Half-baked opinions, served lukewarm.
Interesting news article from Vermont today:
VT Judge Increases Sex Offender Sentence
Based just on this article, my inclination leans more towards the judge’s initial ruling as well as his justification for increasing the sentence.
What are y’all’s thoughts? Should the sentence have been much higher to begin with?
And, on a grander scale, what is the purpose of the justice system? Should it be concerned with rehabilitation, or simply provide consistent consequences to those who break the law?
Interesting news article from Vermont today:
VT Judge Increases Sex Offender Sentence
Based just on this article, my inclination leans more towards the judge’s initial ruling as well as his justification for increasing the sentence.
What are y’all’s thoughts? Should the sentence have been much higher to begin with?
And, on a grander scale, what is the purpose of the justice system? Should it be concerned with rehabilitation, or simply provide consistent consequences to those who break the law?
Comments are closed.
Where are the gallows these days?
Drawing, as I consistently do, on the rights that a governments has–said rights being only morally drawn from its citizens–I do not believe the penal system has the right to do anything other than incarcerate (or, in egregious circumstances, kill) criminals.
When a person commits a crime, they need to be removed from society for some period of time comensurate with the crime. This serves to punish the offender and protect the innocent from further molestation. During that time the criminal remains responsible for paying for their food and shelter. If they choose to rehabilitate themselves (by paying for counseling, for example) that can be reflected in their parole hearings, leading to an earlier release.
So, I’d say we disagree. (Not a big suprise, eh?) This is pretty high level, and I’m interested to learn more about my own thoughts if this thread picks up steam.
The roles…
I could write a MUCH longer dissertation in response… but I won’t 🙂
I look at it as “effectiveness of tax dollars”. What’s the most effective long-term solution for preventing crime?
On the front-end, there is increasing the general prosperity of the nation. Check. We seem to be doing this. By and large, we are all richer and fatter in the USA than we were a hundred years ago.
Also on the front-end, we can strive to reduce the number of people who inhabit high-risk categories. Bizarrely, according to the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, it seems as if there’s a positive correlation between Roe V. Wade and the drop in crime rates from 1993 onward!
In terms of raw numbers of persons incarcerated and economics involved, a stance which reduces the birthrate of children to at-risk parents seems to have the largest effect. Yeah, that’s right (if weird): abortion and “safe sex” education reduces crime. Who’d have thought?
(Usual caveats apply: this may not be a causal relationship although it is definitely correlated, yadda yadda boilerplate done. I’m being hyperbolic because it’s fun.)
OK, so that’s the front-end: figure out a way to get and keep kids out of poverty and away from drugs. I admit, there are probably better ways than free abortions, but there it is.
In the middle part, I’m going to abandon facts and go into speculation. I think that if we had better education on cause and effect and logic, with remedial courses for kids who don’t get it, we’d improve crime rates. People have a remarkable inability to correctly estimate risk (particularly when it involves large numbers… lotto, anybody?). If we could guarantee instant punishment for every crime, offender rates would be very low. But since that’s a pipe dream, how do you convince kids that the risk isn’t worth it?
Now the back-end: what do you do once they screw up?
Well, the recidivism rate for most crimes is very low. Fact is, most people who go to jail go one time, and that’s it. In fact, the recidivism rate for sex offenders is lower than that of most other categories of felony. This means one of two things: either the sex offenders tend to not offend after release, or they have learned how to avoid being caught.
I strongly doubt that harsher punishments are strong deterrents. If an offender thought he’d be caught for sure, he wouldn’t do it (barring severe mental illness, of course). But for certain categories of crime — particularly sexual offense — how do you improve law enforcement?
IMHO, stiffer penalties and “three strikes rules” are a stupid approach. I think existing penalties are mostly “good enough”; let’s try improving that front-end some more, somehow.
