school (eight grades, one room) for eight years. We were playmates and friends. He seemed completely decent and normal the entire time I knew him. He came from a very good family and had four brothers and sisters. I was in their home many time and it was completely normal. I recently saw this person and his monther for the first in many years at my mothers funeral. The family still lives on the same place and his father worked on that farm until the day he died at about age 80. After I left high school, I didn't see much of my childhood friend, but I would hear of him from time to time. What I heard was the he would get in one scrape after another until he eventually wound up going to prison for stealing. So I think I'm in a pretty good position to asses this person's life. Society didn't fail him, he failed himself. There is no other explanation.


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## cuchuflete

geve said:


> Can we call it a philosophical debate then?  If the problem lies with the word "right", why not rephrase:
> "Does society have the unrestricted right to punish offenders?" => Must society unrestrictively punish offenders?



You may call it whatever you find most comfortable.  The taxonomy of discussions doesn't have much effect on the discussions themselves.  

The problem lies with the word "right" as a symbol of an attempt at uniformity in speaking of "society" as if there were but a single society, rather than a multitude of societies.

"Society" in Maine operates with the assumption of the 'rights' of the accused to a speedy trial in a legal system in which discovery of truth is often subservient to persuading a jury that the accused did or did not commit a crime, with strict rules of evidence and a long string of juridical procedures that would be very foreign to a person in China or perhaps France.  "Society" in Maine does not allow for punishment by the death penalty.  "Society" in Texas does allow for some convicts to be punished by being put to death.  I've heard that such societal 'rights' to punish also exist in many countries, while some do not allow for this legal 'remedy'.   Which society are we trying to talk about?

I suspect that this thread will prove that people have dreamsheets—what they would like certain rights to include—while such dreamsheets may be rather far removed from current realities.
Another thread in this forum deals with Canadian extradition law.  That is a case in which a person accused of murder may be able to avoid extradition to the country in which the accused is charged with a crime, if that country's "rights" include penalties forbidden in Canada.  There may be philosophical implications to discuss, but the 'rights' of the accused, the prosecutors, and the penal systems are distinct within different national boundaries.


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## ireney

I think I will agree with cuchuflette and add that there is more than one serious  legal or philosophical issue for discussion.



Nun-Translator said:


> Does society have the unrestricted right to punish offenders?



Of course it has. Offenders must be punished period. Who better to punish them than the society which they have hurt with their actions? Not a very good answer I agree but the way the question has been posed that is the correct answer as I see it 



> Should "the punishment fit the crime"? How?



Yes it should. The how is the tricky part that deserves a thread all of its own. A thief is caught and he is put to prison or has his hand cut off or whatever. A murderer, in all the above cases, is punished differently, so, according to any of these systems, the punishment fits the crime.
The punishment is decided by someone or a group of people following a certain logic. The possibility that  people from other cultures may consider said punishment too harsh or too lenient  doesn't mean that according to that society the punishment doesn't fit the crime. 



> Are prisons for punishment or for rehabilitation, or should a distinction be made on the basis of the crime? On the basis the personal characteristics of the convicted person?



Another big issue. Prisons, as I see it, serve two purposes (at least they are supposed to): rehabilitation is one and the other is two keep the harmful individual away from the society it has hurt. A third purpose is the determent of others.
 If the person is judged to have a chance to "reform" then (s)he will come back to the society one day. If it is deemed that this person has hurt society in a way that is too far from this society's beliefs and morals and whatnot, then prison's prime purpose is to keep the society safe from that individual. The system of pleas serves (where it exists) the purpose of giving the prisoner the chance to convince society that he reformed in less time that his/her sentence calculated.
The personality and personal story of every individual is (supposedly at least) taken into consideration during his/her trial.

Now is it also a sort of punishment? (since we *are* going to go there). As I see it yes it is. Whether we like it or not every action causes a reaction. 
Every action has its repercussions.If those are not "natural" (you grab a live wire, you are toast) then the society  creates its own. 
There are people who will not steal even if given a chance. There are others who will try to create a chance.  Until the Utopian day when we all are self-regulated and we can abolish laws and live in a blissful anarchy we need to punish those who are not naturally punished for their deeds or we'll live in anarchy 
 The reason is simple: if such individuals are not punished the society may collapse. It is a plus, and to my mind  a measure of civilisation to go one step further than punishment and try to save the harmful individual.




> What about pre-trial detention? When, if ever, should this be allowed? Under what conditions? Is a person "innocent until prooven guilty"?



Again, the society must protect itself. If a person a) is considered  dangerous for the society while out and about b) may try to avoid trial, then it should be detained even before trial. 
There are two tricky parts in this though. A) There must be a trial very, very soon in these cases. B) If the person is not found guilty (in which case his/her time in prison before the trial is counted as part of his/her sentence), the indemnification must be hefty.



> Who (what sort of corporate body) should oversee conditions of detention before and after trial?



A body put there by the society. The society must also put some safety catches as always. I am not sure I fully understand this question.



> Should society invest resources in the families of the prisoners? In the victims/families of victims?



 Another one I don't fully understand I'm afraid. Are you asking if the society should a) give e.g. money  to the family of the prisoner because it put him/her on prison? b) givee.g.  money to the victim/family of the victim because it failed to protect someone? Just asking



> In short, does "society" in the person of the police and prisons departments, have any restrictions on its right to punish? Does it have any concomitant obligations? If so, what are they and who should enforce them?




I'm sorry but I cannot agree with the "in short". As you see I took "society" to mean something completely different in answering before since e.g. in the case of investing resources we are clearly talking about society in general and not "in the person of the police and prison departments".

Are there any restrictions to the means of punishing? Yes, the ones the specific society to which they belong has posed. 
Are there any restrictions to their rights to punish? No. As long as the society has agreed to what these rights are there should be no restrictions.
I don't understand the concomitant obligations either (I am dense today).

Bear in mind that I advocate that if society A used a judicial system which follows a logic/morals with which I do not agree, I have every right, if not obligation to try to convince this society to change its system in a way that will conform with my logic/moral/beliefs (and obviously they have the same right if not obligation ).


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## winklepicker

ireney said:


> Offenders must be punished period.


 
Ireney, I don't necessarily disagree with you (though I reserve the right to disagree later, depending on how you answer!). But there may be some alternatives to punishment: lobotomy, counselling, religious instruction, moral re-education, neuro-linguistic programming, aromatherapy - I don't know.

Why must offenders be punished as such?


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## ireney

winklepicker said:


> Ireney, I don't necessarily disagree with you (though I reserve the right to disagree later, depending on how you answer!). But there may be some alternatives to punishment: lobotomy, counselling, religious instruction, moral re-education, neuro-linguistic programming, aromatherapy - I don't know.
> 
> Why must offenders be punished as such?



You don't consider lobotomy or enforced counselling a punishment then?


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## Nunty

This is great! I wrote my question quickly and phrased it poorly, and I think that everyone is doing a wonderful job of redefining the question. ("Don't answer what I said, answer what I meant.")

I think it was Roosevelt who said that the president of the United States has exactly as much power as he takes. (I also think we are seeing a living example of that currently, but that is not this thread.) Is "a right" the same thing as "power"?

My question probably should have been phrased more fuzzily: _Should society punish people, and if so, whom and how?_ In order to elicit the kind of discussion I have in mind. At any rate, I have the sense that this is the question people are answering.


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## .   1

Nun-Translator said:


> My question probably should have been phrased more fuzzily: _Should society punish people, and if so, whom and how?_ In order to elicit the kind of discussion I have in mind. At any rate, I have the sense that this is the question people are answering.


I asked the question slightly fuzzed up on a new thread hopintg that the fuzziness will alow the forum to define the response to this fascinating topic.

.,,


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## Amityville

One person's fuzziness is another person's rigorous definition. I wonder if throwing the octopus over the hedge will straighten us out at all.


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## Kajjo

LV4-26 said:


> I have a problem with the concept of punishment, whether it's inflicted by society or by individuals (parents, teachers,...).
> My problem is, any way I look at it, I can't imagine such a thing as punishment for its own sake. Society punishes
> - as a means of deterrence (to the attention of the culprit and of would-be offenders)
> - to protect society from the offender by excluding him/her temporarily from it.
> - to appease a desire for vengeance, generally expressed by offended individuals.
> I don't know if you're following me.


I agree with your analysis, which states the obvious and accepted reasons for punishment: retribution, deterrence, protection. 

However, I do not see your problem. Which of these "reasonable reasons" you have got a problem with and why?

Kajjo


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## Nunty

Amityville said:


> One person's fuzziness is another person's rigorous definition. I wonder if throwing the octopus over the hedge will straighten us out at all.


"Throwing the octopus over the hedge"? Did we do that? What is that?


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## Kajjo

. said:


> The crime has been committed. There is nothing that can be done about that in most cases so the judicial system should focus on the offender


I my opinion this is the dominant mistake repeated over and over again. Society should focus on the victim and society (i.e. other potential victims). We should try to ease the emotional and physical pain, the often tremendous fear of victims after the crime, their various psychological problems, and should try to compensate the victim for whatever damage and harm had been done. Victims are forgotten by and are unimportant for our justice systems and are tortured by being forced to repeat over and over again what evidently and in many cases obviously happened to them. Victims are named, photographed, cited, listed -- offenders are often protected much better. We should start to worry about offenders as soon as everything is done for their victims.



