A mirror of the eeesite "A Song of Ice and Fire"

This is a mirror of the now defunct eesite ASOIAF webboard.

The discussions for G.R.R. Martin's awesome series "A Song of Ice and Fire" are now being held at: Current ASoIaF Webboard

You cannot post new messages to this board. Go to the Current ASoIaF Webboard for the most current discussions.

A Song of Ice and Fire / Other Topics / Crime and Punishment

Sphinx
User ID: 0638514 Oct 10th 6:11 AM
Something that's come up peripherally in the 'Censorship' topic, but which I think would be interesting to discuss, especially as I've never discussed it with people from such varied countries, is the issue of punishment for crimes.

The main thing that interests me here is the reasoning behind it. I live in England - no death pennalty, basically if it's a serious rap, you go to prison. It seems to me, there are 4 rationales behind 'punishing' someone, particularly with a custodial sentence:-

1. Punishment - to punish the person for having done wrong.

2. Rehabilitation - to give the convicted the chance to mend their ways.

3. Deterrent - To set an example to others so that they will not copy the offence.

4. Protection of the Public - To put dangerous people where they cannot harm anyone.

Certainly, IMHO, the latter three are admirable aims. The first, whilst a natural human reaction, is more arguable (although don't get me wrong, if somebody's done something which I find reprehensible, and especially to someone I care for, the need in me to see them pay is strong).

However, I feel that these are no longer really taken into consideration in our legal system. The rationale behind sending someone to prison is not examined, guidelines and precedents are just followed blindly, and the first reason is far too often the primary deciding factor in the sentence.

Also, there is a big argument which says that prison does not do these things. Whilst it acts as a deterrent to many, many 'ne'er-do-wells' are blase (wheres that squiggly thing above the e when you need it?) when it comes to the prospect of prison.

Rehabilitation is, many feel, rarely achieved, and sometimes exactly the opposite (i.e. put an offender in a building with a bunch of criminals for a few years, waht new attitudes and skills is he going to most likely learn). Because of this, the Protection of the public issue is just a postponement really. I'm not exactly sure what the rate is of released criminals who re-offend, but I'm sure it's higher than anyone would like.

Then again, what are the alternatives? You can either go more liberal, suggesting rehabilitation programs not involving prison, whcih, whilst nice ideas, and probably appropriate in _some_ cases, are not suitable for all and don't protect the public and are even less of a deterrent.

Or you can go the other way, and introduce the death penalty, but there you run into issues of wrongful conviction (at least a couple of dozen people, who would almost certainly have been given the death penalty were it in force, have been released after their convictions were overturned, just in the last 7 or 8 years in Britain). Also, this completely ignores the rehabilitation issue. It gives up on any hope that the convicted might change their ways.

I'd be interested to hear other peoples views on this, especially from those who live in countries with a different system, particularly those where the death penalty is in operation.

Fourthman
User ID: 0526904 Oct 10th 10:02 AM
I think you forgot one or two.

Although probably more of an extension of "4." The idea of isolating someone in a facility serves two additional purposes. Protection from the public, in the case when someone has committed a crime for which many people may want to exact a greater toll than is legally warranted. And Protection from the criminal themselves when someone is either criminally insane or suicidal.

That having been said, I am against the death penalty, as it doesn't curb recidivism nor does it lower the crime rate. I am also cynical about the current state of penal institutions. I don't have any original (nor even hackneyed) solutions to making people truly rehabilitated, the problems being that to naively liberalize the situation seems to lead to a higher crime rate yet to strictly conservatize it leads to greater brutality inside thes institutions.
Either way, I'm just glad to be out here talking to you fine people.

KAH
User ID: 9209903 Oct 11th 6:11 AM
Sphinx,

I agree that the 'revenge' reason is more or less worthless - it's the latter three that are important, and should be given consideration.

Reason 2 conflicts somewhat with the last two, as you pointed out.
I'm of the opinion that rehabilitation is important - it serves nothing to 'produce' hardened criminals in prisons, which act more or less as schools in crime.

