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[FearfulJesuit]

I'm not entirely sure what good caning would do...hurts like a bitch, but American prisons are just as bad on your mental health if not worse, and is there any evidence that caning is at all remedial? On the other hand, it's sure as hell a lot cheaper to give someone a few whacks on the ass than to house and feed them for six months.

SHAME
HH
A  A
M    M
E       E

Shame is a very good deterrent in a highly cohesive shame culture like Singapore where face is highly valued. None of this applies to meth tweakers who commit armed robbery, because they don't give a fuck whether or not they've got lash marks on their skin.

(It may be notable that Singapore has highly draconian drug laws, as in "we behead small-time dealers", so drug usage is nearly unheard of.)

[Loud Whispers]

Nothing draconian about that, Malaysia next door does the same and if Singapore didn't then all of Malaysia's drug dealers would end up in Singapore and Malaysia would be very cross

[Baffler]

I would say that having starving people is a pretty barbaric thing in this day and age.  The difference is that there are a lot of different approaches to solving hunger.  It's a complicated issue because it relates to mental health, crime and childcare.  Not caning people however has a really, really easy solution.  You ready for this?  Here it comes:

In order to not cane people, you dont cane people.

That solves the "problem" of caning people, but doesn't solve the problem of "How do we de-incentivize crime".  Not saying caning's the answer, or that there's one single answer (clearly a lot of techniques are applicable together).  But it's not like "locking people up for their entire lives, using public funds" is obviously the superior choice.  Particularly with our privatized prisons.

Private prisons aren't really all that bad in and of themselves. At least from a practical standpoint, philosophically there are some potential issues there. Their influence on the US justice system is extremely overstated, accounting for a whopping 9% of the US prison population at its peak in 2012. The UK has a (proportionally) similar degree of privatization, and the two largest companies that run prisons, Serco and G4S, originate there. Australia has them too, but their system is a bit different and I don't feel like untangling it. Harsh sentencing in the USA is mostly due to the politicial culture.

[Flying Dice]

People who own, operate, or sentence people to private prisons should have to serve life terms in them. If you ever needed a really excellent example of what sort of thing should never be privatized due to the way that profit is placed in direct opposition to honest provision of necessary goods and services, and to humane & ethical behavior, prisons are right up there with police work and pharmaceutical R&D, manufacturing, and distribution.

e: In reference to an article that was posted a while back:

However, the book does presume that, in part because of their breadth and diversity, American political parties are strong institutions. Furthermore, it assumes that strong, highly functional parties are able to make presidential nominations that further the party’s best interest.

That's one of the most misinformed viewpoints I've ever heard of in this field that isn't just batshit crazy. American political parties are extraordinarily weak compared to those in the vast majority of other first-world democracies. They're only major players in an extremely limited view of American politics which assimilates non-party institutions into their aegis or excludes them from being counted as belonging to the political realm, and even then they have relatively little control over the behavior of their members.

[mainiac]

That solves the "problem" of caning people, but doesn't solve the problem of "How do we de-incentivize crime".

Which is a very different subject from "is caning barbaric?".

[misko27]

In my mind, the issue raised by redking here deserves analysis and discussion:

the embezzler who destroys thousands of jobs gets their wallet shoved through their colon at high velocity

WHERE DO I SIGN UP


But c'mon....we all know that the embezzler would pay off the judge, the jury and the wallet-launching cannoneer and get off with a non-perforated colon. Justice does not function properly in the presence of large amount of money. The only way to have an incorruptible justice system would be to use AIs of some kind, or a blind system where a jury/judge is presented with the facts of a case with all identifying personal information removed, which in itself would pervert justice.

"A person killed another person" could be a murder, a self-defense, a euthanasia situation, involuntary mansalughter, etc.

With regards to the embezzler, surely some level of minimum sentencing is necessary in any crime situation where it is established that the accused acted in sound mind. My argument is above all, simple: The argument made, that the death penalty is ineffective in crimes of passion, directly asks the contrapositive: Would the death penalty be effective in crimes of cold, cunning calculation, such as embezzling? When it is clear that someone is sane enough to fear death, why not let them? In situations where it is established that they are not of sound mind, all bets are off.

The two problems are simple. The first is it is completely backwards to how people normally think of crime and punishment, and such would not easily gain popular support. This means it would only be effective in authoritarian countries. The second is more pressing: it requires determination of intent, which the legal system strives to avoid.

[Shadowlord]

Are you literally having a caning circle jerk? What the fuck, guys.

[Loud Whispers]

Somebody's paining for a caning

[Dorsidwarf]

Man, I lost my This Is Your LW graphic. I never have that when it would be funny to deploy.

[FearfulJesuit]

Are you literally having a caning circle jerk? What the fuck, guys.

Oh, now, come on. Let's suppose you committed small-time theft, lifted $100 out of a guy's wallet or something. Would you rather:

-spend three months in prison

or

-get ten strikes with a cane, and then be free to go?

Look, maybe it's just that I have an unusually high pain tolerance and always have, but I'd go for the latter. There's other benefits, too: caning is massively cheaper, freeing up more money to prevent crime in the first place, and if you don't go to jail for small-time offenses, it no longer makes sense to commit petty crime to go to jail, which, sadly, happens among the homeless and others for whom food and security aren't constant. (Yes, we should have much better safety nets to deal with those. But it's still a point in favor.)

[Frumple]

... how about C) enough public service to pay it back plus a little. Or D) probation of some sort. Or any number of other things. Lotta' shit you can do that's actually likely to make the situation better instead of just screwing everyone involved. Three months in jail for a hundred dollar pickpocket is as massively goddamn stupid and/or excessive as a caning is, unless there's some serious rehabilitation services involved with it (and probably still).

Also, yeah, all you'd be doing re: homeless and small crimes for shelter is making it so they commit large crimes for shelter. If they still have to choose between dying of exposure or escalating, they're going to escalate. You need social aid, not incarceration, in those situations. It's a point against, not for.

[Bauglir]

Are you literally having a caning circle jerk? What the fuck, guys.

not literally, no

[mainiac]

Ah minimize the inconvenience to society. The center of all successful criminal codes. Out of sight no problem.

[FearfulJesuit]

TBH, I haven't really seen a good argument against corporal punishment other than "it looks like torture methods from the bad old days, so we can't possibly have it."

I mean...legal discipline is unpleasant. It shouldn't be excessively so, it should certainly have a rehabilitative side, but I don't think there's anything wrong with people, you know, not wanting to be in jail. Don't particularly see why caning is terribly worse than a stint in jail.

Plus, there's a remarkably progressive side to it, too: unlike fines, or rich-person's jails, everyone's equal before corporal punishment, and it's difficult to make the punishment discriminate between its criminals (whether or not the courts are fair about it is of course another matter). Ten hits with a cane is as painful for a white-collar embezzler as it is for a burgler.

[RedKing]

So would Bernie Madoff be caned until liquified?