In my observations of the American public, people generally seem to be fine with the extreme sentences and punishment that the system doles out. We’re completely apathetic towards most criminals (usually unless they happen to be rich & white), without understanding the circumstances that created their situation.

Take the Crystal Mason case. She’s a Texas woman of color who voted illegally in the 2016 election and got a 5 year prison sentence[0]. The problem was that her parole officer never told her she was ineligible to vote, so she went to the polls thinking that she was doing so legally. Now, not knowing what you’re doing is a crime isn’t a legally sound defense argument, but it does raise serious questions about how we view punishment and those we deem should be punished. While I don’t think that crimes shouldn’t be punished, 5 years for voting mistakenly is an abhorrent sentence, and serves to further divide power between the rich and poor.

0: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/31/598458914...

> Now, not knowing what you’re doing is a crime isn’t a legally sound defense argument, but it does raise serious questions about how we view punishment and those we deem should be punished.

Isn't it a Mens Rea defense?

Mens rea is more intention to do the act, not knowledge of criminality. For example intentionally killing someone is murder even if you didn't know murder is a crime (because the act or killing was intended). The mens rea is intention to kill (if you lack the mens rea you end up with manslaughter or something equivalent).

It could be, but in order to sign a provisional ballot you have to sign a form that tells you you can't vote as a convicted felon. So even if she honestly didn't read the form (which wouldn't surprise me!) it severely undercuts her argument.

Many crimes do not require intent, they're strict liability. Some do.

That distinction isn't relevant here. She had mens rea -- she knew she was voting. She didn't know she was breaking the law.

Fascinating to me that it is humanly impossible for any individual to remember ALL the laws yet ignorance of the law is not a defence.

:)

I'm more upset that ignorance of the law IS a defense for police officers, whose job is to know it.

What's the idea behind convicted felons not being allowed to vote?

>What's the idea behind convicted felons not being allowed to vote?

Disenfranchisement, and the 13th amendment. The "justice" system in the United States, especially enabled by laws surrounding drug prohibition (created for the purpose of suppressing Nixon's political opposition, hence why cannabis is schedule 1 federally), is the modern embodiment of the Jim Crow system that was supposedly abolished.

Prisoners are specifically exempted from the slavery protections provided by the 13th amendment. Allowing prisoners, who are being housed at the expense of the tax payer, to be forced to work for pennies as literal slaves, often for private corporations.

Despite marijuana use being equally prevalent among white and black populations, blacks are several times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession. Despite cocaine and crack being literally the same drug, the only difference being if it's in its hcl salt or freebase form, crack is prosecuted by a weight ratio of 18:1 compared to cocaine. Before the "fair sentencing act" was passed in 2010, this ratio was 100:1. Low level crack dealers caught with 10g were prosecuted the same as somebody caught with a kilo of coke, triggering mandatory minimums of decades for drug trafficking.

Can you guess why this prosecutional disparity existed (and still exists) between two different forms of the same drug?

Hint: it's the same reason why felons are politically disenfranchised.

I find it crazy (among the other things mentioned too) that taxpayers are subsidizing cheap prison labor for major corporations. Also crazy to me is the cost to house inmates in many states being more than the national average in terms of income[0] considering the poor conditions of these institutions.

[0] https://www.vera.org/publications/price-of-prisons-2015-stat...

To the best of my knowledge:

Officially, that they've proven themselves to be untrustworthy and "evil", and we shouldn't allow evil people to be deciding the course of our nation.

Unofficially, at least to a large extent, straight-up racism.

Felons are less likely to vote for the system that put them in jail, the system that put them in jail has the power, so the system that put them there stops them from voting so it can stay in power.

> In my observations of the American public, people generally seem to be fine with the extreme sentences and punishment that the system doles out.

Many thousands have been marching across the nation for weeks now, precisely because they are not fine with these extreme sentences, and other abuses of law enforcement.

I've suffered some significant injustice at the hands of another, and for what it's worth their punishment has provided nothing for me.

My experience has completely reversed my thinking about the way criminals are treated. Punishment compounds loss and has provided nothing to me or society. If prison could effectively protect society while providing rehabilitation I don't think any specific punishment would be necessary.

> and for what it's worth their punishment has provided nothing for me.

That is why it is "The people vs. ..." and not "designdesign vs. ..."

> Punishment compounds loss and has provided nothing to me or society.

I think you need to convince society of that, rather than speaking for them.

I look at a guy like Bernie Madoff, who poses no threat to the public now and is probably not likely to be rehabilitated in any traditional sense. But is simply offends for him to live out the rest of his live having hurt so many without some kind of punishment.

You're right about convincing society, but American society has conflated vengeance with justice to the point that they may be inseparable concepts.

I think, in practice, "justice" has always been a mediated form of vengeance. The state maintains its monopoly on violence by extracting enough vengeance from criminals that individuals (i.e. victims or their families) are willing to subcontract revenge to the state. In other words, the "justice" system has to provide enough vengeance to retain the consent of the victims, or those offended on their behalf. The benefits to society are large; total violence is much lower once it's able to break the cycles of private retaliation and avoid endless bloodfeuds. But it is an uncomfortably pragmatic equation.

