"Punishment"

[Tipsy]

What do you think of when somebody breaks the law? The most common thing that you would think is they need to be punished. But what exactly does this mean? When we put someone in prison for a few years, prison for life, or even executing them, what does it accomplish? It in no way compensates the people the crime was against, most prisons today don't have the ability because of budgets or the desire to rehabilitate criminals, and even this costs the society the jail is in a great deal of money. On top of this, it many times ruins the life of people formerly in jail, with this being on their record hurts their chances of finding work to make a living off of. Many people leave prison with very little, with minimal help from the government. So next to this, the only thing that we get out of people going to prison is to deter others from committing these crimes. So what does this mean? We sacrifice the freedom of one individual so that other will not break the law?

So to look at everything together, we have places for rehabilitation that lack the finances or desire to do their job, we have people getting revenge, which the entire reason a subjective legal system was setup to avoid, and we have people giving up their freedom to help others deter from committing crimes.
The point of the legal system is justice, but I see not justice in this revenge.

There is a phrase that says people are going to prison to "pay their debt to society", but what exactly is happening? In all reality, we are paying them. We pay our taxes and then the government supports them.

Most people obviously won't want to pay more taxes so that criminals can have their lives changed for the better, so leaving them in overcrowded prisons that lack the finical ability to change prisoners for rehabilitation is out of the question. Putting people in prison out of revenge is something that has nothing to do with 'justice' and has no place in our legal system.

Why not instead serve justice and have the punishment truly 'fit the crime'. If someone commits manslaughter by causing a deadly accident, what does putting them in jail for a relatively short period of time accomplish? Why not instead have them work instead work in an ambulance staff for a year. Give the person training, maybe subtract a percentage from the pay, and actually have the person 'pay their debt to society'.

Though it is true that some people do require more rehabilitation than others, such as murderers, rapists, and other people who are still a danger to themselves and others should be held in custody and rehabilitated, for a majority of crimes it is not true. A large majority of these people who are held that are not a danger to people around them could be removed and help with their not taking space in prisons and a portion of their pay going to prison system, actually help everyone in it. All of the people out of prison could function normally and actually pay their debt to society, while people in prison could actually receive the help they need.

 

[Zerglite]

an eye for an eye...

we murder the murderers... why dont we rape the rapists?!

 

[Snagg]

because there's no point

Here is my view of how punishment should work:

For the minor offences, just a simple jail like they use today.

Medium offences a jail that is much harsher, you must work at least 14 hours a day and all the money you make in the jail is given to the government.

Serious offences (1st degree murder, child molest) things that would mean a life sentence or execution should be replaced by you are now a lab rat. Scientists can use you to test and research for new cures. It may seem harsh, but when you commit such serious offences, you must pay back to the community. The best way is to maybe find cure for cancer and save millions, I don't see how a jail can help or compensate for what a child molester has done.

What do you think about that?

 

[PauseBreak]

an eye for an eye...

we murder the murderers... why dont we rape the rapists?!

Because raping them would give them the same pleasure of them raping someone else. It wouldn't be punishment, that's why.

 

[Zerglite]

Because raping them would give them the same pleasure of them raping someone else. It wouldn't be punishment, that's why.

a guy rapes a girl, he is then raped by a very large black man with 27" penis..

thats a little over exaggerated... still torture anyway

 

[Tipsy]

an eye for an eye...

we murder the murderers... why dont we rape the rapists?!

Remember the whole thing I talked about with the subjective legal system which was made to keep revenge out? Anywho, if you think revenge is what they deserve, then so be it, but I don't see how revenge will in any way help society.

thats a little over exaggerated... still torture anyway

Last time I checked torture was illegal.

For the minor offences, just a simple jail like they use today.

What would this accomplish? Eat our tax money? Take away time that could have been used to gain life skills? Continue overcrowding jails so that rehabilitation isn't possible?

Medium offences a jail that is much harsher, you must work at least 14 hours a day and all the money you make in the jail is given to the government.

Though this would be slightly more useful, it would still be exploiting human beings. Not to mention, forced prison labor is "universally condemned" by the United States Department of Labor. This includes the areas of slavery and abductions, compulsory participation in public works projects, coercive recruitment systems, particularly in rural areas, bonded labor, including bonded child labor, trafficking in persons, domestic workers in forced labor situations, and last but not least prison labor and rehabilitation through work. The government cannot 'force' you to do any work that you do not want to do. And if you don't get anything out of it, why would you work?