OTOH, I'm also of the belief that deterrence is _extremely_ important, and that one should be very wary tampering with punishment for that reason alone.
Some say that there is no deterrence - either you do crime by accident, in the heat of the moment (and you do not get the chance to thin it over), or it is planned (and you don't think you will be caught). I disagree with that notion - I think such a Damocles sword hangs over our heads subconciously, and curbes our actions on a daily basis. It might not deter _everybody_, true, but I believe that crime rates would be _much_ higher without the threat of punishment.

Take, for instance, the civil wars in former Yugoslavia. Neighbor slaughtering neighbor, earlier friends killing eachother, after living together for decades in peace.

Why did this happen? Well, I suppose that it was at least partly a matter of taking away deterrence - someone was defined as being 'fit for prey', and the sociopaths among us took advantage of that.
While here, in our orderly civil society, the sociopaths are controlled - they care nothing for humans worth, but they acknowledge that society will punish them if they violate the rules, and hence they hold their hands. They still make some of our lives hell, in marriage, at work, etc., but they generally keep their harassments inside the borders of law. I don't know how big a percentage of society could be defined as sociopaths, but one person alone can make a _lot_ of trouble, given leeway.

Thus, I think that any rehabilitation must come _together_ with punishment, and not to the exclusion of it - perhaps the last few years of a sentence could be used as a way to make the prisoner slowly 'fit for society', if possible.

Jeff
User ID: 0227464 Oct 11th 9:02 AM
I took a course in peneology in law school. (I can see the penis jokes coming already...). We had a very liberal professor -- a very-well known anti-death penalty advocate and advocate for the mentally ill. But he made an admission that really sort of surprised us -- there has yet to be a _single_ "rehabilitation" program that has had a statistically significant effect on recidivism. He'd mention a program that seemed successful and then fell apart. We'd find -- or he'd mention -- a "flaw" in the program, and we'd all agree that had that flaw not existed, the program would have worked. Then he'd tell us that someone did try it without the flaw and it _still_ didn't work. He seemed as perplexed by this as we were.

The only thing that has been shown to reduce a person's likelihood to commit crimes after release is aging. As people get older they commit less crimes -- its the one thing the statistics support.

I don't know what this means, exactly, except I thought it was relevant to the rehabilitation debate. It _sounds_ as though rehabilitation should work, but it just doesn't.

Almost forgot. He did say there was one program for juveniles ages 14-17 that has seemed to have a small, statistically significant affect. But I can't remeber the details for the life of me.

Sphinx
User ID: 0638514 Oct 11th 1:56 PM
Kay, I think it would be very difficult to contest the theory that prison and other ounishments work as a deterrent in general (the degree to which they work is another matter - and certainly, on some people they don't work at all). However as you point out it has to be balanced.

I'm quite amazed by your points Jeff. I'm sure you're working from very reliable figures, but I see what you mean when you said it perplexed you.

Does anyone know anything about meet-the-victim programs, I heard they got good results. You know, sit down with the victim, see that they're a real person, see what hurt they've been done.

LindaElane
User ID: 7733333 Oct 11th 10:13 PM
I certainly can't support the death penalty. It is not a deterrent, mistakes are made in convictions, and we are totally unable to find a fair way to determine who is condemned to death.

I don't know what the answersz are, other than more jails and longer prison times. I think people do become set in their ways as a criminal bhy the time they are adults. The hardest pattern to break is child molesting. Child molestors almost always offend again, but we keep releasing them. (Yes, I am inclined to think life in prison should be the penalty, in case you are wonderin. Release programs would be for old age or voluntarily coming to a clinic to take medicine which supresses the sex drive) Do I sound pessimistic? I guess I am, actually.

I did see a great report on 60 minutes about a system for juveniles that is working. I have forgotten the details.

I believe the best deterrent for crime is fathers. A huge majority of men in prison grew up in a home without a father. Fathers are essential, not optional. (And no, I am not telling every divorced man his kids are going to be criminals....but I sure hope he spends lots and lots of time with his kids and supports them.) Oh, and of course consistently abusive fathers are not a deterrent.

Sphinx
User ID: 0638514 Oct 15th 5:45 PM
LindaElane, I agree with your second and third points about the death penalty, but I'm not sure about it not being a deterrent. Do you think prison is a deterrent?