I don't think there's any other consistent way to look at the issue though. Treating murder as the ultimate crime, as almost all justice systems do, makes sense in terms of the cost to the victim and the desire of societies as a whole to see murderers punished. But most murders are unplanned, and most murderers are no more likely to murder again than any other member of the population. Given the above, long sentences for (unpremeditated) murder just do not make sense; they probably have little value either as deterrence or prevention, and they certainly don't rehabilitate. But would a victim's associates stand idly by if their murderer was free after five years?

This is the crux of it. It's not some fundamental human value to want harsh vengeance doled out for crimes. It's peculiar to the US and a few other countries.

I think the idea of punishment is mostly preventative (because there will be consequences). However, harsher punishments don't necessarily increase this effect.

> Our prisons should protect the public

If this is priority number one then rehabilitation follows from that. Rehabilitating prisoners to minimize the risk of relapse and continued danger upon release to society carries the greatest benefit for protecting the interests of the public as a whole.

You can argue that locking people away forever is better for protecting the public, but that is ludicrously expensive and deprives the public of tax dollars that could go to improving public interests such as a strong economy. Releasing prisoners and letting them work also boosts the economy. Provided that the risk of them relapsing to anti-social criminal behavior is so small that the expected benefit is larger than the detriment.

The feeling of justice being served and retribution is not very productive. For sure there must be consequences, but the consequences should benefit society and serve to prevent criminal behavior in the first place rather than satisfy the victim's insatiable hunger for revenge.

> it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime

This is interesting, philosophically speaking. Why do you say this is so? To what end is the suffering, purely for the sake of the suffering itself, valuable? If it's at odds with the rehabilitation, which should take precedence?

Or, from another perspective, what makes one think that forced confinement and ostracisation does not qualify as sufficient "consequences"? In a fundamental sense, this is the greatest punishment that can be given to a human being. We are incredibly social creatures.

I think most would say it does qualify. That was their point- that the goal of incarceration is not only protection, but it (rightfully) serves as punishment.

sounded like more of an observation to me, seems accurate too.

The appropriate extent of punishment is that you are not allowed your freedom. You are restrained from engaging in society.

However, currently, in the US, prisoners are a) primarily incarcerated for non-violent crime, b) used as indentured servants with their labor sold without freedom to withdraw their labor, c) kept in prison beyond reasonable and appropriate sentences to provide the private and public purse of people's taxes paying the prison complex and their labor for profit.

> prisoners are a) primarily incarcerated for non-violent crime

You need to be careful about the difference between "of people sentenced to prison, how many were sentenced for a nonviolent crime?" and "of people currently in prison, how many are serving a sentence for a nonviolent crime?".

Only the first question will tell you that prisoners are primarily incarcerated for nonviolent crime. This is a result of sentences for nonviolent crimes being much lighter than sentences for violent crimes.

> Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime.

I suspect this is the majority view, but it’s not universal. I’m pointing this out not to argue with you directly so much as to point out that this may be more _your_ sense of justice than a general rule of human nature.

> more _your_ sense of justice than a general rule of human nature.

It's interesting -- I'm a very forgiving person. And I truly believe that hate consumes and destroys the hater not the hated. But something I believe we all should do individually, that is forgive, is not something I believe we should do collectively. Maybe it's irrational, maybe it's that doing it collectively requires some to forgive, quite possibly against their will.

Just wait until someone you love gets murdered or maimed.

Emotional responses shouldn't trump your sense of justice and fairness to human life. I have someone that was close to me murdered and I don't think that a harsher punishment only for my enjoyment is the answer to "what is justice?".

A desire for punishments generally isn't for 'enjoyment', but motivated by someone's sense of justice. "Being punished for bad deeds" is a very common notion of 'fairness'.

If your notion of justice doesn't include retribution, that's completely legitimate, but to insinuate that your sense of justice is somehow less of a emotional response than someone else's is ridiculous.

It probably starts with corporal punishment of children. That gives society a baseline predisposition towards violence and doled our suffering in order to enforce conduct. Adults who were beaten as children or felt that they suffered for their transgressions may feel that it’s unfair for someone to avoid suffering for transgressions, when they had to suffer in the past for theirs.

It probably doesn't.

hypothetically, if you could see into the future and ascertain that the perpetrator feels regret and would never commit another crime, should they still serve time?

I would think that there should still be some period of incarceration as a putative measure.

Incarceration is a great punishment by itself, depriving someone of their freedom of movement is already quite a lot. What I meant is there is no need for a vengeful justice beyond that.

If an individual is dangerous for society they shouldn't be in it, this doesn't mean forever if there is a possibility of rehabilitation. There are many monsters locked up that probably should never be released, in that sense the justice systems of Norway, Germany, Sweden and others work well: you are locked up to 20 years, after that your case is reviewed and if you are still deemed a danger to society you get it prolonged, a few times this goes on for life.

This is illustrative of how having a bias pointed out can be perceived as a threat, and responded to in kind.

