About
Content
Store
Forum

Rebirth of Reason
War
People
Archives
Objectivism

Post to this threadMark all messages in this thread as readMark all messages in this thread as unreadPage 0Page 1Page 2Forward one pageLast Page


Post 0

Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 11:43pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I voted restitution + retribution.

Actions must have consequences (law of causality, or, if it suits you, dynamics)--ie. retribution is moral. Also, innocents ought to be protected from criminality (integration of Benevolent Universe Premise)--ie. restitution is moral.

Ed

Post 1

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 1:07amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I don't find the various categories mutually exclusive - for example, one way to reduce the repetition of crime is to rehabilitate the criminal - so I vote for "all of the above." And there are important considerations on the other scale: minimize the punishment of people who are actually innocent; minimize adverse impact on innocent people who depend on or trade with the convicted person; minimize the social impact of cruel and inhumane treatment etc. All the effects need to be quantified before it becomes possible to calculate the fully appropriate punishent.

Post 2

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 1:07amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Preventing repeat crime.

You have to yank the baddies out of society. Revenge is a vice. Rehabilitation is a fantasy. Self-protection is a virtue.


Post 3

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 6:13amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I submitted this poll several weeks ago after there was brief mention of the goal of criminal justice in several different threads. Whenever I've discussed criminal justice even in Objectivist circles before, there have been many heated disagreements, but what I'd like to see is if there's at least largely a consensus on its goal.

Heated arguments I've seen or been in before I think were focused on jumping ahead to the next level of detail - eg. is capital punishment ever justifiable? torture? enslavement? can anyone ever be rehabilitated? how do you assign value to injury or especially death? what about real world victimless crime laws, corrupt cops and judges, and single eyewitness testimony sending someone to the chair? etc. etc. Here I hope to actually set those and myriad other detail questions aside when thinking about what the goal itself should be.

To do so, in answering I'd say just assume detailed factors fit your ideal, ie:
- only actions you consider real crimes are counted as crimes
- whatever level of burden of proof and other safeguards in the arrest and conviction process you deem appropriate are in place
- any prescribed punishment, reparations, rehabilitation program, etc. would be according to your own guidelines or formula


Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Post 4

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 6:27amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I am absolutely on the "retribution" side. Not "revenge"--retribution. There is a big difference.

The worst moral undermining of the criminal justice system has occurred due to the acceptance of utilitarian premises in defining its purposes and rationale. That so many Objectivists appear blind to this issue, and have signed onto a de facto utilitarianism, is a measure of just how far this philosophy has yet to go before it will have cultural influence.

I have made my views on this subject clear in my book, Criminal Justice? The Legal System Vs. Individual Responsibility. In particular, I invite you to read and digest my essay, "Crime and Moral Retribution," which addresses the question of this poll directly. It offers an Objectivist rationale for a retribution-based justice system (which, if you think about it, is a redundancy).


Post 5

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 6:30amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Is this to say you do not consider restitution viable with regards to retribution?

Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Post 6

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 6:42amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Restitution is fine...when practicable. It's most appropriate for property crimes. However, some crimes defy restitution, for reasons made clear in the essay.

If restitution occurs within a context of proportionate retribution, fine. If not, we are left with the question of how and why to respond to a criminal, and to what extent. Outside of the context of proportionate retribution, no strictly utilitarian response makes a bit of sense; in fact, it results in injustice.
 
Again, read the essay.


Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Post 7

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 7:40amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
To quote myself from another thread:

"I am an advocate of returning to a system of common law. Common law is based on 1) past precedent, and, 2) the discovery of right and wrong to overturn past precedent.

Under common law, the goal was restitution to the victim by the criminal. Punishment was not a primary but a consequence. In the case of any crime, the criminal would be required to make financial restitution to the victim or they would be placed in indentured servitude to the victim, which could be used or traded as the victim saw fit.

If a criminal refused, they would be branded an outlaw, that is, without rights. Having no rights, anyone could hunt them down in the streets and kill them. As you might guess, no one wanted to be branded an outlaw.

Under common law, the particulars would be developed over time as what was proper was discovered. Common law, being based on the discovery of right and wrong, equals natural law which equals scientific law. They are different variants of the same concept: reality.

For more on this subject, I recommend Richard Maybury's Whatever Happened to Justice?."




Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Post 8

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 8:10amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Bob,

A man steals a purse, which has a $10 bill.

He then refuses to comply with the demand to submit to restitution.

Under your anarcho-"system," he is then "branded an outlaw, that is, without rights. Having no rights, anyone could hunt them down in the streets and kill them."

Thus the penalty for stealing ten bucks is capital punishment.

This is "justice"? This is a response proportionate to the harm done?

This is a perfect example of why proportionate retribution is the only moral means of governing the appropriate level of response to criminal conduct, as I argue in "Crime and Moral Retribution." It's also a perfect example of why anarchism -- in stressing utilitarian responses like restitution, rather than retribution -- necessarily results in gross injustices. 


Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Post 9

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 9:22amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Punishment only has 2 possible virtues: deterrence effect to the criminal and others in the future, and for revenge (ie, to make the victim feel better).

Studies have been done which suggest that the certainty of capture overwhelmingly deters future crime more effectively than the severity of punishment. This makes sense, since most criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, who go for the easy score of convenience, not the elaborate plan so popularized by movies. If everyone gets caught, or caught often, people will tend not to do it, whatever "it" is.

Revenge is good because it prevents lawlessness and vigilante justice.

We are on a definite trend towards people failing to understand the importance of the presumption of innocence, the right to privacy, the right to be free from unreaseonable search and seizure. Before too long, these rights may be forfeit, sacrificed to the desire to catch all of the criminals. Unfortunately, justice systems the world over have shown themselves more efficient at falsely accusing, convicting, and punishing innnocent people than deterring future crime.