Part of my reason for posting this was the state of the prison system and the system that is in place for deciding who is put there and for how long. I certainly don't have a viable alternative, but building more prisons is a bit like building more roads - maybe a good short term solution, but wouldn't a better (harder, but better) idea in the long run be to reduce the number of offenders/cars?

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a Liberal, and whilst I'd want to see careful controls, I'm all for alternatives to prison _where_appropriate_.

In a kind of contrast to that, and on a tangent, I think that the sentencing for Drink-Drivers is the most disgusting travesty of justice I have ever seen. People do not realise that their car is a deadly piece of equipment. It's a piece of metal that travels at up to 70mph and weighs upwards of one ton. Think about it like that.

If a guy was drunk in the street swinging a chainsaw round his head and cut someone up 'accidentally', would he get a 12-month chainsaw ban and a fine? I think not. The sentence for a convicted drink driver should start at a 5-10 year to life driving ban before you start to talk custodial sentences.

Maybe I'm taking the punishment view which i said was bad, but my views would also work better as a) a detterent, and b) to protect the public.

KAH
User ID: 9209903 Oct 15th 6:13 PM
The death penalty is only a marginally better deterrent than prison, and the price paid for it is too high - there is no way to get around the wrongful convictions, without taking so many precautions that the death penalty being only used in cases where everything is crystal clear, thus making the penalty more of an academic possibility more than anything else.

Anyway, I agree fully with the drunk-driving statement Sphinx came up with. The car being an important benefactor in our lives, is no excuse for abusing it by driving in an intoxicated state.

As for Linda's mention of fathers being the greatest deterrent against crime...I halfway agree.
A conscientious father (or parent in general, for that matter) would go a long way in giving the child a moral base in which to avoid the way of crime.

Unfortunately, there is no way one can assure this
'proper father-/parenthood' to be. We cannot force people to care about their children. We can _tell_ them to do so, but we cannot _make_ them listen.

For instance, making them responsible for their children's actions would be fallacious - there are, after all, other factors than the parents that decide how a child turns out. Thus, we cannot pinpont blame on the parents for crimes their children do.

I apologize for any incoherence in my post, due to my presently rather intoxicated situation. Bear with me.

Jeff
User ID: 1578334 Oct 15th 8:07 PM
The studies I was talking about tracked offenders years after the particular programs at issue and the rates at which they committed subsequent offenses. I did see a study recently on the infamous "scared straight" program and, despite the publicity, recidivism rates for participants actually were higher than for nonparticipants.

The fact that the U.S. has a high rate of incarceration and a high rate of crime does not mean that more prisons won't help the problem. The real issue is how long the average criminal will spend in jail for committing a crime, including the chance that they will not get caught, etc. For example, take the total number of murders committed, and divide that into the total number of years to which murderers were sentenced in that year. That gives you the "expected punishment" for a murder. Surprisingly, the numbers in the U.S. are very low. In other words, either many murders go unsolved and hence unpunished, or actual time served is low, or some combination. Generally, countries with low crime rates have higher expected punishments. There may not be many murders in Japan, but if you commit one, you're going away for a long time.

So, deterrence can work. But if there is a perception that you can get away with a crime or that you won't serve much time even if caught, the deterrent value goes down.

BTW, I can't blame any of you if you are skeptical of the stuff I said about rehabilitation. I know I would be. But look at it this way: if we _had_ discovered a truly effective rehabilitation program, why hasn't it been publicized and copied nationwide?

KAH
User ID: 9209903 Oct 17th 11:55 AM
Rehabilitation after the crime is done, is one thing.

What about preventing crime before it happens? I've heard that the 'no-tolerance' policy Giuliani
has set forth in NY has had some success? (our own Minister of Justice, along with members of the Justice Comittee in the parliament recently visited NY to see if this was worthwhile)

On the other hand, I've heard that crime rates also have fallen in cities where this policy has not been implemented.
And there's a few things to be said about copying the Singaporean society, as well. :oP

Sphinx
User ID: 0638514 Oct 17th 2:05 PM
This is my point about it being better to reduce crime meaning less prisoners, than build more prisons. Prevention is better than cure, and all that. I think education is the only way to go. But then that's far too shaort term a solution to get anybody re-elected on it. (Am I cynical about politicians? - Whatever gave you that idea?).