> [should focus on...] the most efficient manner of easing that person back into society if there is a possibility of rehabilitation [--] but punishment or maltreatment almost certainly destroys any possibility of rehabilitation.


green part: No, it surely does not. Imagine a rich, well integrated guy who likes to beat women or even just likes to steal in a supermarket, because it turns him on. What do you suggest? No punishment? Some money to pay and everything is forgotten? In my opinion, only punishment can act as deterrent to such people.

 blue part: Well, it strongly depends on whether some people should really return into society and how fast they should do that. For once, just imagine the victims meeting their perpetrators after quite a short time and being not able to do anything against it. Offenders can not be "eased back into society" before the emotional and physical wounds of victims have healed. We should protect the victim from the offender, don't you think?



> Most hoodlums have lived lives that posters to this forum would have difficulty even imagining. Society has failed them and punishment only compounds the problem.


I not even want to think again about this old argument about society being responsible for people choosing to become criminals. It's proven wrong long ago. There are _much_ more people having lived miserable lives than there are criminals. I can not imagine circumstances that justify torturing, maltreating or abusing little children, raping women, destroying other's property without any personal gain -- or consider crimes likes tax fraud, copyright infringements, poisining the environment ... is the society guilty for all those people? I don't think so.

Kajjo


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## LV4-26

Kajjo said:


> However, I do not see your problem. Which of these "reasonable reasons" you have got a problem with and why?


None of them...On the contrary, I'm saying that punishment wouldn't exist outside those reasons. I'm saying I just don't believe that society ever inflicts punishment to....."punish", with the moral flavour that word conveys. I believe what we call society, in the end, is only concerned with its own preservation and only uses moral values to avoid disorder (disorder being extremely detrimental to said preservation).

Same with me. When I do punish, I believe my motives are purely pragmatic. The only  non-pragmatic goal I'd be willing to reach would be what was called "redemption". But, as I said, I don't believe punishment fosters redemption.


----------



## winklepicker

Kajjo said:
I agree with your analysis, which states the obvious and accepted reasons for punishment: retribution, deterrence, protection. 



LV4-26 said:


> None of them...On the contrary, I'm saying that punishment wouldn't exist outside those reasons. I'm saying I just don't believe that society ever inflicts punishment to....."punish", with the moral flavour that word conveys. I believe what we call society, in the end, is only concerned with its own preservation and only uses moral values to avoid disorder (disorder being extremely detrimental to said preservation).
> 
> ...I believe my motives are purely pragmatic.


 
I have problems with them (if anyone's interested!). 

Retribution - pointless: it only increases recidivism
Deterrence - anyone got any evidence that punishment deters?
_(I mean *evidence* - not just a strongly expressed opinion or an 'of course' phrase!)_
Protection - this one I may grant you. However, if we assume that many or most prisoners will one day be freed, protection means rehabilitation as well as incarceration.

Pragmatism is my keyword too. I'm interested in what works, and the way we practise it in the UK at present has to be improvable (neologism); so we need to start from first principles. Why punish?

ireney said:
_You don't consider lobotomy or enforced counselling a punishment then?_ 

Well, not in the same league as religious instruction or neuro-linguistic programming anyway!


----------



## cuchuflete

I'll pick just a single periwinkle from the tide's harvest:  Deterrence.  I'll limit the evidence to a settings that are generally well known to anyone who has ever had the pleasure of being a child, or a member of this forum.  If you don't qualify, please skip to another thread.

As children, most of us were on the receiving end of some form of punishment, which may have included verbal reprimands (this could be hurtful to young ears), "time-outs" or being sent to sit in a corner or one's room or some other spot removed from wherever we wanted to be, or a spanking, or removal of toys or.....parental variety allows for long lists.   As children we didn't like being punished.  As children we mostly grew to learn which behavior was apt to win us some form of punishment, and adjusted our behavior to either reduce or control that kind of action, or to do it out of sight and awareness of parents.

If you were a goody two shoes who never did anything wrong as a child, you will have no personal sense of identification with any of this, but perhaps you may remember a sibling or playmate, less perfect than yourself......

Next example:  WR forums.  Like society, these forums have rules designed to maintain order.  Personal attacks and a range of disruptive stylistic practices are forbidden.  Escalating warnings are given to violators, and sometimes the threat of punishment in the form of expulsion is used.  This usually draws the attention of the transgressor to the rules, which are then followed with greater or lesser enthusiasm, but followed in any event.  
As with prison populations, some people would rather try to "beat the system", and carry on as recidivists.  Some get away with it for a while, some are "incarcerated" in cyberspace.  Some are punished with banishment, and try to creep back wearing disguises.  Behavior may or not change, but there is an evident change in public actions.  

If you are still not persuaded that punishment can be a deterrent, consider driving habits.  If you receive citations/tickets/summonses for speeding, you are apt to be careful, use a radar detector, check with friends and other sources for speed trap locations.  In short, you will change the way you act to avoid punishment.  

None of the above has anything to do with advocating one punishment over another.  It's rather obvious to me that punishment, in general, has a deterrent effect for most people.
Some seem impervious to it, and they tend to be punished more often, but that, as they say, is a horse of another color. 
Where I live, society mandates longer sentences for repeat offenders, perhaps on the basis of a blinding flash of the obvious:  If deterrence doesn't work, protect society by keeping the would-be recidivist where they will have fewer opportunities to recid (_neologism_ ).



winklepicker said:


> Kajjo said:
> I agree with your analysis, which states the obvious and accepted reasons for punishment: retribution, deterrence, protection.
> 
> 
> 
> I have problems with them (if anyone's interested!).
> 
> Retribution - pointless: it only increases recidivism
> Deterrence - anyone got any evidence that punishment deters?
> _(I mean *evidence* - not just a strongly expressed opinion or an 'of course' phrase!)_
> Protection - this one I may grant you. However, if we assume that many or most prisoners will one day be freed, protection means rehabilitation as well as incarceration.
> 
> Pragmatism is my keyword too. I'm interested in what works, and the way we practise it in the UK at present has to be improvable (neologism); so we need to start from first principles. Why punish?
> 
> ireney said:
> _You don't consider lobotomy or enforced counselling a punishment then?_
> 
> Well, not in the same league as religious instruction or neuro-linguistic programming anyway!


----------



## ireney

One thing one should take into account when we're talking about deterrence is the following: What would happen if people were allowed to e.g. rob others without any sort of "reciprocation"? 
In this light, and this light only, punishment works very, very well as a way to deter others from committing the same crime.

OK we'll lobotomise those who publish inane blogs and sentence to neuro-linguistic programming (which I have no idea what it is) spammers! Different level of offence, different punishment.


----------



## cuchuflete

More 





winklepicker said:


> ... the obvious and accepted reasons for punishment: *retribution*, deterrence, protection.
> 
> 
> 
> I have problems with them (if anyone's interested!).
> 
> * Retribution* - pointless: it only increases recidivism



Locking someone up in prison is retribution, whether intended or not.  Prison is not a nice place.
Most people do not choose to be there.  (The exceptions are just that, exceptions, and as such will be excluded from my comments.)

Ok, I'll agree, for purposes of argument, that retribution increases recidivism, though I haven't yet seen evidence of that.  So locking people up is retribution, and retribution increases recidivism.
What is the alternative that will not increase recidivism?  Don't lock convicted criminals up, but
tell them, "Please don't do that again" and hope for the best?  I suggest that such a course would increase recidivism too.


----------



## maxiogee

cuchuflete said:


> If deterrence doesn't work, protect society by keeping the would-be recidivist where they will have fewer opportunities to recid (_neologism_ ).



recide - surely?


----------



## Amityville

Cuchuflete - your examples of how deterrence works apply to children and to foreri. It works in certain situations. It works for the law-abiding and the dependant. Those who feel they have nothing to lose don't subscribe.
Take murder - domestic, political or serial. None of those is susceptible to deterrent punishments. Domestic murder is always a once only, political is done for 'a greater good', serial is done by someone in the grip of a compulsion or psychiatric illness. Nor does consequential murder (I mean done to cover up a previous crime, eg robbery, rape) take account of deterrents...


----------



## cuchuflete

What you say makes good sense, Amityville.  So, for those who will not be deterred, imprisonment serves a more limited but still useful purpose: protect society from the criminal.  

The notion that depriving anyone of their liberty is not punishment strikes me as naive. Whatever the primary intended purpose of incarceration, it is almost always, in addition, a form of retribution. In the US, and perhaps elsewhere, one often hears expressions such as "paying one's debt to society" for serving a prison sentence.


----------



## .   1

Nun-Translator said:


> "Throwing the octopus over the hedge"? Did we do that? What is that?


Amytiville apparently did not notice your question so I will have a guess.
Perhaps it is a mocking parody of the old 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'.

.,,


----------



## .   1

cuchuflete said:


> In the US, and perhaps elsewhere, one often hears expressions such as "paying one's debt to society" for serving a prison sentence.


How does sitting in prison pay a debt?
Who is the beneficiary of the payment made?

.,,


----------



## cuchuflete

Hi Robert,

I said the expression is often used.  I can tell you what I think is meant by it-  Commit a crime, and you will have taken something of value from society.  Serve a sentence and you will have, at least in part, repaid the debt you incurred by breaking society's rules, by having your personal freedom taken from you in return. 

Your questions are thought provoking.  "How does sitting in prson pay a debt?"  Perhaps by giving up something of great value, one's freedom.  Does it work?  I don't know.  Is it a good analogy?  Probably not.

"Who is the beneficiary of the payment made?"  That's a less difficult question.  Having a convicted criminal off the streets, the beneficiary is society, as it is protected from the criminal for the duration of the sentence served.

The analogy goes back to the historical sense that "crime doesn't pay", and that justice means exacting a price from the evildoer.  The problem is that whenever we try to talk about anything involving sentencing people to time in jail, or worse, we never seem to define "Justice".  We argue the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of
prison as a deterrent to crime, we talk about vengeance and retribution as bad, ineffective motives for sending people to prison, and we ultimately never say what justice is or should be.