“A servant is not a thief, Sire, and those who are cannot help themselves. If you suffer your people to be ill-educated and their manners corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?” (Danielle from “Ever After”, quoting Sir Thomas Moore)
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Matthew P. Barnson
But About Those ‘Rights’
Daniel, Daniel, Daniel…my most excellent amigo…
I swear it was less than two months ago in which you challenged me for writing on this blog the term ‘collective rights’ in reference to the rights conferred on a government from those of the individual. You were uppity about my specific use of the word ‘rights’ in this context. And here you are writing about the ‘rights that a government’ has. Thank you for agreeing with me on the terminology, even if you don’t necessarily agree with me that in an organized society the collective rights of a government will ultimately outweigh the rights of the individual.
(For those of you just checking in, I do NOT believe that the collective rights should outweigh the rights of the individual, but just that it happens.)
For the purposes of this thread, let me push back on you a little bit. Over the glorious rights of the individual operates a government enacting rules for the greater good. According to you, the penal system is meant to separate the bad element from the herd. When a bad element is causing problems, the natural rationale is to remove that element to protect the order and security of the society. This is a natural outlook on preventative corrections.
The problem lies in the fixation on the sanctity and preservation of the rights of the individual. Because of a long history of individual rights getting stripped or blocked, we tend to focus only on ensuring that the individual is always guaranteed their inalienable rights. In the U.S., any instance of a violation of individual rights, or a barrier on pursuit, or a chokehold on exercise, results in the watchdogs of liberty hounding out against oppression. The establishment and preservation of those rights has become the endpoint. We achieve only when the rights of the individual are protected. That is the ultimate gain and measure of success.
Which of course is the sadness. The establishment of individual rights, to me, is a silver-spoon syndrome, because the individual focuses only on the rights, and not on the responsibility that comes with those rights. Take the rights away and we’ve been ripped of the silver spoon. Limit the rights and the spoon has been bent. Never mind the fact that these rights that seem so logically guaranteed by our own existence are but the starting line to the path of responsibility. We are only as good as how we use those rights.
Perhaps the penal system is about rehabilitation and correction, and not about rote separation, because it is our responsibility to help those who are fallen. Perhaps it is the responsibility of our judiciary to make decisions that both benefit society and never extend beyond punishment that is wicked or excessive.
Or maybe we should just take each male sex offender and cut off the ole’ yo-ha.
The floor is still open for discussion.
Stealing the silver, too.
A quick aside: my issue with your use of the word “rights” was that the word is defined not as “capability,” but as something to which one has a just claim. The government has rights that are derived from the rights of its citizens; what the citizens do not have a natural right to, the government (collective) does not have the right to provide (although it may have the capability). The only reason it bothers me is that it gives moral equivalency to government encroachment of natural rights.
I agree that rights come with a responsibility. And that responsibility is clear: to respect those rights. In other words, if I have certain natural rights (namely, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), then so does the person next to me. Therefore I have the responsibility not to impinge on his life or liberty. If I choose to ignore that responsibility, I have demonstrated that I do not respect the right–ergo, I cannot claim the right for myself, as I have demonstrated I do not believe the right exists.
If a victim wishes to rehabilitate his attacker, or pay for his food while he’s in prison, or forgive him, that’s the victim’s right. It is the criminal that has forfeit his rights, not the victim. If, however, the victim does not wish to continue to be victimized by being forced to provide for the emotional needs of his attacker, then so be it. There is no responsibility to “help the fallen” from the perspective of natural rights.
Existence of natural rights
But, as you have already mentioned IIRC, “natural rights” don’t really exist. Or rather, they only exist because we want them to. A lot of stuff exists only because we want it to.
It may be shallow philosophy, but I see ethics in a similar light. When I left the Mormon church, several people predicted I’d become a lying, licentious child abuser, or something of that ilk. Yet here I am today, more honest, compassionate, and easygoing than I used to be. How is this possible if I choose to think that there exists no divine Lawgiver?
I evaluated my preconceptions one-by-one (and am still doing so) to figure out how they fit into a self-created moral framework. I made a conscious decision that sometimes I must sacrifice things I would personally like in order to benefit society as a whole. I decided that the quality of a human life is more important than the quantity of human life. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but more of a guideline 🙂 And that has some very interesting ethical ramifications which I haven’t fully explored.