Serious offences (1st degree murder, child molest) things that would mean a life sentence or execution should be replaced by you are now a lab rat. Scientists can use you to test and research for new cures. It may seem harsh, but when you commit such serious offences, you must pay back to the community. The best way is to maybe find cure for cancer and save millions, I don't see how a jail can help or compensate for what a child molester has done.

Whether free or in jail, a human being is still a human being. Just because you go to prison does not magically allow the government to take away your human rights. This would make it illegal to do both this, and the torture that was suggested by Diatenshi.

What do you think about that?

What I honestly think is that these ideas are exploiting human beings and taking away their rights as humans. Though some of it may help the rest of society, it is a practice in our nation not to exploit any group of people to help another. In this country, the ends does not justify the means.

Overall, it seems that what I posted was right. Most people here think the punishment of prison is about revenge, not helping society, including the people who commit the crime.

 

[Snagg]

when you're about to be executed, aren't they violating your right to live anyway?

For the medium offences part, you can easily set a quota for people and if they have not met it, they get a water and bread diet.

 

[Campicus Dra'z]

If the death sentance was the punishment for every offence do you think there would be many criminals in the world today? I am not saying that this is how it should be, I believe that unless someone is afraid of the conciquences then there is nothing stopping them from commiting the crime.

As for rehabilitation, I would believe that most criminals (not that I know many) dont feel the need to change their ways. We cant go around brainwashing people so unless they really want to change then nobody can make them.

I can see the point of an eye for an eye but I cant see it working either. Instead of prison maybe a rehabilitation place or a community work place? A punishment that achieves something. Not just sitting around in jail all day.

 

[AZN_FLEA]

minor offences can be a fine or something.
medium offences can be community work or something
major offences can be execution, jail

jails are overcrowded by far. we neeed to kill more people. id bet that they would rather die than be in there anyway. jail is boring noone wants to be there

 

[B~E]

What do you think of when somebody breaks the law? The most common thing that you would think is they need to be punished. But what exactly does this mean? When we put someone in prison for a few years, prison for life, or even executing them, what does it accomplish? .

The only purpose of prison, the one it always had, is to keep people away from society long enough for them to think about while they did. It never had anything to do with rehabilitation. Afterall, the concept of a prison is old like the world, and never evolved, so do you really think they had a refined concept such as rehabilitation back then ?

minor offences can be a fine or something.
medium offences can be community work or something
major offences can be execution, jail

jails are overcrowded by far. we neeed to kill more people. id bet that they would rather die than be in there anyway. jail is boring noone wants to be there

Dont be silly. You talk of overpopulation, when only a minority would deserve to be executed, while most of them could be rehabilitated.

 

[Tipsy]

The only purpose of prison, the one it always had, is to keep people away from society long enough for them to think about while they did. It never had anything to do with rehabilitation. Afterall, the concept of a prison is old like the world, and never evolved, so do you really think they had a refined concept such as rehabilitation back then ?

The original prison system having to do with anything but that, I have no argument with. But the ever-reforming version of the prison system, at least here in the United States has changed. To the Federal Bureau of Prisons, their goal is to "to protect society by confining offenders in the controlled environments of prisons and community-based facilities that are safe, humane, cost-efficient, and appropriately secure, and that provide work and other self-improvement opportunities to assist offenders in becoming law-abiding citizens." Though the first part does agree with you, the way in which they will make offenders law-abiding citizens is by, "encouraging inmates to participate in a range of programs that have been proven to reduce recidivism". I personally would consider making prison inmates not return to crime through doing activities as rehabilitation.

And all of this leads back into what I originally said. Why keep the people who aren't a danger to society in jail? Why not instead have them work outside of jail for a period of time, being monitored by some of our new innovations in technology? If you could get this large group out, it would help the overpopulation problem, and if what I suggested above as the crime fit the punishment working plan, then it would also help pay for the prison system itself. All of this would hopefully lead to being able to rehabilitate people the government says it isn't possible to, by eliminating many of the factors that hurt the ability of prisons to rehabilitate.