----------



## TRG

. said:


> How does sitting in prison pay a debt?
> Who is the beneficiary of the payment made?
> 
> .,,


It's a euphemism.


----------



## JamesM

ireney said:


> One thing one should take into account when we're talking about deterrence is the following: What would happen if people were allowed to e.g. rob others without any sort of "reciprocation"?
> In this light, and this light only, punishment works very, very well as a way to deter others from committing the same crime.


 
I think this is an excellent point that often seems to be ignored or glossed over in similar discussions.  The "deterrence" is the foreknowledge of a _consequence_ to your actions, assuming you get caught.  I think any situation where the chance of being apprehended is removed for all practical purposes, such as a riot, a black-out, or a large-scale natural disaster, demonstrates that a much larger number of people would commit a crime if they were fairly certain there would be no consequence.


----------



## winklepicker

. said:


> How does sitting in prison pay a debt?
> Who is the beneficiary of the payment made?


 
I'm greatly encouraged to see others asking the same radical questions. James's point is a good one: looting shows that many people are deterred by the likelihood of being caught. But as Amityville has so clearly said, we are not dealing with Mr Average here: we are dealing with habitual offenders. 

If our current policies were working, I'd be falling over myself to agree with Cuchu (and send him presents of peas and honey, of course). But according to the US Bureau of Justice figures, re-offending rates run at some 70%. In the UK we have the highest prison population in Europe, and have actually had to start keeping prisoners in police cells because prison places have run out. Our prison population is dwarfed by the USA's, but our re-offending rate is still some 60%.

So our policies are *not *working. The system sucks in criminals, and then spews out between 50 and 75% of them unchanged from how they came in. Being 'tough on crime' may give the hawks a nice warm feeling, but so does wetting your pants... 

It cannot be beyond the wit of man to come up with a system for dealing with criminals that will stop just HALF of them re-offending. I'm not against incarceration - if we can make it effective. But as presently constituted, incarceration doesn't do it.

Meanwhile, there are some good reasons why we should NOT imprison. A few are: a) it gives a badge of honour in the criminal community; b) it creates 'universities of crime'; c) it does not recompense the victim. 

Those who support incarceration may be right, but they have to justify it - and satisfying our need for vengeance is not justification enough. 

So - I say again: why do we punish?


----------



## Ana Raquel

Nun-Translator said:


> _Should society punish people, and if so, whom and how?_


Society has to stop the offender with the aim of rehabilitation, after that, once rehabilitated and repented, society should forgive him/her.




> Are prisons for punishment or for rehabilitation?


for rehabilitation!


----------



## winklepicker

Ana Raquel said:


> Society has to stop the offender with the aim of rehabilitation, after that, once rehabilitated and repented, society should forgive him/her.
> 
> for rehabilitation!


 
I agree with you, Ana Raquel, but they are not working. 

So how best do we rehabilitate offenders? Finland had an idea: decarceration. Google _Finland decarceration_ to read more.


----------



## cuchuflete

winklepicker said:


> If our current policies were working, I'd be falling over myself to agree with Cuchu (and send him presents of peas and honey, of course).


  Agree about what?

Thanks for the knife coatings.




> Those who support incarceration may be right, but they have to justify it ...


 No, they don't.
They have the weight of inertia on their side, and all the legal right in the world.  Of course that doesn't make it useful to run the same folks in and out of prison over and over again, but letting the convicted ones run free also seems in need of some justification, doesn't it?  

A year or so ago, I was sent to do some volunteer work at a prison--high security--in the southern part of my state.  I used the internet to try to find the exact address.  That led me to a very long Portland Press article about my state's prison system.  Going from memory, so the numbers may be off by a bit, some 85% or more of those incarcerated for murder were drug or alcohol addicts.
The addiction rate for the murder victims was not much lower.   Incarceration _per se _seems less a cause of recidivism than the addiction problems that were present at the time of the first imprisonment.  I suggest that for the addicted, prison is not a deterrent, and that its only values are for potential rehabilitation, which usually doesn't adequately address addiction issues, and to keep the convicts away from society for a while, for the potential benefit of both.


----------



## .   1

TRG said:


> It's a euphemism.


Fair dinkum?

.,,


----------



## maxiogee

TRG said:


> It's a euphemism.



Is it?
*euphemism:* 
an inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive​For what is it substituting?


----------



## ireney

(take a deep breath this is a typical Greek sentence cut short; In other words its merely long) 
The undeniable fact that in some if not most countries prisons are used  as a place to pack up offenders for a certain amount of time for reasons that have little to do with rehabilitation (unless the incarceration is enough of a shock to make them sort of rehabilitate themselves) does not mean that it is the system that is at fault but its usage.

If we were to discuss the question of "Do most prisons you know about serve the purpose of rehabilitating offenders" I would answer "no". If the question is "does the system need to change so that it will help prionsers become reinstated which would be obvious by the lowering numbers of repeat offenders" I would answer "Yes". My understanding however is that we are not asking whether the system dumps people in prisons and does nothing or too little to help their becoming non-harmful if not useful members of the society. 

P.S. I am not sure that the discussion of Mr. Average looting is a totally different matter but it could lead to a parallel discussion. However, even if we don't discuss the, as I see it, very good example of JamesM, I cannot see why we are not to take into consideration the fact that the mere existence of a punishment deters some people from committing a crime. It may not deter all but it deters some. Inadequate? Maybe, I don't know. Not functioning as such? No.


----------



## .   1

maxiogee said:


> Is it?*euphemism:* ​
> an inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive​For what is it substituting?


Patronising for creative or constructive.

.,,


----------



## maxiogee

ireney said:


> (take a deep breath this is a typical Greek sentence cut short; In other words its merely long)
> The undeniable fact that in some if not most countries prisons are used  as a place to pack up offenders for a certain amount of time for reasons that have little to do with rehabilitation (unless the incarceration is enough of a shock to make them sort of rehabilitate themselves) does not mean that it is the system that is at fault but its usage.



Richard Lovelace was right in more than one way when he wrote:
Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage;​It's all very well safeguarding society from these people by removing them from it, but there must be some constructive external input into the rehabilitation process, and I don't think many countries have any at all.

The question is not so much one of "why is X in prison?", but rather "What do we expect prison to do to X?"

In these days when governments are not as free to tax as they used to be, and when every cent/penny has to be eked out for all it is worth, it is difficult to get support for spending money on prisons and prisoners. But if society doesn't treat the reasons which sent X to prison, X is going to come out unchanged. Someone needs to 'connect' with X and see what's going on. I'm not ascribing X's crimes to a bad childhood or a rotten environment, but there are causes to all our behaviours and without sorting those out they will have persistent and repeated effects.


----------



## geve

winklepicker said:


> But as Amityville has so clearly said, we are not dealing with Mr Average here: we are dealing with habitual offenders.


Who changed the topic? 
If the question is still "Should society punish offenders?" I think it's important to take into account all kinds of offenses - and especially not to leave aside the small ones which constitute the major part of offenses (though not the most visible ones - but not every rule breaker is a serial killer).



cuchuflete said:


> If you are still not persuaded that punishment can be a deterrent, consider driving habits. If you receive citations/tickets/summonses for speeding, you are apt to be careful, use a radar detector, check with friends and other sources for speed trap locations. In short, you will change the way you act to avoid punishment.


I think that the existence of a punishment might be deterrent punctually (when you know you could be caught), but it's not convincing on the long term - unless you put radars or police on every mile of every road to continue on the driving example. Most people don't change their driving habit overall: they just slow down when they know there's a radar. I don't think that's what's aimed at, people slowing down every 30 minutes. 
On the contrary, take the example of wearing seatbelts in the back seats: when the rule was enforced in France, the threat of a fine did not produce very convincing results. What did work a lot better was communication campaigns - and especially a rather crude one, that showed the effects that the fact of not wearing your seatbelt at the back could have, not only on yourself but on the other passengers.

So, sticking to the set of examples that you picked - children, WR members, drivers who commit 'common' offenses (and not serial killers, passionate crimes and the like): the thing is, many people see the fine business as a game, at which you sometimes loose (ie. get a fine). Once they've integrated what was really at stake (through educating, making people aware of the ins and outs of the rule) the game takes another dimension. 
In the case of seatbelts, consider life and health of your loved ones, vs. a 135€ fine... The same goes with children: forbid them to use the word "mongol" as an insult for instance. They might obey but chances are that as soon as you'll be out of earshot, here comes the word again. If you explain to them what the word means and how it's hurtful for a category of people, they will think twice before they use it - even when they're sure they would not get caught.
Oh, there will always be people who can't or won't be educated - but they shouldn't be a reason to stop trying and rely exclusively on punishment to do the job.

It just saddens me to see that when there seems to be some social tension, the only answer offered is to increase police workforce and prisons capacity. It's probably that it's less painful and easier to implement, than to put oneself in question and to try to get to the heart of the matter.


----------



## winklepicker

cuchuflete said:


> some 85% or more of those incarcerated for murder were drug or alcohol addicts.


 
So maybe they should be in hospitals instead of gaols?


----------



## Chaska Ñawi

Re Winklepinker's comment:  A Canadian study released yesterday concluded after five years of research that far more money was being spent on law-enforcement and "punishment" than on educational programs, treatment, and assistance - AND that this imbalance was seriously affecting the country's ability to curtail drug use.

There are parts of Toronto where gangs have acquired considerable power.  Their rise to prominence has occurred .... surprise, surprise .... since the public funding for youth programs like sports, arts, and music was withdrawn in their communities when most of these boys were pre-teens.

