So what. Correlation doesn't equal causation. Just because they do some things right, doesn't mean they do everything right. Whether it is good at reforming petty criminals it a moot point,what is cleat is that it is absolutely lacking in being able to deal justice when people have committed atrocities. How many people does someone have to kill, torture, rape and brutalise before 21 years of playing video games and relaxing in a holiday resort then release for good behaviour becomes insufficient?DaddyCoolVipper wrote:
And yet they have the best prison system in the world, when talking about rates of re-offence for example.
Sometimes, solutions are counter-intuitive to your feelings.
..So he had an abusive, awful childhood, exacerbated by the school and prison systems that he'd been to in his youth. A bit hard to see him as just some evil guy that deserves to be judged the same way as anyone else, considering how fucked up his entire life had been up to that point. This is the case for most people who do terrible things.No. Just because one guy has a sob story doesn't mean you can generalise it to mean that everyone who ever did something bad had a proportionately bad earlier life. You have people like him, then you have people like Elliot Rodger who had a perfectly good childhood but just brooded on some minor hardship and then did what they did. People have free will and it's not just all environmental determinism, I'd be willing to bet that serial killers have lives no harder than 1000 other people who managed to lead normal lives.
In other words the "right side of history" fallacy.Railey2 wrote:
I don't like the idea of criminals having it easy in prison either, but if that is what it takes to create the lowest rate of re-offenders and a healthy society, then maybe i should reconsider if my "sense of justice" is worth being pursued. In other words: If your sense of justice doesn't create any utilitarian value, it belongs on the historical garbage-dump, right next to witch-hunts, laws regarding bastards, the opression of women and everything else we got rid of to create a better life for everyone.
By no means it it obvious that lack of capital punishment is what's best for society. Japan's prison has capital punishment and a harsh and punitive prison system. It also has some of the lowest crime rates in the world, even compared to Scandinavian countries. But would there be more utilitarian value in letting the convicted of the Nuremburg trials off on good behaviour?