This is strange to hear from you (only strange and unexpected, not.. bad).
You've said in the past that only violent criminals should be imprisoned. What does punishing them accomplish? Are the two really so vastly different? If we continue down this line, when does punishment ever accomplish anything? And what does it accomplish? I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts, or whatever you were going for in the question you just pose now.
I don't think either deterrance nor rehabilitation, the traditional justifications for criminal punishment, really work. I think the value of criminal punishment is that it reinforces social norms among all those who observe or know about the punishment (that and retribution for the victims). With regards to violent crimes, imprisonment reinforces the social norm that the state has a monopoly on the use of violence.
I don't think that justification is as important when we're talking about what's essentially a commercial crime. It doesn't even implicate personal safety in the same way as say burglary. These cattle are just assets on a balance sheet.
> I don't think either deterrance nor rehabilitation, the traditional justifications for criminal punishment, really work.
I agree that punishment most probably does not end up in rehabilitation. And I think that should be obvious to everyone, locking up people in unsafe areas, where others too are ill in mind, where most are folks who've had poor lives and poor fortunes, it only reinforces the wrong ideals and norms. The Scandinavian model of rehabilitation probably works better: putting people in safe homes with counselors who show love instead of hate, and a general treatment of dignity (one that they were not shown before -- indeed almost all violent criminals come from broken homes, almost all criminals never had a positive and loving authority figure to show them the way). Why not break the cycle and treat them with respect?
> I don't think that justification is as important when we're talking about what's essentially a commercial crime. It doesn't even implicate personal safety in the same way as say burglary.
I don't like that distinction of violent crimes and non-violent crimes, it's too easy, it makes it seem like the non-violent crimes are not bad enough. You know how michaelochurch used to equate managers who gave references to attempted murder or something to that effect? That was of course silly, but I can actually kind of appreciate the logic in that... in today's society these actions essentially make or break a person's life. Not in terms of life and death, but it makes the difference of a life of dignity and work to possible homelessness and a complete inability to provide for your family. And further down in this continuum, there's financial crimes, there's the SV crimes (inculcating bullshit ideas by way of crafty advertising, . These actions don't cause immediate physical harm, but overtime they rot lives of so many in an insidiously disgusting way.
The traditional justifications are incapacitation, retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence, and the thing you describe as working after you say deterrence doesn't is actually a combination if general deterrence andand the exemplary element of retribution.
And justification of criminal punishment is always important, because you can't evaluate a policy without doing so in context of the purpose it is intended to serve.
A big part of the point of punishment is to act as a deterrent. 99 years of prison may be excessive, but there has to be some negative consequence for the person who breaks a law, otherwise there's no reason not to.