It is perfectly possible to grow up with all one's needs fulfilled and still "go to the dark side".  That isn't the point I'm making here.  However, here's a question.  The word "society" suggests mutual support.  If a society does not support its younger members, but rather disenfranchises them, has it filled its obligations to its members?  "Obligation" is a much stronger word than "right", but the two often walk hand in hand.

Restorative justice and sentencing circles are beginning to appear more frequently in Canadian aboriginal communities, but this could well be a topic for a new thread.


----------



## Kajjo

Amityville said:


> Cuchuflete - your examples of how deterrence works apply to children and to foreri. It works in certain situations. It works for the law-abiding and the dependant.


Yes. Thus, it works for the majority of criminal cases: theft, fraud, brutality, rape, child abuse ... many of those people have to loose a lot. Deterrence works great for such people.

Imagine a world with no punishment .. just saying "that's wrong" won't people keep from tax fraud, stealing in supermarkets, molesting women and children, hit-and-run driving and so on.



			
				Amityville said:
			
		

> Take murder - domestic, political or serial. None of those is susceptible to deterrent punishments.


Right.  Cuchuflete answered that perfectly:


			
				Cuchuflete said:
			
		

> So, for those who will not be deterred, imprisonment serves a more limited but still useful purpose: protect society from the criminal.


Yes, the most important issue is to protect society from criminals, particularly from physical harm. Thinking about victims instead of offenders should become more popular -- it is among all who have been victim and it appears to be ignored by many who are not. Missing empathy or misunderstood political correctness?

Kajjo


----------



## winklepicker

Kajjo said:


> Missing empathy or misunderstood political correctness?


 
Neither thing. I am distinguishing between punishment (punitive action, possibly vengeful) and actions likely to decrease the level of crime in society. Punishment does not help victims, other than to assuage the desire for revenge - a feeling which is natural but not helpful: if we take an eye for an eye, everyone ends up blind.

Victims are most likely to be helped - and so is everyone else - by such actions as will reduce crime in our societies. Incarceration is an option, but as we currently use it, it does NOT protect society from offenders (see above). I'm suggesting we think about other options.

What do you suggest?


----------



## TRG

. said:


> Fair dinkum?
> 
> .,,


 
euphemism: _the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt._ 

It is more pleasant to say of someone that they "paid their debt to society" than to say whatever their actual punishment was. It almost never has anything to do with an actual payment of debt or compensation to victims. However, it does seem common now for people to be sentenced to community service for minor crimes, in which case they are in fact paying a debt, so I guess you could take it either way, but I think most people simply mean that the person has served their sentence. My use of euphemism means the substitution of one phrase with one that does not have the same literal meaning.


----------



## LV4-26

Nun Translator said:
			
		

> Are prisons for punishment or for rehabilitation?


That's what society says it is for. But, in reality, it is for neither of them. But I already addressed this. I'd just like to try and go deeper in the "rehabilitation" issue.





winklepicker said:


> Meanwhile, there are some good reasons why we should NOT imprison. A few are: a) it gives a badge of honour in the criminal community; b) it creates 'universities of crime'; c) it does not recompense the victim.


I strongly agree. I just think a) and b) are the same, or very closely related (see below).


winklepicker said:


> So how best do we rehabilitate offenders?





maxiogee said:


> Someone needs to 'connect' with X and see what's going on. I'm not ascribing X's crimes to a bad childhood or a rotten environment, but there are causes to all our behaviours and without sorting those out they will have persistent and repeated effects.


Right, there is something else than just bad childhood. But I think we shouldn't ignore "rotten environment".

I'd like to say something that doesn't seem to have been mentionned before (or maybe I've missed it). Criminals are not fundamentally different. I feel I need to state the following preamble if I want you to understand what I'm trying to get at.

I am in no way fundamentally better than any criminal. What makes me different from them is that I have met the right people, I have been in contact with positive models. The word "model" is something very important to me, as I'm of those who believe in the crucial importance of "mimetic desire" in our social or interindividual behaviour, beliefs, opinions....(some may have already noted that I'm a devoted follower of René Girard's ideas).In short, I don't believe I "made" myself, I believe the others did. I'm "born anew" by each word I read or hear from my contemporaries.

As winklepicker said, prisons are often viewed (rightly, I think) are schools of crime. Why? Because, before being incarcerated, the inmates had still a chance of being in contact with different kinds of people. In prison, young offenders are only confronted with negative adult models, with people for whom crime is "desirable", for whom going to prison gives them a "badge of honour" as wp said, and they just mimic that desire. 

If we want to give criminals a chance of rehabilitation, we have to offer them somehow positive models, give them a chance to be in contact with people who are not law-breakers and, nonetheless, look happy, "cool", what have you, people that may present the criminals with a "valuable"/desirable image of, shall we say, good-doing?

In a similar sense, I like such ideas as "restorative justice", community service (just an example among many others : people being caught driving in a state of drunkenness are made to work in an hospital section with victims of car accidents - I know this exists in France, I don't know about other countries). All this may seem fairly naive, but my point is merely to insist that rehabilitation will result from (positive) social contacts and not isolation. Maybe we should give them a chance to experience how it feels to do good and live in harmony with their contemporaries.


----------



## TRG

LV4-26 said:


> That's what society says it is for. But, in reality, it is for neither of them. But I already addressed this. I'd just like to try and go deeper in the "rehabilitation" issue.I strongly agree. I just think a) and b) are the same, or very closely related (see below).
> 
> Right, there is something else than just bad childhood. But I think we shouldn't ignore "rotten environment".
> 
> I'd like to say something that doesn't seem to have been mentionned before (or maybe I've missed it). Criminals are not fundamentally different. I feel I need to state the following preamble if I want you to understand what I'm trying to get at.
> 
> I am in no way fundamentally better than any criminal. What makes me different from them is that I have met the right people, I have been in contact with positive models. The word "model" is something very important to me, as I'm of those who believe in the crucial importance of "mimetic desire" in our social or interindividual behaviour, beliefs, opinions....(some may have already noted that I'm a devoted follower of René Girard's ideas).In short, I don't believe I "made" myself, I believe the others did. I'm "born anew" by each word I read or hear from my contemporaries.
> 
> As winklepicker said, prisons are often viewed (rightly, I think) are schools of crime. Why? Because, before being incarcerated, the inmates had still a chance of being in contact with different kinds of people. In prison, young offenders are only confronted with negative adult models, with people for whom crime is "desirable", for whom going to prison gives them a "badge of honour" as wp said, and they just mimic that desire.
> 
> If we want to give criminals a chance of rehabilitation, we have to offer them somehow positive models, give them a chance to be in contact with people who are not law-breakers and, nonetheless, look happy, "cool", what have you, people that may present the criminals with a "valuable"/desirable image of, shall we say, good-doing?
> 
> In a similar sense, I like such ideas as "restorative justice", community service (just an example among many others : people being caught driving in a state of drunkenness are made to work in an hospital section with victims of car accidents - I know this exists in France, I don't know about other countries). All this may seem fairly naive, but my point is merely to insist that rehabilitation will result from (positive) social contacts and not isolation. Maybe we should give them a chance to experience how it feels to do good and live in harmony with their contemporaries.


 
This is a noble and kind way to look at your fellow beings. However, it seems to preclude the possibility that an individual person or organism could be inherently flawed, a natural born killer, as it were. Now we know that is possible for any organism to be born, sprout, whatever with genetic defects. The causes of these defects may be known or not. I just don't know how you can preclude the possibility that people may be born lacking some important attribute that is necessary for them to become socially responsible individuals. I would prefer the world to be as you see it, because then we would have it within our grasp to correct any form of criminal or other antisocial behavior. I am not too optimistic on this point however.


----------



## .   1

TRG said:


> However, it seems to preclude the possibility that an individual person or organism could be inherently flawed, a natural born killer, as it were.


Do you have any information to support the concept that it is possible to be born a killer?

.,,


----------



## maxiogee

TRG said:


> This is a noble and kind way to look at your fellow beings. However, it seems to preclude the possibility that an individual person or organism could be inherently flawed, a natural born killer, as it were.



Yes, it does, doesn't it?
It is only from Americans that I have ever encountered such a concept. Several correspondents have independently used the expression 'bad seed' in communications with me. I am stunned by the concept.


----------



## TRG

. said:


> Do you have any information to support the concept that it is possible to be born a killer?
> 
> .,,


 
I don't, but my point was really along the line that it's difficult to rule out the possibility all together. I will admit that I find it quite plausible because to think otherwise is to believe that we are all born, in a sense, perfect. We do know that we are not all born perfect physiologically and since the brain is part of our physiology it is not unreasonable to consider that someone is born with defects that result in antisocial behavior. The defect could be in the brain, but it could be elsewhere, perhaps in the endocrine system. This is the nature/nurture debate which has been going on a long time and would seem to be far from settled with lots of adherents on each side.


----------



## maxiogee

TRG said:


> I don't, but my point was really along the line that it's difficult to rule out the possibility all together. I will admit that I find it quite plausible because to think otherwise is to believe that we are all born, in a sense, perfect. We do know that we are not all born perfect physiologically and since the brain is part of our physiology it is not unreasonable to consider that someone is born with defects that result in antisocial behavior. The defect could be in the brain, but it could be elsewhere, perhaps in the endocrine system. This is the nature/nurture debate which has been going on a long time and would seem to be far from settled with lots of adherents on each side.



Why do you associate the concept of an antisocial attitude with a *defect*?
I have a higher level of _asocial_ behaviour than many people I know, but I don't see it as a defect.