I agree that there may be truth to the notion that poverty and desperation account for alot of crime. It certainly accounts for the billions made in the illegal drug trade, and usually accounts for violent crimes, as well. Do yourself a favor and sit in a criminal Court one day, and observe the education level and thinking capacities of criminals.

This is my basis for supporting rehabilitation as an admirable goal. Mind you, a slap on the hand is the most effective and direct message to a wrongdoer to knock it off, and I may be the world's greatest proponent of it (esp if you read my response on the child-reariung threads). But if you are going to create human warehouses of people who were never bright enough to find reason and productivity on their own, it wouldn't hurt to give them a crash course and a new lease on life for when they get out. But then again, I am not and never have been a huge fan of prisons, especially run as the rape centers that they are allowed to be.

As I have said before, the FIRST reform we need is an honest to God authoritarian to revamp the prison system to make it safe for prisoners, and not an asylum run by the lunatics. Like any government-run program, it could be done better, cheaper, privately, and maybe that is part of the answer.

Post 10

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 4:10amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I voted restitution to the victim but would like to add restitution to "society" for the cost of investigation, apprehension and incarceration.
If this is achieved by the criminal working of this debt in prison, his/her time would be served and I believe the victims believe in justice restored. Also the criminal will be rehabilitated to the extend that it is possible.


Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Post 11

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 11:05amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I stand with Adam on this. I do not find the categories mutually exclusive - especially for such an across-the-board concept. And I would add the phrase "balanced consideration case-by-case to fit the particulars of the context of the crime."

I voted for "Other combination of above."

btw - Why wasn't there an "All of the above" option?

Michael



Sanction: 14, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 14, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 14, No Sanction: 0
Post 12

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 11:21amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
All:

If you seek justice (proportionate retribution), you will necessarily achieve a number of practical objectives: deterrence, incapacitation of the criminal, as much restitution as is practical, perhaps even the rehabilitation of the occasional reform-minded criminal.

However, if you seek any of these latter objectives as primary ends, you will not necessarily achieve justice. Deterrence can be sought through punishments that are absurdly draconian; rehabilitation can be sought by minimizing or even avoiding just punishments; restitution can be sought in cases where it doesn't begin to address the seriousness or damages caused by some crimes; incarceration (incapacitation) can be sought as a preventive measure, without reference to the seriousness of the past crime; etc.

Again, in all these cases of utilitarian objectives, justice suffers. And you wind up with the present system: one in which punishments are utterly inconsistent and arbitrary, either wildly excessive or absurdly lenient. The result is a criminal justice system that loses all public respect and credibility -- which means a legal system destined to be evaded and ignored, to the peril of us all.

Justice is all about recognizing proportionality in rewards and punishments. The principle of retribution sets moral boundaries and limitations on punishments, tying them closely to the severity of the harm done by the criminal.

Abandon retribution for utilitarian ends, and the first casualty is always justice. Once that occurs, the casualties that follow are measured as body counts on our streets.


Sanction: 4, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 4, No Sanction: 0
Post 13

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 11:24amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Robert,

Do you really think your refusnik $10 thief would be that stupid? As Bob pointed out, "As you might guess, no one wanted to be branded an outlaw." Oh, he might try to get away with it, but one close call and he's quite likely to change his mind.

(On the other hand, even today we have what is known as "suicide by cop".)

Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Post 14

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 12:06pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Scott and Robert B,

Posts 9 (Scott) and 12 (Robert B) practically sum up my own stance on this - practical "hands-on" knowledge with a solid rational guiding principle, "retribution" (which to me includes restitution when possible). Just sprinkle it a bit with "rehabilitation" for stressing a benevolent social context of believing that wrongs can be righted enough to encourage new starts (when appropriate) and this seems to me to be the perfect solution.

Not as an essential point but as an important one, I liked very much Scott's attention that was called to prisons being rape centers. Nothing at all in justice is served by this. This is an abomination of our present system that needs to be corrected.

Michael


Post 15

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 12:19pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Re Post #13:

The question is not how an intimidated $10 thief might react.

The question is the injustice of any "system" that would declare open season for assassination on any person who stole $10. It's not the morality of the thief in question, but the morality of such a so-called system of "justice."

Let me elaborate with a question or two. I'm curious:

Do you think that a person who commits even an isolated, perhaps petty act of aggression thereby loses all his rights, even his right to life?

Is it consistent with your view of rights that anyone has the right to kill someone who commits even a petty crime, but won't pay restitution?

(Edited by Robert Bidinotto
on 6/01, 12:32pm)


Sanction: 4, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 4, No Sanction: 0
Post 16

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 12:50pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
"Do you think that a person who commits even an isolated, perhaps petty act of aggression thereby loses all his rights, even his right to life?"

No.  But I think a person who lives and works in a country whose rulers are believed by the credulous to have "weapons of mass destruction" loses all his rights.  Every one of them.

"Is it consistent with your view of rights that anyone has the right to kill someone who commits even a petty crime, but won't pay restitution?"

No. But it is fully consistent with my view of rights than anyone has the right to kill someone who happens to live and work within several hundred miles of Saddam Hussein.

JR



Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Post 17

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 12:58pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Er...

Did this thread just turn into one about foreign policy?


Post 18

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 1:06pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Michael, you're right about Riggenbach.

What is the proportionate punishment for thread hijacking?


Post 19

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 1:51pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
25 lashes last I heard....

Post to this threadPage 0Page 1Page 2Forward one pageLast Page


User ID Password or create a free account.