NationStates Jolt Archive

I have seen many threads, usually ones about the death penalty where the issue of whether the justice system is there for rehabilitation or for punishment, so i decided to create a new thread about it.

I'm of the opinion that the justice system should be there to punish those who have done wrong, i find it startling when people claim that it is somehow society's responsibility to turn bad people into good people rather than simply making sure they wont commit crimes again. It makes me sick how many luxuries criminals are given paid for by the British tax payer (in my case, substitute american or whatever for other countries), I personally think they should be doing unpaid labour to repay there debt to society or at least they shouldnt be wasting unreasonable amounts of money.

Any thoughts?

So, to sit on the fence:
You need both:
1: Punishment to avoid people doing it (it works more effectively as a threat of punishment than as an actual punishment)
2. Rehabilitation: to stop people doing it again.

If someone does a crime, but shows no remorse, they should not be back in society.

If someone does a crime, but shows no remorse, they should not be back in society.

My opinion exactly.

I'm not certain where you live, but in the United States, we have many different types of detention centers, all designed to do different things. You have maximum security penitentiaries and prison designed to do nothing more than house and punish lifetime criminals. You have jails designed to rehabilitate decent people who have made a serious mistake. This is supposed to shock them and rewire them, so-to-speak to get their heads back on straight and again become productive societal citizens.
There are state hospitals for the criminally insane.

There is no text book answer, per se, to your question; but this is a start. The bottom line is to stay lawful, respect the rights of others, and the world would be a place where these costly institutions wouldn't be necessary.

I think the best option is always crime prevention, rather than punishment after the damage is done.
Therefore, a good social prime prevention scheme with good rehabilitation is preferrable to a simple straight-out punishment scheme.

Prison is there to keep the dangerous people out of society. That is the first and primary function. If someone is dangerous, put them away where they cannot cause harm to people. Then you talk about rehabilation. But only after they are put away. I don't think prison is any good as punishment. Prison is there to make society safer.

If someone acted in an uncharacteristic rage and killed someone by accident, they should be put away for a while, but rehabilated. But if you have someone who killed people willingly and consciously, then there is no chance of rehabilation, and they should be locked away for life.

As for punishment, I personally think that being in prison for life is punishment enough. Knowing that you will never in your life be productive. That you are destined to be a pathetic nobody rotting in a cell. Knowing that you will never better yourself. That you will remain stagnant, as you are, for the rest of your life. That would kill me. Without the aspiration to better ourselves, we are no different from animals. When in prison, you have no ability to better yourself. No chances at attaining riches. No hope of finding love. You just stagnate. That is punishment enough.

Just my thoughts.

There is no text book answer, per se, to your question; but this is a start. The bottom line is to stay lawful, respect the rights of others, and the world would be a place where these costly institutions wouldn't be necessary.

That would be brilliant but i think we both know thats never going to happen, people will always commit crimes it's probably human nature. As you quite rightly said the institutions are costly which is why I think Prisoners should be working to see if they can do enough for society to balance out how much prisons cost society.

I think the best option is always crime prevention, rather than punishment after the damage is done.
Therefore, a good social prime prevention scheme with good rehabilitation is preferrable to a simple straight-out punishment scheme.

You are hinting at the view that crime is caused by socio-economic circumstances, a view i have never agreed with. People commit crime because they have either lacked a proper moral upbringing or they have never been taught about right and wrong properly and some people are jsut plain evil of course.

It makes me sick how many luxuries criminals are given paid for by the British tax payer

Any thoughts?

Yes, you read the Daily Mail.

If someone acted in an uncharacteristic rage and killed someone by accident, they should be put away for a while, but rehabilated.

If someone intentionally killed someone at all, they should IMO be put away for life, no circumstances/situations relevant, they purposely killed, End Of.

whoas, way to set up a false dichotomy. I think the justice system should be about punishing bad behaviour but there needs to be a strong emphasis on rehabilitation. The idea of punishing someone is to change their behaviour (as oppossed to retribution which is about revenge and is sadly a common aspect of many prison systems, especially in the US). Rehabilition is also about changing behaviour but particularly with the intention of equipping inmates/prisoners/law-breakers with the capacity to adjust and live normal legal lives after their punishment.

That would be brilliant but i think we both know thats never going to happen, people will always commit crimes it's probably human nature. As you quite rightly said the institutions are costly which is why I think Prisoners should be working to see if they can do enough for society to balance out how much prisons cost society.

