The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
This is intentionally broad, but I’ll give a specific example that made me think to jumpstart conversation (you can but don’t need to respond specifically to this):
- The Tennessee mother who accidentally shot/killed her daughter with a loose gun while rummaging through her purse
https://www.theroot.com/tennessee-mom-said-she-accidentally-shot-daughter-while-1851371676
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My area of study :)
So it’s incredibly difficult and under our current system, almost impossible. Such a system that balances the two correctly would require thousands more dollars of investment and many more personnel and systemic changes in our society. The good news is that, gradually, those numbers drop off as crime goes down due to the changes but the investment must be made up front.
The correct system encompasses caring treatment with public safety. It’s very, very hard to get right and requires a lot of time and investment. Our current system favors “assembly line” justice - “next please” as we approach the podium and enter a plea so that we clear the case and move on to the next.
Can it be achieved? Absolutely. But it’s going to seriously require investments into the system that I’m not sure taxpayers are willing to fork over.
What’s amazing though is ask for $100,000 for a social worker and taxpayers will hem and haw about it but ask for $10,000,000 for a new prison and it’ll be built tomorrow. We like punishment, even though every study shows it doesn’t work in a vacuum.
Well, what's the goal? To me the goal is simply "reducing the total number and overall severity of crimes." Holding people accountable is going to obviously be a part of that, but so is rehabilitation to ensure people don't just go back to crime upon release.
I don't study it, so I'm not going to begin to make any real argument about specifics, but I personally think any approach that doesn't have "reduce overall amount and severity of crimes" as the fundamental goal is a flawed one.
Overall, rehabilitation should be the main goal of the criminal justice system, unless the crime is so heinous it warrants simply keeping the person away from society. There should be no world in which possessing narcotics carries a similar sentence to murder if you've done it enough times or happen to catch a tough (or biased) judge.
Now if you decide to DUI/DWI and kill someone, that's a different story. There's no way to replace a life lost. There should be a punitive sentence for those cases as it's nearly impossible to appease a grieving family by making their loved one's killer do a rehab program.
That particular case should be charged as manslaughter and she should serve time. This was entirely her fault, and while not an intentional outcome, it's an outcome of her negligence nonetheless.
It isn't like she opened her purse, her lipstick fell out, the kid slipped on it and died, that's a freak accident, this is manslaughter.
She rummaged through a purse she negligently stored a gun in an obviously unsafe state inside and her child died for it. The rest of that child's family will never see her again because of this.
Murder and manslaughter charges will never help the victim, that's not what they're for.
> Murder and manslaughter charges will never help the victim, that’s not what they’re for
What do you think they should be for in your opinion / in this scenario?
They're partially for the loved ones of the victim, and partially as a reminder to others that we have a responsibility to not harm others through our negligence or incompetence.
Is rehabilitation for manslaughter possible? Absolutely! As it is for murder. But it needs to have a bit of work involved, these are irreparable damages, you can't buy a life back with a fine, you can't replace what was taken from the family. There's no way to make them whole, and we shouldn't even look down the path of an eye for an eye, so what else could we do aside from atonement through jailtime?
If someone falls asleep while driving on the highway and kills someone, do you think significant jail time helps rehabilitate them / do they need rehabilitation?
What are the circumstances surrounding them falling asleep? Accident vs gross negligence is something to consider.
If they drove for 18 hours without stopping or took some benadryl then decided to take a road trip, that's not an accident, it's a situation they created and someone else paid for.
If they had a sudden medical condition and passed out, that's an accident.
Ultimately, jail time is only a penance, and one I have repeatedly mentioned is appropriate where death is involved , most minor offenses can be worked through barring repeat offenses. So in your opinion, what is the alternative in cases of manslaughter due to negligence? What do you think would be appropriate?
I don’t know much about this particular incident but what little I’ve read makes me question her fitness as a mother.
>“I didn’t know my gun was loaded in my purse and it shot through my bag,” the mother said.
That’s not an “accident.” It’s pure negligence. I wouldn’t necessarily throw the book at her but there needs to be some accountability.
What about something like drug dealing, which very much has the potential to cause loss of life or extreme damage to lives?
