So you're kind of mocking the guy above but it's a real thing: the American criminal justice theory shifted towards retributive justice (where the point is to punish criminals) around the middle of last century. There are alternative models including reformative justice (where the point is to reform the offenders) and restorative justice (where the point is to try to undo or balance out the damage done by crimes).

There are many reform advocates that suggest things should shift more towards those latter two, but the current state is that the main point is to do something bad to someone who did something bad.

For sure, in theory practice is no different.

Crime victims should honestly have zero input into the law. They're simply too emotionally invested to approach it rationally.

I think he's saying that if you completely ignore the "natural" desire of some the victims for at least some punishment you will just end up with said victims taking justice into their own hands. So if you are so lenient to the point where a lot of victims & society in general start disregarding the justice system because they think its unjust, you could just end up with a lot of extra judicial revenge.

In a way I kind of agree. Because while yes the victims shouldn't have a say in what sentence or punishment a perpetrator gets, taking it to the extreme and just completely disregarding the other party's grievances is probably dangerous and undermines the justice system. If you get a lot of people feeling that there is no justice to be had from the system, you end up with a super dangerous situation & I know how deeply that feeling can erode the social fabric since it happened in my home country.

First of all, other systems in other societies point to that it is not the only possibility. Second, the laws and regulations transform how society views criminals. I think in more modern crime systems (I come from Sweden) criminals are often viewed as victims themselves and the main goal is rehabilitation (quite obvious since it will lead to the most reduction in crime over time).

Why do Americans believe vigilante justice is more inevitable than the citizens of other developed countries?

Because we know the absurd amount of guns that surrounds us at any given time, and are acutely aware of how flimsy hunting and personal protection are as excuses for the intent behind the ownership of small arsenals.

Cant disagree! The knee-jerk reaction of “there aughtta be a law” to any wrong is part of the problem.

Surely in modern society we can do better than Weregild forms of justice and pseudo-medieval revenge systems. It's mind numbing that when people think crime and punishment the only references we use are ancient germanic codes.