crime and punishment

[silent thunder]

In my world, there is only one law.

 

Harm no one.

 

If harm is done.  Isolate the predator. 

Then heal the victim and the predator if possible.

Return both to independent life if possible.

That's it.

If that isn't possible, isolate the predator indefinitely and let things settle as they will.

In all other things... stay the fuck out of it.

 

One addendum to the above... is about harming yourself. 

If you are harming your self... have at it.  It's your self.

I have no interest, nor do I feel I, nor anyone else has some innate right in policing other people's personal paths.  I find it supremely, negatively egotistical and offensive to think I, or anyone knows how others should treat themselves or what their path should be, providing they are not harming others.

 

Caveat to this, the semantics involved in what constitutes and defines harm.  Enter the lawyers and then my system breaks down entirely into word salad and mental shell games.  Ah well, they're just thoughts after all.  Not real.

 

Far too often though, I think humans lose themselves, becoming almost possessed in the punishment of wrongs and then break the do no harm law in the punishment, making things worse not better.  Look at the prison systems around the world.  Mostly designed to do damage, often significantly more damage than was perpetrated originally.

 

In the last few years, I find the most frightening word in the English language is 'justified'.  I have come to this based on what I've observed, in myself and all around me, unspeakable and terrifying thoughts and acts of violence and hatred perpetrated by seemingly good people, because they feel justified.  Look at any of the wars, or violence at the hands of religious, or political dogma.  It's everywhere.

 

I now see this as vile and endlessly saddening, pain body induced, revenge based, broken thinking.  In myself, I look back on some of the things I wrote and did in retribution and cringe.  These days I am constantly amazed at the darkness and sick intent expressed under the guise of justified punishment.  On some level, I knew full well, that I was not helping anything, but simply inflicting more harm, yet it was ok, because it was justifiable.  I can't even take refuge and say I was just a mindless animal lashing out... in many cases it is premeditated and that's what makes it so scary to me, because I see it in the news every day and I hear it in the conversations of people I love and admire when certain topics come up.  The full cognitive function involved and the fervor and sadistic glee that comes with that sense that we have carte blanche to do anything we want, because we were wronged.  I'm specifically reminded of the priests giving absolution to the knights for the sins they would commit in the future, regarding justified actions for the church in war time.

 

As soon as people feel justified, it seems to foster an attitude and atmosphere of impunity and sadistic judgement within which, extremely dark and heinous acts are perpetrated, which would otherwise be vilified outright.

 

One of the things I've lost in my travels on this plane, I'm so happy to say, is any desire to punish.  I now see it as utterly worthless.  Isolate the predators, but waste no energy on more harm.  Spend all energy on healing and spend it freely on both the predator and the victim. 

 

Punishment is useless.  Not only useless, vile, repugnant. 

In any situation where there is harm, rather than using what resources we possess to protect and heal, we seek to do more harm?

That is insanity to me.

[Marblehead]

I "Like"d what you said even though I am not in agreement.

[thelerner]

I'm w/ Marblehead, its a very enlightened ideal.  Still, looking at some of the prison systems in Northern Europe which to our eyes coddle criminals.  Great living spaces and rehab facilities. 

 

W/ the number of people we arrest here it'd be instantly bankrupting.  Still some pet programs would be interesting.  Spending more upfront might be the cheapest way.  As well as knocking out certain 'prison feeder' laws. 

[Stosh]

Punishment does affect behavior , so its not useless. Hang em as high as the offense is grave. 

 

I dont mean this cruelly but,, 

I find it ironic , that now that you conclude you have grown out of your own desire for 'justified' punishment,,, and see it as having been reprehensible or inexcusable , now you feel that punishment shouldn't be handed out.  

Does not your own  morality, call at least, for your own atonement? 

IMO the wise road is just go past calling folks vile for using negative reinforcement, accept what you have done , what others do , and why you all have been doing them.

