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[LeoLeonardoIII]

Terrible joke

Tongue removed

Wait, that would make most of bay12 unable to talk :X

We generally pay lip service to pun laws.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Terrible joke

Tongue removed

Wait, that would make most of bay12 unable to talk :X

We generally pay lip service to pun laws.

We just need to face it, we'll never reach the head of this issue.

_{Im sorry}

[LordBucket]

Executing or imprisoning someone who commits a crime of passion does little to nothing insofar as preventing further crime of that nature. Killing off or imprisoning the criminally insane does little to nothing insofar as preventing further crime from such individuals.

...if they're dead, they're unlikely to commit further infractions. If they're in prison, they're unlikely to commit infracations against anyone who isn't also in prison. Execution and imprisonment are "preventative" in that sense, at least. Banishment could possibly serve a similar function, though it could be argued that banishment is simply pushing the problem off onto somebody else.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Well if they wanted to lead people around by the nose, they would give the laws some teeth.

[Frumple]

Execution and imprisonment are "preventative" in that sense, at least.

Aye, aye, preventative in that sense. Generally deterrents are meant to effect folks beyond the person being used as the example, though.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I just wanted to interject that I suspect all, -every single-, crime of passion is actually caused by social reinforcement that such crimes of passion are the acceptable response to the situation. I have personally experienced a change in my outlook that makes me view the "husband comes home and shoots the guy who is in bed with his wife" as hilariously ridiculous. And simultaneously I remember how strongly accepting and understanding I was of that husband's feelings only a few years ago. I guess what I'm saying is, people are not just influenced by culture and social expectations that they carry around with them. If "influenced by" means you carry it on your shoulder, the reality is that you're staggering around under it Atlas-style and scarcely able to function.

[LordBucket]

Generally deterrents are meant to effect folks beyond the person being used as the example, though.

Yeah, I'm not really sure how effective a deterrent it is in that sense. Kind of skeptical that there are many people out there thinking, "Gee, I'd really like to go murder some people, but if I get caught I might be imprisoned, so I guess I'll be a good, law-abiding citizen and pet bunnies instead,"

I think you're right that it probably doesn't work that way very often. But at the same time, it probably does in some cases. For example, if somebody's going to rob a bank but they know that if they do it armed instead of unarmed it would automatically mean a minimum sentence if convicted up 10 instead of 5 years, I can conceive of some choosing to go unarmed because of it. But I don't even know what those numbers are and finding them out via google is more difficult than I'd guessed it would be. My impression is that most criminals are not very intelligent people. I'm not sure how realistic it is to expect them to do proper research and decide accordingly.

I'd rather reduce incentive by designing society such that people can more easily get what they want rather than deterring them through threat of punishment. If it we lived in a world of abundance and it was easy for people to generally do and have the things they want, immediately vast quantities of crime would diminish. The conman, the identify thief, the guy who embezzles millions of dollars from investment accounts and the guy who robs a liquor store all probably want the same thing: money so they can have and do something they want. If it were simply easier to have and do what we want, immediately the incentive to commit lots of criminal acts would diminish.

[Jelle]

Well all notions of justice come from social norms really. It's only criminal behavior when if one acts on norms that deviate from the set of norms socially agreed on.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

It's only behavior if it's an observable change in the state of a thing.

[WealthyRadish]

It's only observable change if you have any eyes left.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I bet you could hear someone steal.

[GlyphGryph]

I bet you could hear someone steal.

We have ways of fixing that.

[Jelle]

It's only behavior if it's an observable change in the state of a thing.

I there were no change of state of things, surely there could not have been a crime.

[Frumple]

Hrnnnoooo. There are crimes that occur by letting the state of things remain unchanged. Stuff related to criminal neglect particularly, if my memory's not failing me. Relatively rare stuff, but not unknown.

[alexandertnt]

Ugh no.

For starters it completely ignores the circumstances surrounding the crime. A person starving to death is going to steal food, and theres not much you can do to stop them beyond something which is clearly beyond the same level of severity as the crime, such as killing them.

And it also ignores the effect of the punishment. For some crimes and for some circumstances, it may have the opposite of the intended effect (taking away what little food a starving person has would probably increase the likelyhood of them commiting more crimes).

I would favour any system that reduces suffering from happening. Now, sometimes harsher "tough-on-crime" or eye-for-eye style approaches can work, but they should only be considered based on their ability to reduce suffering and not based on any notion of "revenge" or "retaliation". I still consider criminals human, so any law that increases the suffering of criminals more than it reduces the suffering of anyone else is bad in my book.

With the above example of a starving person, something like social programs could be used as an alternative to the legal system to releave the suffering of both the criminal (by providing them with food) and the victims (starving people are much less likely to steal food when they are not starving). Given that a lot of crimes are commited by people of low socio-economic status, educational and traning programs could also be used (inside and outside the prison system) to give these people a better chance to provide for themselves. Youth programs can also be used to provide youths with activities (as some crimes, particuarly youth crimes seem to be done for fun due to boredom), and maby even make the educational system more responsive (and thus more relevant and interesting) to the interests of young people.

Spoiler: vaguely-related personal anecdote with education (click to show/hide)

I remember one of the first things we did in art classes at high school was paint a picture of oranges in a basket. how boring. It certainly diddnt make attending art a particularly interesting or engaging experience. Now if I was allowed to attempt to paint a dragon, a fantastical landscape, or something like that I probably would have shown much more interest in the subject and done much better. Only now am I starting to experience the thrill of creating something  (even just attempting to create something) after years of dismissing art an irrelevant nothing, and I certianly wish I had expereinced this years ago.

IMO the more people have affordable access to food, water, healthcare, education, and accomodation, the less crime and less suffering there woud be.