Comment on this statement relating to crime and punishment

[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
Please humor this completely unrealistic hypothetical example:

Say my sex offender castration policy is adopted, and after 100 years, we know by looking through a crystal ball that only one castrated offender was innocent, but we saved, say, 100,000 potential victims by preventing repeat offenses. Would you agree that under that scenario it would be a good policy? Do you see my point now?


[/ QUOTE ]

Is your point that your argument is based on a wildly hypothetical estimate that is completely unrealistic and completely unverifiable even in principle? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Seriously, how do you avoid me justifying anything I want by your approach? If I can convince someone that I think your descendants are likely to include some sex offenders, then am I justified in killing you? Can I assassinate the president even if I think his policies will be much worse than the vice-presidents would be?

I agree that your intent is good. But you seem to be missing the point that our justice system is not based on doing the most socially +EV thing at all times. It's also about insuring that everybody gets treated fairly.

Ridiculous scenario:

Person X is a sex offender. He agrees not to commit any future sex offense crimes if YOU are killed and he goes unpunished, and let's assume we have some reliable way to know that this is true. We don't have any reliable way of telling whether or not you will commit future crime. Since there is some risk (perhaps very small) that you'll become a sex offender, it is now more +EV for society to kill you instead of punishing Person X.

But so what? Person X should be punished. You are innocent and should not be punished.