I doubt that was intended as a threat (though I can see how you might read it that way). Instead, I believe I was an attempt to point out to you that an accusation of bias can go both ways, and that your view of what was typical/normal would change if your circumstances did.

If you were taking some position about money management and the response was "Yeah, just wait until you when the lottery" you wouldn't see this as a threat. Try reading it in that sense.

That wasn't pointing a bias out, that was just an unsubstantiated statement. The rest in your comment is just your perception and projection of your perception.

> Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime.

Consequences could be restoration and responsibility instead of mere punishment.

Still, let's say punishment has a place for some severe crimes where restoration/responsibility isn't possible or for people who will not cooperate.

Imprisonment itself is punitive -- there should be no better time that the entire public should understand fully that the loss of freedom and opportunity and association involved in confinement is no small one, because almost all of us have gotten a small taste of what that's like, and some people have found it difficult even when it's their own homes stocked with their own possessions and comforts.

Can we really justify the degree to which we create further suffering beyond the consequences of imprisonment itself?

And if these consequences aren't actually written into the law -- which specifies imprisonment, but not necessarily isolation, or $.05 per email, or informal violence in prison -- can we really said to be a society based on law or justice?

>rehabilitate prisoners

Yes that's what i mean with do/learn, give them the tools so they can live a good and legal life after prison.

>to an appropriate extent, punish

I think that's already included in the package..when they take away your freedom.

What do you do when someone refuses to be rehabilitated? There is real evil in the world and people who are happy to break the rules of society again and again and again.

Then they have to stay inside prison or closed psychiatry, absolutely. Like i wrote prisons a here to protect the public, closed psychiatry's to protect the public or the prisoner/patient from themselves.

Some guy with pointy ears said once:

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

The mechanism and reasoning behind protection and rehabilitation are simple enough to understand.

With the punishment component in this model I imagine the aim is to dissuade rational people from committing crime in the first place? Is it also to assuage the specific anger of the victims, or the abstract anger of society as a whole, or does vengeance not play a part in the morality of punishment?

It's very interesting people would want prisons to punish people.

It is known that justice systems are fallible.

To demand explicit punishment as part of prison service is equivalent of saying "It's ok if lot of innocent people are punished as long as it is made sure all guilty are punished as well".

>to an appropriate extent, punish.

What's the overall goal of punishment? We know it's not a deterrent to crime. We know it doesn't help recidivism rates. The only remaining reason I can think of is spite/hate.

From my perspective, I've found that many against promoting rehabilitation (at least for less heinous crimes) tend to see prison as a day at the park.

Essentially, they're trapped in a prison in the form of low income or poverty where significant portions of their time must be spent working. They don't understand how a prisoner could potentially or at least perceptually be better off than them: consistent housing provided, guaranteed food, medical treatment, time for education and growth. When you have such gaps with economic inequality in a society where for those on the lower end of the spectrum combined with some misconception of prison life, prison can actually seem better, you have many who tend to promote punishment over rehabilitation.

"Someone did something society deemed as negative and they're rewarded, I did what society said was positive and seem to be punished relative to those acted negatively. I struggle to survive and work constantly while this person leisures (albeit with limited freedom) and studies."

So as you coined it, probably spite.

Or, a sense of justice. A powerful emotion in people.

Who know how many more criminals there might be, if punishment was off the table? Recidivism doesn't count that. So there's that social pressure too.

Its pretty easy to figure out 'why punishment', if you try.

Who knows how many fewer criminals there might be, if social safety nets, providing for people's basic needs of food, shelter, health care and education?

How do you cure homelessness? You provide homes.

How do you deal with mental and physical illness? You provide health care.

How do you give people are path forwards? You provide education.

All of these things are what our societies are for. To carry on about "law and order" and even the "rule of law" without also quoting the part about "promote the general welfare" is to completely miss the purpose.

We should certainly provide all of those things. But even homeless people, ill people, people with no direction in life can and should avoid committing crimes.

It's pretty easy to figure out 'why we shouldn't focus on revenge', if you try.

edit: I may be guilty of not listening to what you're actually saying. If you're saying there is something in the core of people that is delighted by revenge, therefore the current system, I agree. If you are saying that justifies a focus on punishment, I disagree.

Not necessary to color everything with the worst adjective at hand. A sense of 'justice' is a thing. Calling it 'revenge' devalues it, and implies a personal component that isn't present.

Justice is the sense that good action will be rewarded, and bad actions will come to a bad end. Not "I'm gonna kill anybody that crosses me!" They are very different, and its not useful discussing this if that is not clear.

How do we know punishment is not a deterrent to crime?

If there was no punishment for committing crimes, do you think the amount of crime would remain approximately the same and is there any good evidence for that?

I think it's probably not a deterrent to some crimes, but a deterrent to others. Probably there are lots of people who don't shoplift, e.g., out of fear of the consequences of getting caught. (Obviously there are plenty who would not steal regardless; and plenty who steal anyway). Most studies I've seen on deterrence focus on the most serious crimes like murder and rape.

we can debate if that's logically or morally right, but there's no doubt spite and hate are powerful motivators