Comment on this statement relating to crime and punishment - Page 4

sweetjazz · #31 12-13-2005, 04:52 AM

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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?

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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.

bills217 · #32 12-13-2005, 04:56 AM

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I really don't see what punishments for DUI has to do with anything in this thread.

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Nothing whatsoever, other than pointing out another area where our judicial system currently fails, which might justify a revision of our judicial system.

Oh, wait, I think that might be somewhat relevant.

Anyhow, I digress.

PoBoy321 · #33 12-13-2005, 04:58 AM

DUI sentences are not a fundemental tenet of our judicial system. Presumption of innocence, however, is.

New001 · #34 12-13-2005, 05:00 AM

I understand what you're trying to say here, but I think one of the most important premises of our legal system is that it's not based on pure EV. An innocent man convicted of a crime is worse in my eyes than preventing any reasonable number of future crimes.

bills217 · #35 12-13-2005, 05:01 AM

I really don't understand how we got to this point, maybe it's my fault.

Currently, we unjustly convict people all the time. It happens.

All I am proposing is that, the punishment for convicted sex offenders be such that it prevents these people (who have an unusually high tendency to repeat offend) from repeat offending, whether that be by castration or lifetime imprisonment. How is this analagous to murdering innocent people who might be sex offenders? How is it different from what we currently do, other than changing the punishment, arguably making the punishment somewhat worse?

PoBoy321 · #36 12-13-2005, 05:03 AM

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How is it different from what we currently do, other than changing the punishment, arguably making the punishment somewhat worse?

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What we currently do can be reversed. What you're proposing can't. I don't see what's so difficult to understand about that.

#37 12-13-2005, 05:07 AM

Surgical castration would be hideous and cruel, but still not equivalent to the death penalty. Cutting off testicles of sex offenders would be more like cutting off the hands of thieves. A wrongfully convicted person would be disabled until medical science advanced significantly, but he would still be able to continue with some quality of life. Of course each of these punishments is unacceptable and unnecessary.

bills217 · #38 12-13-2005, 05:09 AM

The SCOTUS has upheld the legality of the death penalty in this country, correct? Well, what purpose does it serve? Especially when you consider that the offender would be no longer be a threat to society anyhow (assuming lifetime imprisonment)? Do we not already kill innocents through the death penalty?

In my estimation, what I propose is far far far less severe than the death penalty, which, as you know, is currently legal and practiced in our country. If what I propose violates our fundamental judicial tenets, then why doesn't the death penalty?

bills217 · #39 12-13-2005, 05:13 AM

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What we currently do can be reversed. What you're proposing can't.

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NOTHING we currently do can be reversed.

If someone wrongly convicted serves one hour in prison, but is then exonerated, that punishment cannot be reversed, for they will never get that hour of their life back. I hardly see how you can classify someone exonerated after 20 years in prison as having their punishment "reversed."

And, as I've already stated, the SCOTUS has upheld the death penalty, and it is, quite clearly, not reversible.

sweetjazz · #40 12-13-2005, 05:18 AM

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I really don't understand how we got to this point, maybe it's my fault.

Currently, we unjustly convict people all the time. It happens.

All I am proposing is that, the punishment for convicted sex offenders be such that it prevents these people (who have an unusually high tendency to repeat offend) from repeat offending, whether that be by castration or lifetime imprisonment. How is this analagous to murdering innocent people who might be sex offenders? How is it different from what we currently do, other than changing the punishment, arguably making the punishment somewhat worse?

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Well initially you gave a quote that compared castration to the death penalty, and that was off the mark. I think we agree on that point.

And I am not on principle against increasing penalties for specific crimes, though I think mandatory castration for all first-time sex offenders is a bit absurd. But that's just my value judgment.

I think the point that we are disagreeing with you is that one can cavalierly accept that an innocent person is going to be given a punishment.

Obviously it does happen a lot in our criminal justice system, and while I would like to see that changed, I admit that it must be admitted that it does happen.

I generally favor punishments that are flexible in how they can be applied, but with the added proviso that there must be a fair way of applying them. (We don't give harsher penalties because the person is Hispanic, or a woman, or roots for the Padres, or something else irrelevant.)

So I generally favor a system in which there are different penalties for (1) someone who is convicted for brutally sexually assaulting someone based on the corrobative evidence of several independent witnesses and for (2) someone who is convicted for sexually assaulting someone in a date rape case based on the evidence of one witness whose psychological health is questionable and whose defense counsel is an inept state-appointed lawyer. Imposing a mandatory sentence makes that hard to accomplish, in practice.

How much the sadistic nature of the crime is relevant, how much the reliability of the conviction is relevant, etc. is a matter for debate, but I think these issues should be on the table to a certain degree. As such, I think that the psychological state of the convicted person can be used to assess his likely threat to the community (closely related to his probability of recidivism (sp?) ). But it's only one factor, and there should be degrees of punishment.

It's also hard to say what should be done regarding the criminal justice system, because in my opinion (without getting too off topic here) there is so much wasted money spent on trying to police the drug trade that there aren't enough resources to effectively deal with other much more serious crimes.