Sphinx User ID: 0638514	Oct 10th 6:11 AM Something that's come up peripherally in the 'Censorship' topic, but which I think would be interesting to discuss, especially as I've never discussed it with people from such varied countries, is the issue of punishment for crimes. The main thing that interests me here is the reasoning behind it. I live in England - no death pennalty, basically if it's a serious rap, you go to prison. It seems to me, there are 4 rationales behind 'punishing' someone, particularly with a custodial sentence:- 1. Punishment - to punish the person for having done wrong. 2. Rehabilitation - to give the convicted the chance to mend their ways. 3. Deterrent - To set an example to others so that they will not copy the offence. 4. Protection of the Public - To put dangerous people where they cannot harm anyone. Certainly, IMHO, the latter three are admirable aims. The first, whilst a natural human reaction, is more arguable (although don't get me wrong, if somebody's done something which I find reprehensible, and especially to someone I care for, the need in me to see them pay is strong). However, I feel that these are no longer really taken into consideration in our legal system. The rationale behind sending someone to prison is not examined, guidelines and precedents are just followed blindly, and the first reason is far too often the primary deciding factor in the sentence. Also, there is a big argument which says that prison does not do these things. Whilst it acts as a deterrent to many, many 'ne'er-do-wells' are blase (wheres that squiggly thing above the e when you need it?) when it comes to the prospect of prison. Rehabilitation is, many feel, rarely achieved, and sometimes exactly the opposite (i.e. put an offender in a building with a bunch of criminals for a few years, waht new attitudes and skills is he going to most likely learn). Because of this, the Protection of the public issue is just a postponement really. I'm not exactly sure what the rate is of released criminals who re-offend, but I'm sure it's higher than anyone would like. Then again, what are the alternatives? You can either go more liberal, suggesting rehabilitation programs not involving prison, whcih, whilst nice ideas, and probably appropriate in _some_ cases, are not suitable for all and don't protect the public and are even less of a deterrent. Or you can go the other way, and introduce the death penalty, but there you run into issues of wrongful conviction (at least a couple of dozen people, who would almost certainly have been given the death penalty were it in force, have been released after their convictions were overturned, just in the last 7 or 8 years in Britain). Also, this completely ignores the rehabilitation issue. It gives up on any hope that the convicted might change their ways. I'd be interested to hear other peoples views on this, especially from those who live in countries with a different system, particularly those where the death penalty is in operation.
Fourthman User ID: 0526904	Oct 10th 10:02 AM I think you forgot one or two. Although probably more of an extension of "4." The idea of isolating someone in a facility serves two additional purposes. Protection from the public, in the case when someone has committed a crime for which many people may want to exact a greater toll than is legally warranted. And Protection from the criminal themselves when someone is either criminally insane or suicidal. That having been said, I am against the death penalty, as it doesn't curb recidivism nor does it lower the crime rate. I am also cynical about the current state of penal institutions. I don't have any original (nor even hackneyed) solutions to making people truly rehabilitated, the problems being that to naively liberalize the situation seems to lead to a higher crime rate yet to strictly conservatize it leads to greater brutality inside thes institutions. Either way, I'm just glad to be out here talking to you fine people.
KAH User ID: 9209903	Oct 11th 6:11 AM Sphinx, I agree that the 'revenge' reason is more or less worthless - it's the latter three that are important, and should be given consideration. Reason 2 conflicts somewhat with the last two, as you pointed out. I'm of the opinion that rehabilitation is important - it serves nothing to 'produce' hardened criminals in prisons, which act more or less as schools in crime. OTOH, I'm also of the belief that deterrence is _extremely_ important, and that one should be very wary tampering with punishment for that reason alone. Some say that there is no deterrence - either you do crime by accident, in the heat of the moment (and you do not get the chance to thin it over), or it is planned (and you don't think you will be caught). I disagree with that notion - I think such a Damocles sword hangs over our heads subconciously, and curbes our actions on a daily basis. It might not deter _everybody_, true, but I believe that