There's a difference between being born _different_ and being born _more imperfect_ than others.


----------



## .   1

I guess with that logic it is impossible to rule out the possibility that trees are aware of us and are plotting our destruction as soon as they can organise an ent moot.
I have never seen even one credible piece of information linking criminal behaviour with genetics.
I have never seen one piece of credible information debunking the concept that complex behavioural patterns can not be transmitted genetically.
The very notion smacks of superiority which is blood brother to bigotry.

.,,


----------



## TRG

. said:


> I guess with that logic it is impossible to rule out the possibility that trees are aware of us and are plotting our destruction as soon as they can organise an ent moot.
> I have never seen even one credible piece of information linking criminal behaviour with genetics.
> I have never seen one piece of credible information debunking the concept that complex behavioural patterns can not be transmitted genetically.
> The very notion smacks of superiority which is blood brother to bigotry.
> 
> .,,


 
Perhaps you haven't, but it's not such an outlandish idea that people can't believe it without being bigoted. Consider gayness. It seems to me that is is becoming an accepted idea that gayness, a behavior, is part of a persons genetic code. Being gay is not a defect, but it is a difference that affects behavior. It's not antisocial, although it has been considered so in the past and is still considered to be so by some (not me). So if you believe that a person is born gay, then you should be open to the possibility that a person may be born with other innate behavioral tendencies, some of which could be anti-social.


----------



## Kajjo

LV4-26 said:


> If we want to give criminals a chance of rehabilitation, we have to offer them somehow positive models, give them a chance to be in contact with people who are not law-breakers [...] All this may seem fairly naive, but my point is merely to insist that rehabilitation will result from (positive) social contacts and not isolation. Maybe we should give them a chance to experience how it feels to do good and live in harmony with their contemporaries.


Your statement assumes that most perpetrators are not socially integrated. This is wrong for most offenses (tax fraud, stealing in supermarkets, hit-and-run drivers, drunken driving, child molesters and many more). Of course, the situation _might_ be different in the US, but in Europe I do not think that the majority of crimes originates in very poor and raised-to-be-criminal families. Most offenders commit crimes because of the prospect of personal advantages and with conscious ignorance of and disregard towards rules that hold together our society. Such people do not need caring of nice people, they need to realise their behaviour is not tolerated. Breaking rules must hurt, otherwise they, and many others, will do so, too.

Kajjo


----------



## .   1

I don't believe that a person can be born gay.
I don't believe that a person can be born straight.
I don't believe that a person is necessarily born to be sexually active.
Look at Michael Jackson.
I am a little bit uncomfortable discussing sexuality and social disfunction.
Murder is universally condemned as is rape and theft but sexual mores are flexible and have nothing to do with social disfunction.
Many cultures embrace homosexuality as simply a part of life.  It would be an interesting bloke who would be willing to confront a Spartan warrior and tell the Spartan warrior that he thought that homosexuality was socially disfunctional or to wander around Polynesia denigrating gay people.
I'd love to see the incident report.
"Reports of an oily smudge appearing on the footpath of local street are being investigated."

.,,


----------



## .   1

Kajjo said:


> Your statement assumes that most perpetrators are not socially integrated.


I am still waiting for you to substantiate your opinion that criminals can be considered to be socially intergrated.
To be socially intergrated surely implies a full intergration not simply a veneer to conceal an atavism.
A law abiding person is socially intergrated.
A person who commits offences is not socially intergrated.
How else do you define a lack of social intergration other than by offences against the social pattern and laws of the day?
Is a wife beater socially intergrated?
Is a rapist socially intergrated?
Is a thief socially intergrated?
Is a drunk driver socially intergrated?
Is a bully socially intergrated?
Is a bigot socially intergrated?

Robert


----------



## LV4-26

TRG said:
			
		

> [...]it seems to preclude the possibility that an individual person or organism could be inherently flawed, a natural born killer, as it were.


I don't totally preclude that possibility. Actually, I don't know, I don't have any definite answer to the question whether such people as  "natural born killers/criminals" exist. I have indeed heard of "double Y chromosoms" but I'm still not sure whether it's a proven fact or whether it's only been observed on the inmates of Fiorina16's penitentiary in Alien3.  It seems to be extremely rare anyway.

I had that in mind all the time I was typing my previous posts and expected this objection. But I deliberately omitted to mention it. Because, yes, it's a point against rehabilitation (it would indeed ruin any hope of rehabilitation) but it's also a point against punishment. I mean, if criminals are "genetically" bound to commit crime, where is their responsibility and what should they be "punished" for?

And, by the way, it is neither noble nor kind. It's just the result of observation, experience, and self-examination.


----------



## JamesM

> I had that in mind all the time I was typing my previous posts and expected this objection. But I deliberately omitted to mention it. Because, yes, it's a point against rehabilitation (it would indeed ruin any hope of rehabilitation) but it's also a point against punishment. I mean, if criminals are "genetically" bound to commit crime, where is their responsibility and what should they be "punished" for?


 
What would you propose be done with a person who kills repeatedly and without remorse or regret? I have a cousin who works as a nurse in a facility for the criminally insane. There are such people, and they have no desire to "rehabilitated". They see nothing wrong with killing other people. One man was back in after being "cured" on a previous conviction. Within 24 hours he had killed two people and seriously injured another. The first person was killed because they took too long to hang up the pump handle at the gas station; the second, because he liked the guy's car better than the one he had. When the man refused to give him the car, he shot him and took the car.

I can understand that "punishment" is not going to do anything for this person, but "rehabilitation" is also not an option. He thinks the rest of us are crazy for not killing anyone who irritates us or gets in our way. 

What is society's "right" in this case? 

I understand that this is not representative of the majority of people in prison, but such people do exist. Does society not have the right to protect the rest of its members from a person such as this? Certainly it's "punishment" for him to be locked away for the rest of his life, but what alternative do you suggest? The man has already proven he can show all the signs of "recovery" to the point of being released, only to kill again.  We are the "mindless sheep", in his words, who deserve to be slaughtered if we're in the way.


----------



## .   1

JamesM said:


> One man was back in after being "cured" on a previous conviction. Within 24 hours he had killed two people and seriously injured another. The first person was killed because they took too long to hang up the pump handle at the gas station; the second, because he liked the guy's car better than the one he had. When the man refused to give him the car, he shot him and took the car.


This is a prime example demonstrating the flawed notion that punishing criminals is beneficial to anybody.
Is it just possible that had that bloke been incarcerated in a system that was actively geared towards his rehabilatation he may have gained some form of closure and not felt the need to rebel so flamboyantly against a society against which he obviously harboured a deep seated hatred?

What did the prison system do to that bloke that was so amazingly able to result in him committing offences that he obviously knew he was going to be caught for committing within hours of his release? 
It is obvious that he did not really fear the punishment.
It is obvious that the punishment did not have any positive effect. If anything it appears to have honed his killing skills and he went from needing only one death to get his fix but after prison he needed double the dose and two innocent people died.
I suspect that his subsequent victims would have voted for a prison system trying to turn our citizens not recividists had they been given the opportunity.

.,,


----------



## JamesM

> Is it just possible that had that bloke been incarcerated in a system that was actively geared towards his rehabilatation he may have gained some form of closure and not felt the need to rebel so flamboyantly against a society against which he obviously harboured a deep seated hatred?


 
There seem to be quite a few assumptions in your response about the type of treatment this man received. 

The facility he was in was exclusively designed for rehabilitation.  In California, the criminally insane are not put in prison, but in hospitals, and given treatment to assist in their recovery from whatever mental illness caused the behavior.  They are distinctly different facilities from our prisons and are staffed by psychiatrists, doctors, nurses, and therapists.  The assumption is that the person, had he not been mentally ill at the time, would not have committed the crime.

Here is a brief review of a documentary on the hospital where she works:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7D61E3BF933A25750C0A964958260


----------



## maxiogee

In talking about the habitual killers and rapists we are getting to the extreme zones of the penal system, I suspect.

What percentage of murders/rapes are committed by serial offenders?

I imagine that the purpose of the thread is to examine the handling of the routine, one-off, run-of-the-mill crimes which clog up every country's courts and prisons.
It would be nice to get to discuss the principles without wading into the more extreme (and I deeply suspect, very rare) cases.


----------



## .   1

You are not kidding about the brief part.

It is not just that hospital that is the problem although I must say that a person struggling with mental difficulties has enormous dealing with medical scepticism.
There was a hint in the brief review that perhaps the inmates were not treated quite as well when the camera was not around and that is a bit chilling combined with the reference to scepticism and fakery in such a short review.  The reviewer must have been heavily impacted by these impressions to have gone to the trouble to include them where there was such a limited number of words available in the review.

.,,


----------



## JamesM

It was not my intention to wade into an extreme zone. I apologize if I took the discussion off-course. To me, a system must be designed to handle all cases. If the system does not account for serial murderers, then it has not addressed all the possibilities. Since the discussion started out as a discussion about the "right" of society to punish, I think all cases are worth considering, extreme or not.

Much of the discussion of rehabilitation, in my opinion, assumes a desire on the part of the convicted criminal to be rehabilitated. This is not a foregone conclusion, in my opinion. While it certainly makes sense to provide every possibility for a person to turn his or her life around, it does not make sense to me that all people who commit crimes are interested in leading a different life than the one that put them in prison in the first place.  If this is not included in the discussion, it seems to me that the discussion is ignoring a significant component of the population being discussed.