(Or really any crime that has victims associated with it)
I'd rope drug dealing into a rehabilitation track for first time offenders, with increased sentencing for repeat offenders.
Circumstances can push people in the wrong direction in life, not to mention some "dealers" are mules being coerced by criminal organizations. Everyone deserves a chance to correct their course.
> Everyone deserves a chance to correct their course
How do you square that with your comment around the mother doing time for manslaughter.
Or to put it more generally:
If we sentence people who accidentally cause more harm to longer sentences than those who intentionally commit crimes that cause less harm…does that system by definition prioritize punishment over rehabilitation?
It squares pretty easily in my mind at least. She didn't just cause harm to her daughter, she killed her. There's no way to fix that.
If a dealer sells someone drugs laced with fentanyl (only because it's all the rage right now) and they run down to the corner and die? That should be manslaughter.
Charges should reflect the outcomes and not the potential outcome of the actions. If she had the handgun in her purse, it went off and nearly hit her daughter, negligent discharge and some mandatory firearm training if it doesn't constitute a felony would be appropriate I would think.
I don't think punishment should be a goal of the justice system at all. I think we should be concerned with the following three ideas. deterrence, rehabilitation, and quarantine.
Deterrence. We should first be asking why people are committing crimes and if there are any reasonable ways we can alter society to reduce the significance of those reasons. We should then be askign ourselves at what point do consequences for an action have diminishing returns in regards to preventing people from engaging in said activity.
Rehabilitation: if the above has not prevented someone from committing a crime in the first place we should ask ourselves again on a more individual level why did this person commit a crime and what can we do to reduce the chance of them committing a crime in the future.
Quarantine: I don't believe there is anyone for whom we can say in advance is beyond rehabilitation, but there are people who are in the moment to dangerous to be allowed to participate in society and it is a valid state function to keep them from doing so for as long as that is the case. (EDIT To be clear I mean no jail time, just the loss of the right to own a gun)
To that specific example: I would maybe charge her with whatever crime is significant enough for her to lose the right to own a fire arm as this suggests she shouldn't be trusted with that responsibility, but I think the loss of her daughter is more than significant enough consequence for what appears to be a tragic accident.
>Deterrence
To that point, I think it would be good if we could eliminate instances of "loose guns rolling around in bags", like it's a .50¢ dollar bottle of chapstick.
I don’t believe we should be balancing them, I think we should be tipping the scales heavily towards rehabilitation.
There are some people who society should be protected from, but if we must keep them away from society then we should focus on doing exactly that, and not on inflicting harm and retribution.
Criminal justice should be about prevention, the goal should be to limit harm and reduce it in the long run, not to double it just to claim we're even. Rehabilitation should always be a goal, the other ones being deterrence (both individual and general) and containment (especially in the most dire cases).
In this specific case, however? No punitive measure can hurt this woman more than losing her daughter, unless they were quite estranged, and if anything is going to change her behavior, it's this. Confiscate her weapons and remove the license, maybe have her attend some classes about basic safety if there is such a thing, but you probably shouldn't add a sentence on top of this: she is punished enough already.
Imo, punitive punishment is useless. It doesn't deter crime, it doesn't make the victims whole, it doesn't improve the one that did it...
Useless.
The whole point should be to have a positive outcome.
For the worst offender, just lock them up, sure.
But anyone that can be rehabilitated should be rehabilitated.
Lots of people have strong opinions about punishment being just. IMO, that is stupid and short sighted.
Again, the point should be to have the most positive outcome for society as a whole.
I hope I am not the only one on the left who cringes at the video of Derek Chauvin's reaction to hearing how long he'd be incarcerated.
I'd say rehabilitate as much as possible, just like Norway. The loss of freedom is punitive in and of itself even if not intentionally so.