Don't find yourself superior  or inferior,, in that humbleness, you can just move on and really overcome the polemics of crime and punishment , judgement and atonement.  Going forward from there, If punishment is the option that fits ,accept that, do it , and if coddling is the cure, go with that.

Its an imperfect world , and we are all imperfect in it , when we judge by Utopian standards. 

[Marblehead]

 

Its an imperfect world , and we are all imperfect in it , when we judge by Utopian standards. 

That's worthy of a repeat.

[Aetherous]

Punishment is useless.  Not only useless, vile, repugnant. 

In any situation where there is harm, rather than using what resources we possess to protect and heal, we seek to do more harm?

That is insanity to me.

 

I agree with you totally...but what's insanity is also simply human nature. Lets say if my family is tortured and killed right in front of me...I'm pretty sure that healing the perpetrators wouldn't be the first thing on my mind. Not that what's on my mind would be good...but it would be natural, rather than completely unheard of.

 

It's beneficial to be understanding of people at the place they're at.

[Taomeow]

Prisons are being increasingly privatized and prisoners used as cheap labor source, on top of the government subsidizing those facilities most generously (with our tax dollars that land in private pockets).  The US incarcerates a much greater percentage of its population than any other country in the world.  It's not about punishing criminals -- more and more behaviors are criminalized toward the goal of creating a bigger and bigger source of income for those who are close to this particular trough. 

 

Among other things, this erodes people's ability to form a moral character, since whatever is criminalized arbitrarily does not resonate with our innate sense of right and wrong, so we have to come up with convoluted justifications for our laws in order to remain law-abiding citizens.  Of course good old fear helps too, if the law is set up just so that we risk breaking it every time we feel like doing anything spontaneous, independent, or unsanctioned, we eventually learn to stop doing pretty much everything except what we are told to do.  Not out of any solid moral foundation of compassion, benevolence, and common social sense -- but out of fear.  We are either terrorized into obedience or we have nothing to obey to.  Even amoebas don't have it this harsh.  They can at least tell right from wrong by perceiving pain as pain and pleasure as pleasure, which causes them to seek what's good for them and avoid what's bad for them.  Our wires are too crossed even for this.   

[Enishi]

One thing that has always disgusted me whenever a crime or other tragedy is reported is the outpourings on social media calling for criminals to be tortured, castrated or raped forever out of a desire for sheer vengeance, along with calls for the current prison system to be even BIGGER. I can understand such responses if it's just temporary venting, but that kind of approach does nothing to stop crime in the long term. 

Edited May 7, 2015 by Enishi

[Perceiver]

Prisons are being increasingly privatized and prisoners used as cheap labor source, on top of the government subsidizing those facilities most generously (with our tax dollars that land in private pockets).  The US incarcerates a much greater percentage of its population than any other country in the world.  It's not about punishing criminals -- more and more behaviors are criminalized toward the goal of creating a bigger and bigger source of income for those who are close to this particular trough. 

 

Among other things, this erodes people's ability to form a moral character, since whatever is criminalized arbitrarily does not resonate with our innate sense of right and wrong, so we have to come up with convoluted justifications for our laws in order to remain law-abiding citizens.  Of course good old fear helps too, if the law is set up just so that we risk breaking it every time we feel like doing anything spontaneous, independent, or unsanctioned, we eventually learn to stop doing pretty much everything except what we are told to do.  Not out of any solid moral foundation of compassion, benevolence, and common social sense -- but out of fear.  We are either terrorized into obedience or we have nothing to obey to.  Even amoebas don't have it this harsh.  They can at least tell right from wrong by perceiving pain as pain and pleasure as pleasure, which causes them to seek what's good for them and avoid what's bad for them.  Our wires are too crossed even for this.   

 

I would advise you to question your views of society where government *deliberately* imprisons people to create a cheap pool of labor.

 

You don't *know* why government does what it does, and neither do I. None of us can look inside these people's heads. But ask yourself this question: Do you honestly believe that guys like Obama and Clinton are sitting in their chairs smirking over the number of prisoners and saluting each other on the cheap pool of labor they've created? I find that very unlikely.