----------



## TRG

LV4-26 said:


> I don't totally preclude that possibility. Actually, I don't know, I don't have any definite answer to the question whether such people as "natural born killers/criminals" exist. I have indeed heard of "double Y chromosoms" but I'm still not sure whether it's a proven fact or whether it's only been observed on the inmates of Fiorina16's penitentiary in Alien3.  It seems to be extremely rare anyway.
> 
> I had that in mind all the time I was typing my previous posts and expected this objection. But I deliberately omitted to mention it. Because, yes, it's a point against rehabilitation (it would indeed ruin any hope of rehabilitation) but it's also a point against punishment. I mean, if criminals are "genetically" bound to commit crime, where is their responsibility and what should they be "punished" for?
> 
> And, by the way, it is neither noble nor kind. It's just the result of observation, experience, and self-examination.


 
If someone is "hardwired" to be antisocial, it does call into question the value of punishment. But, ask yourself this question: Do you think there would be more or less rape if rape was not a crime? If they are so "hardwired" as to be unable to resist the urge to commit some criminal act, then punishment is obviously a waste of time and all you can hope to do is keep the person away from society, i.e., locked up. What else can you do?


----------



## winklepicker

JamesM said:


> To me, a system must be designed to handle all cases. If the system does not account for serial murderers, then it has not addressed all the possibilities.
> 
> Much of the discussion of rehabilitation, in my opinion, assumes a desire on the part of the convicted criminal to be rehabilitated. This is not a foregone conclusion, in my opinion. While it certainly makes sense to provide every possibility for a person to turn his or her life around, it does not make sense to me that all people who commit crimes are interested in leading a different life than the one that put them in prison in the first place. If this is not included in the discussion, it seems to me that the discussion is ignoring a significant component of the population being discussed.


 
Hear hear! It is perfectly possible that there some people who are not redeemable. Maybe they would be 'genetic criminals'? If we can identify them the only solution would be either to kill them or lock them up for life.

There are, however, two problems. First, how do we identify these people? Second, we have to deconstruct a system which lumps them in with the non-genetic criminals, who _are_ capable of salvation - because clearly the two groups need very different treatment. Does anyone have any suggestions how these things might be done?

I find it very interesting, as an aside, that many people who claim to subscribe to the world's great salvationist religions often also hold the view that homosexuals, foreigners, blacks, criminals, aborigines, democrats, Red Sox fans, factory workers, liberals (make your own list) are NOT capable of redemption. 

_"This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners."_


----------



## winklepicker

TRG said:


> Do you think there would be more or less rape if rape was not a crime? If they are so "hardwired" as to be unable to resist the urge to commit some criminal act, then punishment is obviously a waste of time and all you can hope to do is keep the person away from society, i.e., locked up. What else can you do?


 
Hear hear again! So punishment is useless to the 'born criminal' and does not rehabilitate the others. Why do we use it?


----------



## JamesM

. said:


> You are not kidding about the brief part.
> 
> It is not just that hospital that is the problem although I must say that a person struggling with mental difficulties has enormous dealing with medical scepticism.


 
I would not consider a hospital that has a track record of 88% of their released patients not committing another crime as a "problem."   What would be an acceptable rate of recidivism?

While many of our prisons in the U.S. are far from model institutions, I believe that Patton's track record is something that many countries would be happy to have for a rehabilitation facility, a hospital for the criminally insane.


----------



## LV4-26

JamesM said:
			
		

> What would you propose be done with a person who kills repeatedly and without remorse or regret? I have a cousin who works as a nurse in a facility for the criminally insane.[...]


EDIT : Now I've read, it seems this also answers TRG's last post.

Sadly, the only option for the insane muderers is exclusion from society, whether in prison or in hospitals (I'd favor the latter). I fear it is the only possible (may be temporary) answer we've found so far. When I said "what should they be punished for", I meant "punished" in the strong sense of "retribution". But, in this specific instance, we're not actually punishing them, we're protecting society (and, in some cases, themselves) from them, even though it takes the same form as what is generally called "punishment". Again, the ambiguity of that notion.

Mind you, I'm not offering alternative solutions. I'm just pointing out difficulties in the ones we tend to consider as self-evident. Maybe there *are* problems without a satisfying solution.

I wouldn't want any of you to think that my aim is to wipe out or even attenuate the responsibility of criminals. On the contrary, if they are not any fundamentally worse or better than other citizens, it means they are equally responsible as we are. It is our responsibility to say "no" when we're inclined to say "yes". Prison, in my mind, doesn't help making criminals feel responsible for their acts. It may make them feel sorry they've been caught, not much more. On the other hand, I think things like restorative justice and community service helps bring about that feeling of responsibility. But then again, incarceration seems to be just about the only thing we have so far... I mean *I* wouldn't take the responsibility of letting all the prisoners out this instant...Just wondering.... thinking aloud...right?

In that sense, to me, the most important stage in dealing with criminals is the trial and, specifically, the moment when they are *held responsible* for what they've done. What happens after, i.e. the sentence, is subjective as I said. Should the punishment fit the crime? How do we do that? I don't know of any mathematical equation for that purpose.


----------



## TRG

I have often thought that the problem of what to do with the criminally insane was exactly the same as for the merely criminal. It is extremely difficult to tell when one is cured or the other is rehabilitated, but we know that both of these things do occur, so it is worth trying. It is just one of the unfortunate imperfections in our little world that we have to accept.


----------



## LV4-26

Kajjo said:


> Your statement assumes that most perpetrators are not socially integrated.


 If I gave that impression, it means I didn't express myself well 





> This is wrong for most offenses (tax fraud, stealing in supermarkets, hit-and-run drivers, drunken driving, child molesters and many more).


 Incidentally, "stealing in supermarkets", I've done that a couple of times when I was young. But I didn't go to prison because I wasn't caught.  (when I  told you I was no better than criminals).  And I do believe I'm now rehabilitated.  ....I hope. Well, at least, I've never done it again. 





> Most offenders commit crimes because of the prospect of personal advantages and with conscious ignorance of and disregard towards rules that hold together our society.


That doesn't seem to contradict what I said. They're doing that because it is considered OK and even valuable in the social environment they live in. I know tax fraud can even be considered as some sort of sport and praised in some circles.


----------



## TRG

winklepicker said:


> Hear hear! It is perfectly possible that there some people who are not redeemable. Maybe they would be 'genetic criminals'? If we can identify them the only solution would be either to kill them or lock them up for life.
> 
> There are, however, two problems. First, how do we identify these people? Second, we have to deconstruct a system which lumps them in with the non-genetic criminals, who _are_ capable of salvation - because clearly the two groups need very different treatment. Does anyone have any suggestions how these things might be done?
> 
> I find it very interesting, as an aside, that many people who claim to subscribe to the world's great salvationist religions often also hold the view that homosexuals, foreigners, blacks, criminals, aborigines, democrats, Red Sox fans, factory workers, liberals (make your own list) are NOT capable of redemption.
> 
> _"This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners."_


 
I would only comment on one religion (Christianity). They seem to be willing to offer salvation to anyone who wants it (except maybe for the liberals, of course). Anyone claiming to be a Christian holding to the views you describe would have announced to everyone that he is a hypocrite and I think Jesus was fairly clear on how he felt about this type of person.  But, I get your point.


----------



## JamesM

TRG said:


> I have often thought that the problem of what to do with the criminally insane was exactly the same as for the merely criminal. It is extremely difficult to tell when one is cured or the other is rehabilitated, but we know that both of these things do occur, so it is worth trying. It is just one of the unfortunate imperfections in our little world that we have to accept.


 
I agree.  I think it's essential that those who have the desire to be rehabilitated have the opportunity to be rehabilitated.


----------



## TRG

maxiogee said:


> Why do you associate the concept of an antisocial attitude with a *defect*?
> I have a higher level of _asocial_ behaviour than many people I know, but I don't see it as a defect.
> 
> There's a difference between being born _different_ and being born _more imperfect_ than others.


 
What I said was, "_it is not unreasonable to consider that someone is born with defects that result in antisocial behavior_". I'm not sure I can say what I meant any more clearly than that given that we are not talking about any antisocial behavior, but that which is sufficiently antisocial so as so warrant punishment, i.e., criminal.

I'm not sure asocial and antisocial are the same. Are they?

Your last sentence may fall into the category of, as some like to say, a distinction without a difference. However, I'll try to answer. We are all different and we are all imperfect. Some would say that a sufficiently imperfect person has a defect, as in birth defect. This may not be polite nowadays. I'm not sure, but I'm not trying to be mean. If a person was born without hands, for instance, some would call this a defect. If it were possible that a person could be born without a conscience and we could identify that as a medical condition, then that would also be called a defect.


----------



## maxiogee

TRG said:


> I'm not sure asocial and antisocial are the same. Are they?


No. I wasn't inferring that they are. I was making a point about where, along a spectrum of socialability, I fit among my fellow humans.
And that leads me to …



TRG said:


> Your last sentence may fall into the category of, as some like to say, a distinction without a difference. However, I'll try to answer. We are all different and we are all imperfect.


My point was that you are implying that some are not just different and imperfect, but are also 'broken' as adjudged in comparison to some form of social 'norm'. My point about 'more imperfect' was to say that there is no such 'norm' of unbrokenness. 

You are insisting that there are certain people who are not correctly made - and you imply therefore that society needs to label only these people as 'defective'. My point is that there are none of us correctly made - we are all defective. I certainly am.


----------



## TRG

maxiogee said:


> No. I wasn't inferring that they are. I was making a point about where, along a spectrum of socialability, I fit among my fellow humans.
> And that leads me to …
> 
> 
> My point was that you are implying that some are not just different and imperfect, but are also 'broken' as adjudged in comparison to some form of social 'norm'. My point about 'more imperfect' was to say that there is no such 'norm' of unbrokenness.
> 
> You are insisting that there are certain people who are not correctly made - and you imply therefore that society needs to label only these people as 'defective'. My point is that there are none of us correctly made - we are all defective. I certainly am.


