The idea that all prisoners can be compared to murderers is a major reinforcing myth that perpetuates the system of abuse and allows people to tell themselves it's okay. It's not okay.
The world looks at us in horror, rightly.
The duty of the state shouldn't be to exact revenge (which by the way, studies show, after a threshold incremental punishment does nothing) but rather to give folks the tools to escape their environments. That means showing them how to live in the real world.
At the end of the day the state should measure the efficacy of a prison system against recidivism and total population crime rate. The individual cases shouldn't really factor in.
> That violent people should be removed from society to prevent them from injuring other people?
No, I made it clear that I believe the efficacy of a prison system should be measured by total population crime rate and recidivism rates. The US prison system fails to achieve the goal you're implying it does. It has a very high recidivism and reconviction rate. In a sense, my point is more that "we've tried it your way and it's not working."
The goal should be to, as you say, "stop people from injuring other people" in the future. You can't un-injure someone in the past, and the constitution provides for proportional punishments in the 8th amendment if I'm not mistaken, so people will end up out of prison at some point. The question on my mind is how to make sure that when they do, they don't injure more people.
Recidivism rates are available for your review: [1]. My point is rather that the plan you're advocating for isn't achieving the result that you're telling me it is.
> Being in a constant state of understanding is not how you govern a country if you want it to be peaceful and cleaned up.
Being data-driven is how you achieve goals, and the data says this is the wrong approach.
That's not correct, and tells something about your preconception. I was told by someone who had been to prison that those doing time for murder or manslaughter are considered less dangerous, they killed their target and that was that. The ones in there for GBH, those are the ones you have to look out for, they have low impulse control and low intelligence and are basically incorrigible.
From a policy POV, the comment is entirely serious and rational, appropriate.
You’re stating a moral axiom, one that is widely and increasingly rejected in civilised countries.
Assuming you mean “capital punishment for intentional murderers” then how do you defend this? A murderer kills to satisfy some need, you appear to wish to death on someone to satisfy some need of your own ie “justice”, even presumably when you aren’t personally victimised by their crime.
It seems capital punishment creates at least two evils - an unnecessary taking of human life, and the encouragement of sadistic ideation in the general population.
Taking a life can be a necessary evil. In "civilized countries" as how you put it, the next of kin has the choice on whether to forgive the killer or take blood money, or have him executed by the court. This is for one on one incidents. For other cases, such as serial rapists or serial killers, the decision is 100% in the hands of the court, as it is way bigger than a single interaction.
Regarding civilised or not, perhaps this might be of interest:
https://goodessaysblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/23/capital-puni...
> but that isn’t the case in capital punishment as someone in custody is no longer a mortal threat to society.
It's not just about being a threat, it's about justice.
Laws from what I’ve seen are to codify expected behavior so it isn’t arbitrary. The tone and nature of them is up to the legislator.
One chapter covers the basic forces regulating behavior:
Physics - The world and our understanding of it place bounds on what can and cannot be done.
Money and Markets - The cost of things place bounds on what can and cannot be done.
Both of these prevent behavior, as in taking behavior off the table no matter how compelling it may otherwise be.
The other two, norms and laws lack this property, instead act post fact.
Laws - Describe acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and carry consequences, remedies for unacceptable behavior.
Physics takes driving above some speeds impossible. Speed bumps, etc...
Speed limits do not actually prevent anything, only impose costs, by way of example.
Norms - Work like laws, only are largely enforced socially.
There is a lot more in the book.
My point here is leaning on law to manage behavior is not particularly effective. Getting more of the better behavior more of the time is systemic. Requires action on all fronts.
You seem to be referring to ideal or better/more effective. I was referring to what is.
There is of course a gap there, and any changes to move ‘is’ to ‘better’ or ‘ideal’ requires a lot of buy in and messy negotiation from people who aren’t likely hanging out on Hackernews debating the topic.
Law does not operate in a vacuum.
And, I am saying it is more effective to give all the forces regulating behavior consideration.
Which is not to say that we do in fact write laws that codify those ideals, hence the words "supposed to" in my prior comment.
I can probably dig up a citation tomorrow when I hope have a little more free time, but not making any promises either, sorry
Additionally, the only places I see explicitly saying laws are coming from a place of moral authority are places with Sharia law (literally - sharia means ‘the clear well trodden path to water’ and it’s the codifying of traditions the population considers to work). Pretty much every law in the US that uses morals as it’s justification has been thrown out by the US Supreme Court.
If ‘we all’ are not actually in agreement (always the case) on what is morally right, then what happens?
Is executing a slightly underdeveloped person (80 iq) for murdering several people morally right? Is NOT executing that person morally right?
You could poll the population and get a large chunk of people agreeing with both of those stances very strongly.
Is asset forfeiture morally ok? What if the person is a certain color and speaks with the accent of a certain country to the south of the US?
You can get a large portion of the population to disagree with the first one, and strongly agree with the second.
A law is codifying a stance (writing it down in as unambiguous a way as possible) that can be passed by representatives without them all getting fired/hanged by angry constituents and enforced willingly by a large law enforcement group without getting overridden by a higher power.
Part of the whole not getting fired/hanged part is making sure it can’t be enforced arbitrarily against people their constituents wouldn’t like it being enforced against, and can be against people they do.
It’s a messy business with huge implications for everyone.
Escalation of what may be moderate violence to make the time worth it.
Disregard for the law due to perception of poor justice.
Failure to recognize all forces regulating behavior to focus on harsh law alone tends to amplify undesirable behavior.
There are more.
Is it true that people who are convicted of violent crimes more than once usually proceed to have very high recidivism rates until they get in for good ? And that those repeat offenders make up for a very disproportionately huge part of the total violent crimes? That's maybe due to how the prison system perpetuates the cycle and need for violence especially for gang members, but idk if that explains why other violent criminals such as rapists and domestic abusers also (supposedly) reoffend more and non violent criminals in the same prisons less.
Again, I'm probably wrong but the claim was that if we isolated those repeat violent offenders from society we'd basically not only see a massive drop in violent crimes but also almost certainly prevent crimes that they are almost guaranteed to commit due to their recidivism rates. Obviously that ignores the moral argument for aiming to rehabilitate and reintegrate (which are both goals that I fundamentally support, except in rare cases ) but It would confirm a personal biais because I also tend to think based on personal experiences that some people are just violent and have a lot more violent impulses/snaps than normal people do.
This could be warranted for light non-violent crime. Or murders who had a very very good case (like they were brutally bullied or threatened and there is clear proof). Then I believe in rehabilitation. So I guess it really depends on the case. Most probably wont pass that test though.
El Chapo is 64. I suspect much of the leadership of the mafia is aged. Or did you only mean front-line infantry when you said "gang bangers."