why I can't quite nix the death penalty entirely

El_Machinae · Jul 1, 2015

I'm not sure if 'no one is rehabilitatable' is fair. Even treatments for mental illness are on an exponential growth curve. Now, this is a slow curve, since no one really gives a crap about helping the mentally ill, but it's still on a growth curve.

That said, this type of issue is dealt with better proactively. We'd much rather have treated her illness ahead of time than debate whether to let her go later.

Timsup2nothin · Jul 1, 2015

"If you do not pay this fine, we will incarcerate you. If you do not come quietly, we will beat you. If beating you doesn't subdue your resistance before it kills you, so be it."

Let's not pretend that the collection system backing the fines is "you agreed to a social contract."

Try to remember that I am not someone who follows the knee jerk "violence is automatically a bad thing" response, as a general rule.

TheMeInTeam · Jul 1, 2015

warpus said:
It's not against their will if they are a part of society and thus agree in principle to the social contract and abiding by the rules of the land.

But I will agree with you, depending on the circumstances of the confinement - solitary confinement for example does indeed seem to qualify as violence, in some ways. But regular confinement, I will have to disagree on.

Those who commit murder or other acts that are currently punishable by the death penalty are not, in most cases I've seen, considering themselves "part of society" and certainly do not agree in action with social contract/laws of the land, and likely not in principle either (some impulse murders or bouts of insanity could agree in principle but not in action).

Of course those leaving American prisons are going to be far more likely to re-engage in criminal activities than previously, not less.

Those who have committed an act are *generally* more likely than those who haven't to commit that act again given the same circumstances, as a base rate consideration.

For quoted statement to be useful, it must constrain our anticipation more than simply relying on the base rate.

I'm not sure if 'no one is rehabilitatable' is fair. Even treatments for mental illness are on an exponential growth curve. Now, this is a slow curve, since no one really gives a crap about helping the mentally ill, but it's still on a growth curve.

It's nice to see progress. This group is under-represented in society in part due to the nature of the illness, but the bias/discrimination against them is pretty bad, and unfortunately harder to trace.

Timsup2nothin · Jul 1, 2015

TheMeInTeam said:
Those who commit murder or other acts that are currently punishable by the death penalty are not, in most cases I've seen, considering themselves "part of society" and certainly do not agree in action with social contract/laws of the land, and likely not in principle either (some impulse murders or bouts of insanity could agree in principle but not in action).

Actually, a whole lot of murders are committed by people who don't have any criminal history of note. A situation spins out of control, and someone dies. Everyone is surprised because the murderer wasn't someone who seemed to disagree with the social contract.

Perfection · Jul 1, 2015

LucyDuke said:
I wonder how televised executions would influence public opinion.

My guess is it would promote cultural acceptence of ~~violence~~ physical harm against those who we deem "evil" and result in increased ~~violence~~ physical harm.

Borachio said:
The OP's point of view (which is a popular one) seems to be that people who have inflicted pain and suffering on others in the course of murdering them are somehow more deserving of the death penalty than those who, apparently, just plain murder someone (with a bullet to the back of the head... or something). I'm not sure I understand the thinking behind this.

Someone merely indifferent to the suffering of others is typically considered less evil then one who delights in it.

Owen Glyndwr said:
This. Rehabilitation, not punishment, should be the ultimate goal of the justice system.

No it isn't. The goal is to enforce laws by carrying out threats of punishment. If knew I could steal from Donald Trump and not be punished for it I would do so. It is only the threat of punishment that makes me not do so.

Timsup2nothin · Jul 1, 2015

Perfection said:
No it isn't. The goal is to enforce laws by carrying out threats of punishment. If knew I could steal from Donald Trump and not be punished for it I would do so. It is only the threat of punishment that makes me not do so.

Hopefully you will outgrow that.

Perfection · Jul 1, 2015

What is there to outgrow? How is that immature?

Formaldehyde · Jul 1, 2015

Perfection said:
My guess is it would promote cultural acceptence of ~~violence~~ physical harm against those who we deem "evil" and result in increased ~~violence~~ physical harm.

How could it be increased much more than it already is?

Those in prison are allowed to beat and rape each other in many situations without any sort of additional punishment at all. Many of those who send them there for ludicrously long periods with little reason publicly admit they think of it as part of their punishment. That it is how they should be treated.

The only real difference is that it is not being televised for them to enjoy. They must imagine it instead.

Perfection · Jul 1, 2015

I'll readily admit it would be a maginal increase to an already existant flaw in the American psyche.

warpus · Jul 1, 2015

Perfection said:
What is there to outgrow? How is that immature?

I don't think it's that it's immature, it's more that people tend to develop a stronger sense of empathy as they get older. So in theory you end up doing good deeds and not doing bad ones not because you might not get caught, but rather because you have more self restraint and a better sense of morality.

LucyDuke · Jul 1, 2015

Flying Pig said:
Absolutely, I'm not disputing that - for example, most democracies use prisons (at least in theory) for rehabilitating criminals, for deterring people from committing crimes, and from preventing those minded to commit crimes from doing so. They also tend to use them for social engineering (keeping nasty people like them away from nice people like us) and political capital, where elections promise more prison sentences to seem 'tough on crime'. But even in the best system, we would acknowledge that some people are not going to be rehabilitated, and I assume that anyone handed the death penalty in the US is believed to fall into that category. In such cases, though, I see little point in making prison particularly unpleasant - I think prisons and the like work much better when you keep people basically happy, otherwise they become a place with several nasty, violent people sharing a living space with a few less nasty public servants.