 
This is a difficult thing to talk about and I'm not going to try to restate what I've said or respond directly to your comments, but I would pose this question: "Should their be any scientific inquiry to determine if behavior can be the result of an individual's genetic coding?" To me, this is a question worthy of inquiry, and, at least in my case, it doesn't connote any desire to judge people as being more of less worthy of being born. I have no emotional baggage associated with the fact that people are born with differences. I believe it would be helpful to mankind to know this, if true. A good analogy is the manner in which we deal with people who are mentally ill. A person whose socially unacceptable behavior is the result of mental illness must receive medical treatment. Trying to rehabilitate such a person using the typical methods of rehabilitation is not going to get results. I'm merely suggesting that some behavior that society views as criminal that we do not now recognize as being due to a "medical condition" may in fact be just that.

If your answer to my question was that there should not be such scientific inquiry, I would be interested to know why you think so.


----------



## geve

TRG said:


> This is a difficult thing to talk about and I'm not going to try to restate what I've said or respond directly to your comments, but I would pose this question: "Should their be any scientific inquiry to determine if behavior can be the result of an individual's genetic coding?" To me, this is a question worthy of inquiry, and, at least in my case, it doesn't connote any desire to judge people as being more of less worthy of being born. I have no emotional baggage associated with the fact that people are born with differences. I believe it would be helpful to mankind to know this, if true. A good analogy is the manner in which we deal with people who are mentally ill. A person whose socially unacceptable behavior is the result of mental illness must receive medical treatment. Trying to rehabilitate such a person using the typical methods of rehabilitation is not going to get results. I'm merely suggesting that some behavior that society views as criminal that we do not now recognize as being due to a "medical condition" may in fact be just that.
> 
> If your answer to my question was that there should not be such scientific inquiry, I would be interested to know why you think so.


If we want to stay within the topic of this thread, I would just answer that I feel you're focusing on offenders of the most extreme kind, which is detrimental to the discussion IMO.
Is _"Thou shall not kill"_ the only rule that one could transgress? What about _"Thou shall not drive faster than the limit / destroy someone else's property / leave your dog's poo on the sidewalk / employ someone for less than the minimum wage / drive without a driving license / cross the street elsewhere than on the zebra crossings / go have a swim in someone else's private pool without having asked beforehand / paint your name on walls that don't belong to you / leave your garbage everywhere / impose your loud music on your neighbours at 2 AM / ..."_?

The list may vary from country to country of course, but I would venture a guess that in every country the list is quite long. Once again, not all offenders are serial killers or rapists. Would you say that those who leave their dog's poo on the sidewalk (which is forbidden where I live, and subject to a 183€ fine / punishment) were just born this way? That some of us were born with the "I let my dog defecate everywhere" gene, while others were granted the "I won't have the tax department have my money" gene (some might have both, too)?
I think *we are all potential offenders*; but at some point we choose not to commit an offense - or we don't choose to commit an offense - or we never have to make a choice - or we've never considered the possibility of a choice. 
*Or, we are all potential rule-abiding citizens*; but at some point we choose not to respect a rule - or we don't choose to respect a rule - or we never have to make a choice - or we never considered the possibility of a choice.


I'd like to clarify what I said earlier: 


geve said:


> It just saddens me to see that when there seems to be some social tension, the only answer offered is to increase police workforce and prisons capacity.


It seems to be a common idea that a society successfully fights delinquency and crime by *arresting more of the offenders*. 
While this might be true, it's restrictive: a society is successful in its fight against delinquency and crime when it manages to *reduce the amount of offenses and crimes committed*.

And I don't think that punishment or the threat thereof is the right answer (or a sufficient one) to achieve this; instead, society would probably need to instil respect and integration, feeling of belonging and sense of responsibility of one's acts among its members. 
To define how to reach such an ambitious goal, we would probably need to move to specific countries and societies, as Cuchuflete foresaw.


----------



## maxiogee

TRG said:


> If your answer to my question was that there should not be such scientific inquiry, I would be interested to know why you think so.



I am loath to suggest that there be boundaries to the things that science ought rightly investigate - I think all things must be open to question and research - but I wonder what, at this time, would be the point of such research. You say "To me, this is a question worthy of inquiry,", well I would withhold such a judgement until I heard what use might be made of such research.
I am already concerned about the ability to spot what health- and life-insurers would see as genetic flaws — whether in pre-natal scans or in required medical examinations when insurance is sought.

I would also feel a reluctance to be convinced that a 'certainty' could be gained from such research. I would imagine that any such 'genetic fault' is likely to be a matter of several distinct problems coinciding. The pool of test subjects would need to be immense to assure me (and, I imagine, many others) that the researchers had got it right. And if they cannot give a 100% accuracy figure in this sort of thing then they ought not to give one at all.




geve said:


> If we want to stay within the topic of this thread, I would just answer that I feel you're focusing on offenders of the most extreme kind, which is detrimental to the discussion IMO.



I would refer you, and others , to what I said earlier…


maxiogee said:


> In talking about the habitual killers and rapists we are getting to the extreme zones of the penal system, I suspect.
> <snip>
> It would be nice to get to discuss the principles without wading into the more extreme (and I deeply suspect, very rare) cases.


I'm still trying to get there.


----------



## geve

maxiogee said:


> I would refer you, and others , to what I said earlier…


Yes, I was merely elaborating on your point - and on mine previously stated too 

Let's not get blinded by the most spectacular cases instead of considering more common - more numerous - facts (oops - rephrasing again!)


----------



## .   1

It is impossible to accept that a gene exists that causes a person to be instinctively a murderer because if examined from a mathematical viewpoint it becomes apparent that the human species would have become extinct way back in the early days.
Murder is learned behaviour.
Murder is nurture not nature.
What do you think would have happened to the fate of the world if Adolf Hittler's mother died in childbirth and his dad necked himself in grief leaving the one day old baby Adolf to be adopted by a fella named Mahatma who then presented Adolf Ghandi to a breathless public?
Do you reckon that young Adolf would have been doomed to be a doomed dictator growing up in the Ghandi household?

.,,


----------



## maxiogee

. said:


> Murder is learned behaviour.
> Murder is nurture not nature.


Oh, I'm not sure I agree with you there.
I think that there are cases when under some sort of pressure we act purely on impulse.
Depending on the pressure and depending on the strength of our personal impulse, we might kill. Even with some degree of premeditation. It might, to some people and at some times, seem the only solution to a pressing problem.
I don't think all murder is learned.
I don't often cite the Bible as a source, but _Cain_ didn't have a tutor and I think many others don't either.

--edit--
And anyway, he adds as a ps - is it only a choice of nature or nurture - might there be a third option?


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## .   1

How does a person know how to commit murder?
Who is born with the knowledge that if they bash a rock onto the head of a fellow they may achieve murder?
Who is born with the ability to load, aim and discharge a firearm into the body of a contemporary?
How many people come out of the womb with the inate ability to weild a knife in a method other than to cut themselves?
Are arsonists born with a greater ability to manipulate fire?

Is anybody born with enough innate hate to contemplate such acts.

Robert


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## maxiogee

. said:


> How does a person know how to


do anything?
I don't know, but we manage to.
Children have been brought up by wild animals, or totally uncaring parents, do survive. There have been recorded incidents when children have been found with totally delinquent parents who have not fed them, they have had to scavenge for themselves and they do.

Our instincts are stronger than many people know. They can and do lead us to do things we haven't been taught.


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## TRG

geve said:


> If we want to stay within the topic of this thread, I would just answer that I feel you're focusing on offenders of the most extreme kind, which is detrimental to the discussion IMO.


 
There was nothing in my post about extremes. I was merely referring to antisocial behavior that reaches the point of law breaking which leads to punishment, the subject of the thread. However, I think we do tend to focus on the extremes as you suggest.



maxiogee said:


> I am loath to suggest that there be boundaries to the things that science ought rightly investigate - I think all things must be open to question and research - but I wonder what, at this time, would be the point of such research. You say "To me, this is a question worthy of inquiry,", well I would withhold such a judgement until I heard what use might be made of such research.
> I am already concerned about the ability to spot what health- and life-insurers would see as genetic flaws — whether in pre-natal scans or in required medical examinations when insurance is sought.
> 
> I would also feel a reluctance to be convinced that a 'certainty' could be gained from such research. I would imagine that any such 'genetic fault' is likely to be a matter of several distinct problems coinciding. The pool of test subjects would need to be immense to assure me (and, I imagine, many others) that the researchers had got it right. And if they cannot give a 100% accuracy figure in this sort of thing then they ought not to give one at all.


 
It is just basic research, so it is impossible to say what you might be able to use it for until you have it. You don't know what you don't know. If you have concerns about unethical use of genetic information, you are certainly not alone. The potential for abuse of scientific discovery is always there. That doesn't mean we should put limits on science. I'm certainly not competent to discuss ethics in any meaningful way, but I'll just say that I'm very comfortable that learning as much as we can about the human genome will produce much more good than harm.


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## geve

TRG said:


> There was nothing in my post about extremes. I was merely referring to antisocial behavior that reaches the point of law breaking which leads to punishment, the subject of the thread. However, I think we do tend to focus on the extremes as you suggest.


I inferred that you were thinking about the most extreme crimes when you mentioned natural born offenders - or do you believe that people who infringe any of the rules I mentioned a few posts above were born this way? 

