Punishment vs. Rehabilitation for criminals?

[Quackers]

Detterance and rehabilitation. How about that? Thats like a mega-double-pincer attack on the problem. You mug an old lady? 10 Year sentence but you get to learn to be an air conditioner fitter in prison (LOL)!.

 

[Cutlass]

I'd say there should be four goals actually. You left off perhaps the most important one: Compensation. It is not possible in all cases, but when it is the focus of punishment should be to make up for the harm caused to one's victims. In cases of theft, the punishment should be to pay the victim back more than was taken, not to imprison the thief.

I don't see how that works. I am unaware of any compensation built into a criminal justice system. Civil law is about compensation, not criminal.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Maybe the way it is currently set up, but it does not have to be that way. There is no reason why criminal courts could not be given authority to act like civil courts too, without the need for a second expensive trial.

In the Law of Moses the only punishment for theft was compensation (excluding theft of persons, i.e., kidnapping, which had the death penalty). Thieves were viewed as debtors who owned twice what they took (or 4 or 5 times as much if what they took was livestock and they couldn't give that exact animal back.).

 

[Cutlass]

Generally speaking the people who commit property crimes don't have the money to refund what they steal. And when people who commit violent crimes you run into the problem of placing a value. I don't see your way as superior to what we have now.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I used to be for rehabilitation. However, In recent years, I've seen men who just won't change no matter what. So i'm leaning more and more towards simply smiting them from this Earth.

 

[Cutlass]

I used to be for rehabilitation. However, In recent years, I've seen men who just won't change no matter what. So i'm leaning more and more towards simply smiting them from this Earth.

But we don't actually try to rehabilitate....

 

[CaptainF]

I think the American legal system is so terribly screwed. We incarcerate and imprison far too many, and we aren't all that unforgiving towards the ex-offenders in our society either to say the least. Our drug laws are in need of immediate and extensive reform to accept the reality that the current policies are not working and are in fact incredibly destructive.

We shouldn't be treating all criminals the same. There's a difference between a hardened serial killer and a drug dealer. The former can't be rehabilitated, the latter can.

 

[Ayatollah So]

It's a false dichotomy?

What. He. Said.

(and sociopathy is extremely over-represented in the prison population relative to the general population)

I certainly hope so! If not, the system ain't working.

Sure, there are some who can't be rehabilitated. Rehabilitate the rest - but punish them too, enough to deter others, up to a limit set by proportionality to their crime.