They do need to be less pleasant than freedom, or you're incentivizing crime. Even in the US, prison means regular food, shoes, a place to bathe and sleep, and sometimes access to education and medical services. It makes it somewhat more understandable (though no less upsetting) that the threat of rape and other unchecked violence is played up so much in popular culture.

I do believe it would be more cost-effective (and humane, obviously) overall to improve living conditions outside of prison. As it is today, we have people engaging in crime to meet their basic needs, and then we punish them by meeting their basic needs. Pointless.

I think this is tangential to your point, but I wanted to say it anyway.

Timsup2nothin · Jul 1, 2015

Perfection said:
What is there to outgrow? How is that immature?

Compliance with the social contract based on fear of punishment isn't really effective. Compliance based on recognition that the social contract actually works for you is what makes for powerful citizens in a working society.

warpus · Jul 1, 2015

LucyDuke said:
They do need to be less pleasant than freedom, or you're incentivizing crime.

I think you're perhaps misjudging how awesome freedom is. It would really suck to have someone say: "Sorry, you can't leave". I know I have the freedom to right now to walk east as far as I want, within reason. If someone takes that away, that's a very crappy feeling, even if you're stuck at some place with amazing food, access to the internet, tv, movies, a comfy place to sit, etc. Taking away someone's freedom of movement is huge. And most jails do a lot more than just that.

Perfection · Jul 1, 2015

warpus said:
I don't think it's that it's immature, it's more that people tend to develop a stronger sense of empathy as they get older. So in theory you end up doing good deeds and not doing bad ones not because you might not get caught, but rather because you have more self restraint and a better sense of morality.

I'm sorry that my underveloped moral sense is unsympathetic to Donald Trump suffering from financial loss.

Spoiler :

LucyDuke · Jul 1, 2015

Perfection said:
My guess is it would promote cultural acceptence of ~~violence~~ physical harm against those who we deem "evil" and result in increased ~~violence~~ physical harm.

My hope is that it would shove our noses in what we're allowing. Acceptance of violence has declined over our history.

One of warpus's links suggested that people who favored capital punishment thought publicity would increase its effectiveness and that people who opposed capital punishment thought it would decrease its acceptance. I can see why that would be the case, and it only makes me more interested in the truth.

LucyDuke · Jul 1, 2015

warpus said:
I think you're perhaps misjudging how awesome freedom is. It would really suck to have someone say: "Sorry, you can't leave". I know I have the freedom to right now to walk east as far as I want, within reason. If someone takes that away, that's a very crappy feeling, even if you're stuck at some place with amazing food, access to the internet, tv, movies, a comfy place to sit, etc. Taking away someone's freedom of movement is huge. And most jails do a lot more than just that.

You also had lunch, and you're going to pay your mortgage on time, and you probably took a shower today. And you didn't have to do anything awful for those things.

Timsup2nothin · Jul 1, 2015

LucyDuke said:
They do need to be less pleasant than freedom, or you're incentivizing crime. Even in the US, prison means regular food, shoes, a place to bathe and sleep, and sometimes access to education and medical services. It makes it somewhat more understandable (though no less upsetting) that the threat of rape and other unchecked violence is played up so much in popular culture.

I do believe it would be more cost-effective (and humane, obviously) overall to improve living conditions outside of prison. As it is today, we have people engaging in crime to meet their basic needs, and then we punish them by meeting their basic needs. Pointless.

I think this is tangential to your point, but I wanted to say it anyway.

The issue you are raising is often shorthanded as "incarceration as punishment vs incarceration for punishment." Is incarceration itself the punishment, as our system of laws suggests? Or do we need the guards at Corcoran setting up gladiator games in the rec yard for their own amusement in order to make the punishment adequate and fulfill our human desire for retribution?

Formaldehyde · Jul 1, 2015

Many guards just love to bet on anything or just want to make some extra money. So I doubt that will ever change unless we force them to stop by using video cameras to track their every movement.

The light bulb has to want to change.

Flying Pig · Jul 1, 2015

LucyDuke said:
They do need to be less pleasant than freedom, or you're incentivizing crime. Even in the US, prison means regular food, shoes, a place to bathe and sleep, and sometimes access to education and medical services. It makes it somewhat more understandable (though no less upsetting) that the threat of rape and other unchecked violence is played up so much in popular culture.

I do believe it would be more cost-effective (and humane, obviously) overall to improve living conditions outside of prison. As it is today, we have people engaging in crime to meet their basic needs, and then we punish them by meeting their basic needs. Pointless.

I think this is tangential to your point, but I wanted to say it anyway.

I think your second paragraph is spot-on.

Terxpahseyton · Jul 1, 2015

Timsup2nothin said:
"If you do not pay this fine, we will incarcerate you. If you do not come quietly, we will beat you. If beating you doesn't subdue your resistance before it kills you, so be it."

Let's not pretend that the collection system backing the fines is "you agreed to a social contract."

If I may seize this opportunity to say, that I hate political contract theory with a passion. Perhaps it has some remote use in serving as a fairy tale which illustrates how the human psyche can deal with huge anonymous societies by abstracting them for so long until it isn't such a society any longer but something actually relate-able. Perhaps this even has some relevance in how such societies actually are and work in so far as that people on some level partially may buy into a fairy tale of that sort. And if only on a vague instinctive level.
But to actually entertain those theories as straight-forward heuristics for our societies is absurd beyond measure. But this is something that seems to happen. And since I doubt there is much use to contract theory in so far as they can be use, I'd rather have it forgotten than people taking it seriously.

why I can't quite nix the death penalty entirely

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