Punishing or rehabilitating criminals - which is more important?
#asknostr
Discussion
Either you're born with it, or it's Maybelline. Death to criminals. Death to the path of least resistance. Death to the status quo.
Whichever is getting me votes! And cost-plus public-private partnerships.
I love the idea of restorative justice not just for the perp but also because the victim gets something that they lost back as opposed to just the perp going to jail and the victim living continuing as a victim.
Unfortunately, I don't believe restorative justice can work when the perp can just walk away from their community and do it again in another community. So there's no pressure to restore any relationship between wrong doer and victim.
I don't know that I'd be that into restorative justice depending on the crime. If someone murdered my loved one then I want that person to suffer through consequences that feel proportionate to the tragedy and suffering they have caused.
Oh God. This is really difficult. Because I'm no leftist I'm conservative. And I've noticed the shift to caring more about criminals than the victims.
But if you don't rehabilitate criminals, then you have a high recidivism rate.
However, some criminals don't want to be rehabilitated though.
You can't force someone to change doesn't matter how many implementations of Rehabilitation that you provide.
The same can be said for the homeless about housing all of them a lot of them are drug addicts, and a lot of them don't want to change so Rehabilitation is ineffective.
Having said all this this makes me now kind of think, but if punishments are harsher, it would reduce crime.
I agree ideally there would be a balance. It's interesting because we know fear of consequences is a powerful deterrent if consequences are high enough, but it's also true that some people are kinda thrust into a life of crime through circumstance. It's really difficult as you say.
Rehabilitation is the only economically viable solution.
Education is the number one indicator of recidivism.
Most states spend more on prisons than they do on schools.
Do you think there are people who don't want or can't be rehabilitated? What do we do with them?
Also do victims deserve some sense of justice and does rehabilitation by itself afford that?
I think the number of people who cannot be rehabilitated is incredibly small. There will always be a small number of people not safe to be in society.
Justice is a tricky thing. Justice has a bad tendency to become revenge. Victims deserve to be made whole where possible. But (especially in the case of violent crime) itβs not always possible. In those cases the best we can do is make them feel safe.
Criminal justice reform should focus on nonviolent offenders first. They make up the bulk of offenders and they cost the taxpayers the most money. In those cases, education and certain other reforms such as making background checks illegal for most jobs and housing would go a long way towards reducing recidivism.
I do support stiff penalties for violent crimes. Violent offenders have not just shown a lack of options but also a lack of respect for the lives of others. The system should still attempt to rehabilitate them - many are still released at some point so it is in the interest of society - but it is much more justifiable to lock them up for longer periods.
In general I'm OK with trying to reform non-violent criminals, and indeed trying to be too harsh on them is counter productive.
What absolutely enrages me is seeing violent criminals be given joke sentences like home detention for serious crimes. I think the onus is on them to rehabilitate, the rest of us would be happy to just have them off the street and victims deserve to feel like they got justice.
Broadly speaking I think we mostly agree.