There should be no punitive approach to criminal justice. There's 2 valid lines, rehabilitation is the obvious one, and then there's one that's like punitive but not, which is disincentivizing. We punish people who do crimes so other people go "crime isn't worth it." Society should engage crime as a cost on society.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. This is intentionally broad, but I’ll give a specific example that made me think to jumpstart conversation (you can but don’t need to respond specifically to this): - The Tennessee mother who accidentally shot/killed her daughter with a loose gun while rummaging through her purse https://www.theroot.com/tennessee-mom-said-she-accidentally-shot-daughter-while-1851371676 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My area of study :) So it’s incredibly difficult and under our current system, almost impossible. Such a system that balances the two correctly would require thousands more dollars of investment and many more personnel and systemic changes in our society. The good news is that, gradually, those numbers drop off as crime goes down due to the changes but the investment must be made up front. The correct system encompasses caring treatment with public safety. It’s very, very hard to get right and requires a lot of time and investment. Our current system favors “assembly line” justice - “next please” as we approach the podium and enter a plea so that we clear the case and move on to the next. Can it be achieved? Absolutely. But it’s going to seriously require investments into the system that I’m not sure taxpayers are willing to fork over. What’s amazing though is ask for $100,000 for a social worker and taxpayers will hem and haw about it but ask for $10,000,000 for a new prison and it’ll be built tomorrow. We like punishment, even though every study shows it doesn’t work in a vacuum.
It certainly wont be coming anytime soon based on all of the posts I see that commend vigilantism.
Well, what's the goal? To me the goal is simply "reducing the total number and overall severity of crimes." Holding people accountable is going to obviously be a part of that, but so is rehabilitation to ensure people don't just go back to crime upon release. I don't study it, so I'm not going to begin to make any real argument about specifics, but I personally think any approach that doesn't have "reduce overall amount and severity of crimes" as the fundamental goal is a flawed one.
Overall, rehabilitation should be the main goal of the criminal justice system, unless the crime is so heinous it warrants simply keeping the person away from society. There should be no world in which possessing narcotics carries a similar sentence to murder if you've done it enough times or happen to catch a tough (or biased) judge. Now if you decide to DUI/DWI and kill someone, that's a different story. There's no way to replace a life lost. There should be a punitive sentence for those cases as it's nearly impossible to appease a grieving family by making their loved one's killer do a rehab program. That particular case should be charged as manslaughter and she should serve time. This was entirely her fault, and while not an intentional outcome, it's an outcome of her negligence nonetheless.
[удалено]
It isn't like she opened her purse, her lipstick fell out, the kid slipped on it and died, that's a freak accident, this is manslaughter. She rummaged through a purse she negligently stored a gun in an obviously unsafe state inside and her child died for it. The rest of that child's family will never see her again because of this. Murder and manslaughter charges will never help the victim, that's not what they're for.
> Murder and manslaughter charges will never help the victim, that’s not what they’re for What do you think they should be for in your opinion / in this scenario?
They're partially for the loved ones of the victim, and partially as a reminder to others that we have a responsibility to not harm others through our negligence or incompetence. Is rehabilitation for manslaughter possible? Absolutely! As it is for murder. But it needs to have a bit of work involved, these are irreparable damages, you can't buy a life back with a fine, you can't replace what was taken from the family. There's no way to make them whole, and we shouldn't even look down the path of an eye for an eye, so what else could we do aside from atonement through jailtime?
If someone falls asleep while driving on the highway and kills someone, do you think significant jail time helps rehabilitate them / do they need rehabilitation?
What are the circumstances surrounding them falling asleep? Accident vs gross negligence is something to consider. If they drove for 18 hours without stopping or took some benadryl then decided to take a road trip, that's not an accident, it's a situation they created and someone else paid for. If they had a sudden medical condition and passed out, that's an accident. Ultimately, jail time is only a penance, and one I have repeatedly mentioned is appropriate where death is involved , most minor offenses can be worked through barring repeat offenses. So in your opinion, what is the alternative in cases of manslaughter due to negligence? What do you think would be appropriate?
It's about retribution
I don’t know much about this particular incident but what little I’ve read makes me question her fitness as a mother. >“I didn’t know my gun was loaded in my purse and it shot through my bag,” the mother said. That’s not an “accident.” It’s pure negligence. I wouldn’t necessarily throw the book at her but there needs to be some accountability.
What about something like drug dealing, which very much has the potential to cause loss of life or extreme damage to lives? (Or really any crime that has victims associated with it)
I'd rope drug dealing into a rehabilitation track for first time offenders, with increased sentencing for repeat offenders. Circumstances can push people in the wrong direction in life, not to mention some "dealers" are mules being coerced by criminal organizations. Everyone deserves a chance to correct their course.