crime rates would be _much_ higher without the threat of punishment. Take, for instance, the civil wars in former Yugoslavia. Neighbor slaughtering neighbor, earlier friends killing eachother, after living together for decades in peace. Why did this happen? Well, I suppose that it was at least partly a matter of taking away deterrence - someone was defined as being 'fit for prey', and the sociopaths among us took advantage of that. While here, in our orderly civil society, the sociopaths are controlled - they care nothing for humans worth, but they acknowledge that society will punish them if they violate the rules, and hence they hold their hands. They still make some of our lives hell, in marriage, at work, etc., but they generally keep their harassments inside the borders of law. I don't know how big a percentage of society could be defined as sociopaths, but one person alone can make a _lot_ of trouble, given leeway. Thus, I think that any rehabilitation must come _together_ with punishment, and not to the exclusion of it - perhaps the last few years of a sentence could be used as a way to make the prisoner slowly 'fit for society', if possible.
Jeff User ID: 0227464	Oct 11th 9:02 AM I took a course in peneology in law school. (I can see the penis jokes coming already...). We had a very liberal professor -- a very-well known anti-death penalty advocate and advocate for the mentally ill. But he made an admission that really sort of surprised us -- there has yet to be a _single_ "rehabilitation" program that has had a statistically significant effect on recidivism. He'd mention a program that seemed successful and then fell apart. We'd find -- or he'd mention -- a "flaw" in the program, and we'd all agree that had that flaw not existed, the program would have worked. Then he'd tell us that someone did try it without the flaw and it _still_ didn't work. He seemed as perplexed by this as we were. The only thing that has been shown to reduce a person's likelihood to commit crimes after release is aging. As people get older they commit less crimes -- its the one thing the statistics support. I don't know what this means, exactly, except I thought it was relevant to the rehabilitation debate. It _sounds_ as though rehabilitation should work, but it just doesn't. Almost forgot. He did say there was one program for juveniles ages 14-17 that has seemed to have a small, statistically significant affect. But I can't remeber the details for the life of me.
Sphinx User ID: 0638514	Oct 11th 1:56 PM Kay, I think it would be very difficult to contest the theory that prison and other ounishments work as a deterrent in general (the degree to which they work is another matter - and certainly, on some people they don't work at all). However as you point out it has to be balanced. I'm quite amazed by your points Jeff. I'm sure you're working from very reliable figures, but I see what you mean when you said it perplexed you. Does anyone know anything about meet-the-victim programs, I heard they got good results. You know, sit down with the victim, see that they're a real person, see what hurt they've been done.
LindaElane User ID: 7733333	Oct 11th 10:13 PM I certainly can't support the death penalty. It is not a deterrent, mistakes are made in convictions, and we are totally unable to find a fair way to determine who is condemned to death. I don't know what the answersz are, other than more jails and longer prison times. I think people do become set in their ways as a criminal bhy the time they are adults. The hardest pattern to break is child molesting. Child molestors almost always offend again, but we keep releasing them. (Yes, I am inclined to think life in prison should be the penalty, in case you are wonderin. Release programs would be for old age or voluntarily coming to a clinic to take medicine which supresses the sex drive) Do I sound pessimistic? I guess I am, actually. I did see a great report on 60 minutes about a system for juveniles that is working. I have forgotten the details. I believe the best deterrent for crime is fathers. A huge majority of men in prison grew up in a home without a father. Fathers are essential, not optional. (And no, I am not telling every divorced man his kids are going to be criminals....but I sure hope he spends lots and lots of time with his kids and supports them.) Oh, and of course consistently abusive fathers are not a deterrent.