 

There are some people who always believe that the government is a malicious cabal of self-centred people who deliberately "enslave" the population for the benefit of "evil" companies and so on. It's the worldview with the maturity of a teenage cartoon, sorry to say.

 

I've met several politicians and I've seen some of them rise in the ranks. They are nice people just like you and I. But when they get involved in politics they also get involved in a system where they can't speak their mind freely and where every decision has to be discussed and decided among sometimes hundreds of people.

 

I think our prison system looks the way it does because that's how it has been historically and because radically changing it means a great deal of rethinking, which means a lot of work.

 

Any government is short-term focused because politicians are overly stressed people with busy schedules. They've got lots of meetings and probably little energy to think long-term. As a result, they most only do quick-fixes of the most pressing things, and let other things be as they are. I think that's a much more credible explanation than to believe that every government out there is a secret cabal of ill-minded people who live only to squeeze the last bit of juice out of their hapless subjects.

 

Wouldn't you agree?

[dust]

Do you honestly believe that guys like Obama and Clinton are sitting in their chairs smirking over the number of prisoners and saluting each other on the cheap pool of labor they've created? I find that very unlikely.

 

Not everything done in government is directly handled by the President... y'know? (Though I wouldn't put it past them)

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289

 

The President doesn't have direct, unbridled control over economics. It's in the hands of everyone. And the more money one has, the more influence.

 

"In our society, real power does not happen to lie in the political system, it lies in the private economy; that's were the decisions are made about what's produced, how much is produced, what's consumed, where investment takes place, who has jobs, who controls the resources, and so on and so forth. And as long as that remains the case, changes inside the political system can make some difference -- I don't want to say it's zero -- but the differences are going to be very slight."

(Chomsky)

[Marblehead]

 

Wouldn't you agree?

Well, I understand your POV.  Can't really say that I agree though.

[Perceiver]

Not everything done in government is directly handled by the President... y'know? (Though I wouldn't put it past them)

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289

 

The President doesn't have direct, unbridled control over economics. It's in the hands of everyone. And the more money one has, the more influence.

 

(Chomsky)

 

Well point taken, and I'm sorry if I was a bit too confrontational in my earlier post. That was uncalled for. We're after all just sharing opinions here.

 

I acknowledge that there are certainly people who profit from this, and some of these might be state-employed, and part of a formal government apparatus.

 

The private companies certainly profit from it: I work in a private company and I can tell from personal experience that a corporate structure seems only to have an eye for itself and nothing else. It's not necessarily that the people in a company are "bad" - it's just that they're afraid of what their manager might say if they don't always do what's good for the profit of the company. So in the end, the profits are always pursued and everything else is secondary.

 

What I don't believe is that a new administration has a deliberate intent to keep as many people in prison as possible in order to profit from them. We might agree here.

[Perceiver]

All people who do violence believe themselves to be justified at some level. Especially when they have to explain their motivation afterwards.

Even killers try to justify their murders at some level: "I was frustrated, I had a bad childhood, I was unable to control myself".

You'll rarely hear someone saying that they killed out of joy or bloodlust alone.

In my opinion there are two stupid ways to treat criminals:

One is to believe in righteous vengeance against them, typically in the form of cruel punishments. This is the kind of system that prevailed in the past, and still does in some countries today.

The other is to see the criminal as the *main* victim -  at the expense of the actual victim. And at the expense of society at large. This is in my opinion the kind of system that prevails in Europe today, where predator rapists are released after 2-3 years in jail, and then continue their violent raping spree.

We just had a recent example of that. And as a result, these criminals end up causing more unphappiness than their own life could ever contribute with to society in terms of happiness. Their life's "happiness scorecard" is at minus 100 or more, and still we allow them to continue.
 

[Stosh]

People who are afraid , or dont want to take responsiblity   also rationalize.