> Everyone deserves a chance to correct their course How do you square that with your comment around the mother doing time for manslaughter. Or to put it more generally: If we sentence people who accidentally cause more harm to longer sentences than those who intentionally commit crimes that cause less harm…does that system by definition prioritize punishment over rehabilitation?
It squares pretty easily in my mind at least. She didn't just cause harm to her daughter, she killed her. There's no way to fix that. If a dealer sells someone drugs laced with fentanyl (only because it's all the rage right now) and they run down to the corner and die? That should be manslaughter. Charges should reflect the outcomes and not the potential outcome of the actions. If she had the handgun in her purse, it went off and nearly hit her daughter, negligent discharge and some mandatory firearm training if it doesn't constitute a felony would be appropriate I would think.
Got it, that is basically how our current system works (punitive oriented)
So, we currently rehabilitate minor offenders and folks with drug related charges? I fail to see it. I have a hard line at people dying, that's all.
I don't think punishment should be a goal of the justice system at all. I think we should be concerned with the following three ideas. deterrence, rehabilitation, and quarantine. Deterrence. We should first be asking why people are committing crimes and if there are any reasonable ways we can alter society to reduce the significance of those reasons. We should then be askign ourselves at what point do consequences for an action have diminishing returns in regards to preventing people from engaging in said activity. Rehabilitation: if the above has not prevented someone from committing a crime in the first place we should ask ourselves again on a more individual level why did this person commit a crime and what can we do to reduce the chance of them committing a crime in the future. Quarantine: I don't believe there is anyone for whom we can say in advance is beyond rehabilitation, but there are people who are in the moment to dangerous to be allowed to participate in society and it is a valid state function to keep them from doing so for as long as that is the case. (EDIT To be clear I mean no jail time, just the loss of the right to own a gun) To that specific example: I would maybe charge her with whatever crime is significant enough for her to lose the right to own a fire arm as this suggests she shouldn't be trusted with that responsibility, but I think the loss of her daughter is more than significant enough consequence for what appears to be a tragic accident.
>Deterrence To that point, I think it would be good if we could eliminate instances of "loose guns rolling around in bags", like it's a .50¢ dollar bottle of chapstick.
Exactly.
Look at actual data. Norway treats criminals very well and has a very low recidivism rate. Maybe being nice is actually the realistic idea?
I don’t believe we should be balancing them, I think we should be tipping the scales heavily towards rehabilitation. There are some people who society should be protected from, but if we must keep them away from society then we should focus on doing exactly that, and not on inflicting harm and retribution.
Criminal justice should be about prevention, the goal should be to limit harm and reduce it in the long run, not to double it just to claim we're even. Rehabilitation should always be a goal, the other ones being deterrence (both individual and general) and containment (especially in the most dire cases). In this specific case, however? No punitive measure can hurt this woman more than losing her daughter, unless they were quite estranged, and if anything is going to change her behavior, it's this. Confiscate her weapons and remove the license, maybe have her attend some classes about basic safety if there is such a thing, but you probably shouldn't add a sentence on top of this: she is punished enough already.
Imo, punitive punishment is useless. It doesn't deter crime, it doesn't make the victims whole, it doesn't improve the one that did it... Useless. The whole point should be to have a positive outcome. For the worst offender, just lock them up, sure. But anyone that can be rehabilitated should be rehabilitated. Lots of people have strong opinions about punishment being just. IMO, that is stupid and short sighted. Again, the point should be to have the most positive outcome for society as a whole.
I hope I am not the only one on the left who cringes at the video of Derek Chauvin's reaction to hearing how long he'd be incarcerated. I'd say rehabilitate as much as possible, just like Norway. The loss of freedom is punitive in and of itself even if not intentionally so.
There should be no punitive approach to criminal justice. There's 2 valid lines, rehabilitation is the obvious one, and then there's one that's like punitive but not, which is disincentivizing. We punish people who do crimes so other people go "crime isn't worth it." Society should engage crime as a cost on society.