Sphinx User ID: 0638514	Oct 15th 5:45 PM LindaElane, I agree with your second and third points about the death penalty, but I'm not sure about it not being a deterrent. Do you think prison is a deterrent? Part of my reason for posting this was the state of the prison system and the system that is in place for deciding who is put there and for how long. I certainly don't have a viable alternative, but building more prisons is a bit like building more roads - maybe a good short term solution, but wouldn't a better (harder, but better) idea in the long run be to reduce the number of offenders/cars? Admittedly, I'm a bit of a Liberal, and whilst I'd want to see careful controls, I'm all for alternatives to prison _where_appropriate_. In a kind of contrast to that, and on a tangent, I think that the sentencing for Drink-Drivers is the most disgusting travesty of justice I have ever seen. People do not realise that their car is a deadly piece of equipment. It's a piece of metal that travels at up to 70mph and weighs upwards of one ton. Think about it like that. If a guy was drunk in the street swinging a chainsaw round his head and cut someone up 'accidentally', would he get a 12-month chainsaw ban and a fine? I think not. The sentence for a convicted drink driver should start at a 5-10 year to life driving ban before you start to talk custodial sentences. Maybe I'm taking the punishment view which i said was bad, but my views would also work better as a) a detterent, and b) to protect the public.
KAH User ID: 9209903	Oct 15th 6:13 PM The death penalty is only a marginally better deterrent than prison, and the price paid for it is too high - there is no way to get around the wrongful convictions, without taking so many precautions that the death penalty being only used in cases where everything is crystal clear, thus making the penalty more of an academic possibility more than anything else. Anyway, I agree fully with the drunk-driving statement Sphinx came up with. The car being an important benefactor in our lives, is no excuse for abusing it by driving in an intoxicated state. As for Linda's mention of fathers being the greatest deterrent against crime...I halfway agree. A conscientious father (or parent in general, for that matter) would go a long way in giving the child a moral base in which to avoid the way of crime. Unfortunately, there is no way one can assure this 'proper father-/parenthood' to be. We cannot force people to care about their children. We can _tell_ them to do so, but we cannot _make_ them listen. For instance, making them responsible for their children's actions would be fallacious - there are, after all, other factors than the parents that decide how a child turns out. Thus, we cannot pinpont blame on the parents for crimes their children do. I apologize for any incoherence in my post, due to my presently rather intoxicated situation. Bear with me.
Jeff User ID: 1578334	Oct 15th 8:07 PM The studies I was talking about tracked offenders years after the particular programs at issue and the rates at which they committed subsequent offenses. I did see a study recently on the infamous "scared straight" program and, despite the publicity, recidivism rates for participants actually were higher than for nonparticipants. The fact that the U.S. has a high rate of incarceration and a high rate of crime does not mean that more prisons won't help the problem. The real issue is how long the average criminal will spend in jail for committing a crime, including the chance that they will not get caught, etc. For example, take the total number of murders committed, and divide that into the total number of years to which murderers were sentenced in that year. That gives you the "expected punishment" for a murder. Surprisingly, the numbers in the U.S. are very low. In other words, either many murders go unsolved and hence unpunished, or actual time served is low, or some combination. Generally, countries with low crime rates have higher expected punishments. There may not be many murders in Japan, but if you commit one, you're going away for a long time. So, deterrence can work. But if there is a perception that you can get away with a crime or that you won't serve much time even if caught, the deterrent value goes down. BTW, I can't blame any of you if you are skeptical of the stuff I said about rehabilitation. I know I would be. But look at it this way: if we _had_ discovered a truly effective rehabilitation program, why hasn't it been publicized and copied nationwide?
KAH User ID: 9209903	Oct 17th 11:55 AM Rehabilitation after the crime is done, is one thing. What about preventing crime before it happens? I've heard that the 'no-tolerance' policy Giuliani has set forth in NY has had some success? (our own Minister of Justice, along with members of the Justice Comittee in the parliament recently visited NY to see if this was worthwhile) On the other hand, I've heard that crime rates also have fallen in cities where this policy has not been implemented. And there's a few things to be said about copying the Singaporean society, as well. :oP
Sphinx User ID: 0638514	Oct 17th 2:05 PM This is my point about it being better to reduce crime meaning less prisoners, than build more prisons. Prevention is better than cure, and all that. I think education is the only way to go. But then that's far too shaort term a solution to get anybody re-elected on it. (Am I cynical about politicians? - Whatever gave you that idea?).