I think that the discussion on the interest and dangers of genetic research belong to another thread.
I don't believe that all offenders were born to be offenders; I don't believe that all offenders were molested in childhood or that there are specific social conditions that could easily explain their behaviour. I'm not even sure the word "behaviour" is relevant.
In order to answer the thread's question "should society punish offenders?" I think we must try to understand what motivates an offense - and consider all kinds of offenses while doing so.
So - why would I violate a rule?

Because I don't see the point in the rule anyway (I won't pay my tax since the State doesn't seem to be able to use my money properly)
Because it'll prove how clever I am (I can break into the CIA's system - I know I can do it!)
Because I feel that I'm above the rule (speed limits are for morons -* I* can handle the speed)
Because I don't care about the rules - me first (I'm in a hurry, make way!)
Because society never did anything for me - why should I bother? (police officers treat me like a scum, I should as well behave like one)
Because there's a higher reason that legimitates my violating the rule (I need this food for my children, and I have no money)
Because I don't understand how such a minor violation could do any harm (really it can't be that bad if I leave just this one greasy paper on that lovely preserved spot - you don't expect me to carry it with me all day?)
...
So where does this (absolutely non-comprehensive) list lead me... To more questions I guess  
Is punishment always necessary? Is it necessary so that offenders realize why what they did was wrong? Is it efficient in doing so? 
Is it necessary for society? To show its members that the rules are not just decorative items? To comfort rule-abiding citizens in their right-doing?
Is it necessary for the victims? To soothe the pain/loss? To release the anger, to appease a desire for revenge?
Should punishment be matched with an attempt to educate the offender? An attempt to understand the motive? An attempt to act on what generated the deviant act?

And now I will discreetly tiptoe out of this thread - I think I've exceeded my quota of question marks.


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## .   1

maxiogee said:


> do anything?
> I don't know, but we manage to.
> Children have been brought up by wild animals, or totally uncaring parents, do survive. There have been recorded incidents when children have been found with totally delinquent parents who have not fed them, they have had to scavenge for themselves and they do.


And these children can not speak coherently nor can they read.
They have utterly no life skills and are able to feed and excrete and not much beyond that point.



maxiogee said:


> Our instincts are stronger than many people know. They can and do lead us to do things we haven't been taught.


Such as?
For a brief window extremely young babies seem to have an instinctive ability to swim but this vanishes beyond a few months of age.
I am not sure that I possess any instinctive skills more complex than keeping my hand off a hot stove.

Robert


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## maxiogee

. said:


> And these children can not speak coherently nor can they read.


These are learned skills - why mention them? No-one is able to speak or read without tuition.




. said:


> They have utterly no life skills and are able to feed and excrete and not much beyond that point.


Is not their being alive at all a sign that they do have life skills - just not the ones a society expects to see?




. said:


> Such as?


Seeing (real) danger in situations we have never encountered before.
Regurgitating 'food' which our bodies feel might be bad for us.
Keeping our hand on a hot stove if it is a key to avoiding a worse physical situation.


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## .   1

maxiogee said:


> These are learned skills - why mention them? No-one is able to speak or read without tuition.


This is my point.I do not think that humans possess very many inherited skills.
Most of what we learn is from simple imitation so I suppose that you could say that the most pronounced inherited skill is imitation.Posters are porffering the opinion that some people are born with certain criminal tendencies and I am saying that people are born as a basic blank slate and that nurture, not nature, makes them what they are.




maxiogee said:


> Is not their being alive at all a sign that they do have life skills - just not the ones a society expects to see?


I suspect that this is slightly faecitious unless you also consider a tree to possess life skills.
The life skills to which I was referring are all of the minor little nuances that allow us to live our lives smoothly and easily when crammed up against too amny other people.
Life skills must be learned as they are so different from society to society.
A kid from New York would be as helpless if transported to The Congo as a kid from The Outback would be in Tokyo.





maxiogee said:


> Seeing (real) danger in situations we have never encountered before.


I know many well intergrated, highly intelligent adults who do not possess this skill.




maxiogee said:


> Regurgitating 'food' which our bodies feel might be bad for us.


This is a simple gag reflex and is possessed by all mammals.




maxiogee said:


> Keeping our hand on a hot stove if it is a key to avoiding a worse physical situation.


This was demonstrated as being false in the Roman Games.  Even hardened gladiators were not capable of doing this.

.,,


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## JamesM

> The life skills to which I was referring are all of the minor little nuances that allow us to live our lives smoothly and easily when crammed up against too amny other people


 
I would classify these as "social skills", not "life skills."


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## .   1

JamesM said:


> I would classify these as "social skills", not "life skills."


What would you classify as life skills?

.,,


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## TRG

Regarding the discussion of learned versus instictive behavior, I would offer that the desire to procreate, i.e., have sex, as an instinctive behavior. I'm confident that I could give you two sexually immature rabbits (of opposite sex) that have never been around other rabbits (doing what rabbits are famous for) and they would figure out all on their own how to make more rabbits. I know this to be true for humans as well and I offer myself as someone who understood what sex was about without ever having the birds and bees talk or having observed it. I just knew, and I suspect we all do, although I would hesitate to speak for women. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but it was deleted due to my somewhat colorful explanation of how I came to know this. This is particularly relevant to this thread, because the sex drive is clearly an instinctive behavior that gets out of control in some people and leads them to commit crimes. Since it is instinctive to begin with it seems entirely plausible that something could go wrong with the manner in which the instinct is created.


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## .   1

Not entirely sure that I agree with you there Tom, funny about that.
I doubt that humans are born with an inate knowledge of procreation.
I am not even sure that rabbits have this innate ability but that is an entirely different discussion as rabbits are far less complex animals than humans.
I don't know how you could have known how to procreate unless someone told you.
Some people believe the most outrageously innacurate things about procreation so their inherited behaviour must be flawed.
I was physically capable of inseminating a woman years before I knew how to and it was years later until I did.
It is not possible that girls are born with the innate knowledge of how to copulate.  Female genitalia is not obvious enough for a self examination to reveal the pneumatic details required.
I remember quite a few fumbled attempts even with two actively willing participants who basically knew what we were trying to do but couldn't do the right things at the right times.
If everybody is born with the innate ability to copulate why are there so many lonely people unable to copulate.  I do not believe that humans are born with the ability to eat and drink and breath and excrete and smile.  We are not even really born with the ability to see or hear as we must be taught to interpret sound and sight.
I believe that all humans are born with the same basic abilities and every thing more complex than pushing food into our mouths is taught.  We must even be taught which food is good and which substance is poisonous.  Our sense of taste and smell have diminished to the point that we identify basically all of our food based on visual clues alone.
We are born knowing almost nothing and we learn everything.
I am as I am not because of the genetic legacy left to me by my parents but because of the social footprint my parents left on me.

Robert


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## TRG

. said:


> Not entirely sure that I agree with you there Tom, funny about that.
> I doubt that humans are born with an inate knowledge of procreation.
> I am not even sure that rabbits have this innate ability but that is an entirely different discussion as rabbits are far less complex animals than humans.
> I don't know how you could have known how to procreate unless someone told you.
> Some people believe the most outrageously innacurate things about procreation so their inherited behaviour must be flawed.
> I was physically capable of inseminating a woman years before I knew how to and it was years later until I did.
> It is not possible that girls are born with the innate knowledge of how to copulate. Female genitalia is not obvious enough for a self examination to reveal the pneumatic details required.
> I remember quite a few fumbled attempts even with two actively willing participants who basically knew what we were trying to do but couldn't do the right things at the right times.
> If everybody is born with the innate ability to copulate why are there so many lonely people unable to copulate. I do not believe that humans are born with the ability to eat and drink and breath and excrete and smile. We are not even really born with the ability to see or hear as we must be taught to interpret sound and sight.
> I believe that all humans are born with the same basic abilities and every thing more complex than pushing food into our mouths is taught. We must even be taught which food is good and which substance is poisonous. Our sense of taste and smell have diminished to the point that we identify basically all of our food based on visual clues alone.
> We are born knowing almost nothing and we learn everything.
> I am as I am not because of the genetic legacy left to me by my parents but because of the social footprint my parents left on me.
> 
> Robert


In a shameless attempt to have the last word, I make this post. I assume you accept the part of evolutionary theory that says that higher forms of life evolve from lower forms. While you may not accept that behavior in rabbits is instinctive, then we just need to back down the evolutionary ladder a bit more to, say, reptiles. Take snakes, for instance. There is no rearing involved in raising a snake whether it hatches from an egg or is born live. A snake is born fully equipped with all the behavioral tools it need to get through life including knowing how to make more snakes. There is no sex-ed for snakes. So if lower forms of life are born with instinctive behavior it is logical to assume that higher forms of life retain some of these instincts. Indeed, a portion of our very own brains is often referred to as reptilian because that is where instinctive behavior lies. Give it some thought.


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## .   1

TRG said:


> In a shameless attempt to have the last word,


Shall we follow the chain down to amoeba in our discussion about society's right to punish (humans)?
You have built a straw man in this instinctive behaviour argument which you are not able to support with human examples and have devolved to reproductive instincts in snakes.
I will stand my my proffered opinion that nurture has everything to do with the production of social deviants.
I doubt that there are any examples of criminals who come from well balanced backgrounds.  This does not mean that all people who have disadvantaged upbringings resort to crime.  Many people with disadvantaged backgrounds have gone on to lead very successful lives.  Some have excelled.
Billy Connolly lives a dream life now but I bet you that he would trade it all for a fair dinkum hug from his dad but that is apparently impossible because Billy Connolly seems to have no father son relationship with his dad.
You haven't addressed the Adolf Ghandi issue.
Nature gave me a body shape and eye colour and hair colour and skin colour and gender and the rest was up to my society to nurture.

.,,


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