Most things I tend to think about on an evolutionary basis. At some point, we developed one of the most powerful adaptations of all: the ability to adapt our society to match the environment. It’s not biological, it’s soft-wiring that gets programmed into us by being sheltered by our parents for nearly two decades and observing the order of things. Which societies are most fit? Why are they most fit?
One of the societal developments in the West is that of punishing criminals without generally executing them. Our methods are crude and only moderately effective. I think that a more sensible approach would require case-by-case evaluation for appropriate punishment, and creative and unique sentences for each offender. Because of our prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment”, such creativity is frowned upon, and people are more concerned about equality of punishment than effectiveness of rehabilitation.
I guess all I’m saying is that, in evaluating my attitudes towards crime and punishment, I realized that while what we’re doing is crudely effective, it’s not effective enough. More severe punishments don’t seem to be sufficient deterrent, as criminals don’t think they’ll get caught. More stringent enforcement doesn’t seem to be the answer, because then we’d be a low-productivity police state (some say we’re getting there).
Tough questions.
— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: Q: They just announced on the radio that Dan Quayle was picked as the Republican V.P. candidate. Should I post?
A: Of course. The net can reach people in as few as 3 to 5 days. It’s the perfect way to inform people about such news events long after the broadcast networks have covered them. As you are probably the only person to have heard the news on the radio, be sure to post as soon as you can.
— Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_
IMHO, IYRI
I’m not sure what I wrote that leads to this misunderstanding. Perhaps the idea that someone could lose the claim to a right? I am not asserting that a right is something you can do, it’s something you have a just claim to do. So, you can have your rights violated, but that verb clearly suggests that the right still exists. Likewise you can forfeight a right, by denying a right exists. (And to clarify, this would include demonstrating that denial by attempting to violate the rights of others. Stating that you deny the right to life, even while slowing down for an old lady crossing the street, is like the dissenter in Life of Brian:
Brian: You’re all different! Crowd: Yes, we’re ARE all different! Dissenter in crowd: I’m not…)
It’s man’s capacity for reason that allows these rights to exist, and they are as real as that capacity.
Regarding the rehabilitation of criminals…
I feel compelled to quote from one of my current favorite TV shows, Boston Legal: DENNY: Alan, why in God’s name have you suddenly become so interested in helping poor people? ALAN: Purely selfish motives, I assure you, Denny. People with no money look hungrily at mine.
There are certain reasons for criminal rehabilitation that have very little to do with rights of any kind, but rather emerge from that wonderfully practical, self-centered motivation for doing good: “I help others because it benefits me.”
Someone can get locked away for ten years, and justifiably so, for commiting robbery or some such crime. But if the system then ejects that person back into the same situation they were in before – possibly a worse one – who’s to say they won’t just turn to crime again?
If (and I allow there is a big if) a criminal rehabilitation program makes a person less likely to commit crimes in the future, then it is to my own benefit to support that program, as doing so may ultimately create a safer living environment for myself and my family.
But suppose a person lacks the brilliant clarity of thought that I so humbly possess, and instead thinks that money spent “coddling bad guys” is money wasted. Should the government then have the right to force that person to pay for it?
In theory, at least, this is the beauty of a democratic system. If the majority of people believe that it is not worthwhile to spend money on criminal rehabilitation programs, then they will vote people into office who will remove said programs. So it’s not so much about whether the government has the “right” to do something or not, it’s about what the people will it to be. Or, to put it in terms of ‘capability,’ in a democratic system the government is only capable of what its people collectively allow it to do.
But should a collective group of people have the ‘right’ to issue orders (like ‘pay taxes for this’) to an individual, some of you might ask. Again, it’s not about rights, it’s about personal benefit. We need community to survive in this world, and no community EVER has succeeded based off the model of “I’ll only contribute to the things that I think are worthwhile,” I put forward that it is more beneficial to an individual that they pay the community for a few things that they don’t personally agree with than live without a functional community at all.
God, I can’t believe I’m letting myself get dragged back into this maelstrom…