In a perfect world, prisoners would care about society, and all the ills they have brought and continue to bring upon it. But they don't care. Rehabilitation only works for those that have HABITually been societal in the first place. I've worked in the system for nearly 3 decades. Many, many inmates, sadly, are incapable of living/contributing in/to society; they've never lived there.

Yes, you read the Daily Mail.

No i read The Independant:P

People do make mistakes, serious or not. I believe:
If someone does a crime, but shows no remorse, they should not be back in society. sums up this thread.

. The idea of punishing someone is to change their behaviour

no the idea of punishing someone is to punish them, ie:

1. to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault: to punish a criminal.
2. to inflict a penalty for (an offense, fault, etc.): to punish theft.

I'm of the opinion that the justice system should be there to punish those who have done wrong, i find it startling when people claim that it is somehow society's responsibility to turn bad people into good people rather than simply making sure they wont commit crimes again.
...

Does it never occur to you that perhaps turning bad people into slightly better people will make sure that they won't commit crimes again, or, more to the point, that sticking people in shitty prisons can lead to prison riots which can let vast amounts of scared but angry criminals out onto the streets?
It makes me sick how many luxuries criminals are given paid for by the British tax payer (in my case, substitute american or whatever for other countries)
Meh.
I personally think they should be doing unpaid labour to repay there debt to society
So do the courts. It's called community service, and it's given to people who did fairly lame crimes, but are safe to be out in the community wiping off graffiti or sticking rubbish in bins or whatever. The reason you don't see kiddie fiddlers or murderers kicking about sweeping up rubbish is because they're often quite insane, and hence are where they should be - behind bars.
or at least they shouldnt be wasting unreasonable amounts of money.

Any thoughts?
I'm pretty sure the criminals don't get an awfully large say in how much money gets spent on them.

You are hinting at the view that crime is caused by socio-economic circumstances, a view i have never agreed with. People commit crime because they have either lacked a proper moral upbringing or they have never been taught about right and wrong properly and some people are jsut plain evil of course.

So you assume that people can only be taught about moral behaviour as long as they're kids? And they aren't capable of learning at any time later in life?

I have never claimed that crime is caused by socio-economic circumstances. Crime is caused by human beings.
However, socio-economic circumstances can be highly conductive to criminal behaviour. That does not relieve the individual of responsiblilty, but it does give society an opening to prevent crimes from happening.
If society so chooses, of course.
It's a bit like not leaving your car doors unlocked and open with the car parked outside overnight. Just a little common sense.

no the idea of punishing someone is to punish them, ie:

1. to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault: to punish a criminal.
2. to inflict a penalty for (an offense, fault, etc.): to punish theft.

Oh i'm sorry, you clearly replied without actually reading my whole post. I'll give you a few minutes to catch up and you'll see that i make a distinction between when i use the word "punishment" and punishment as retribution. e.g. "punishment is about changing behaviour (as oppossed to retribution..."

no the idea of punishing someone is to punish them, ie:

1. to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault: to punish a criminal.
2. to inflict a penalty for (an offense, fault, etc.): to punish theft.

So essentially punishment has no point whatsoever, apart from hurting the punished? What purpose does that serve?

Oh i'm sorry, you clearly replied without actually reading my whole post. I'll give you a few minutes to catch up and you'll see that i make a distinction between when i use the word "punishment" and punishment as retribution. e.g. "punishment is about changing behaviour (as oppossed to retribution..."

and you quite clearly did not get my post, punishment IS about retribution

No i read The Independant:P

No you don't :)

So essentially punishment has no point whatsoever, apart from hurting the punished? What purpose does that serve?

So that the individual in question has recieved justice for his/her crimes.

No you don't :)

Yes i do:(

So that the individual in question has recieved justice for his/her crimes.

How is this justice? What does the victim gain from it? How will it change the behaviour of the criminal if, as you assume, it's not deterrent and not rehabilitating?
How does this help anybody?

How is this justice? What does the victim gain from it? How will it change the behaviour of the criminal if, as you assume, it's not deterrent and not rehabilitating?
How does this help anybody?

the victim of the crime knows that the criminal has not done something to them and then got away with it entirely! and shit... i meant to mention deterrence

and you quite clearly did not get my post, punishment IS about retribution

Yep okay, with a post count of less than 70 i can see where this is going. I like carosels but not this much enjoy your time and say hi to Queen N00batobia for me.

Yep okay, with a post count of less than 70 i can see where this is going. I like carosels but not this much enjoy your time and say hi to Queen N00batobia for me.

O of course i forgot that the course of an argument is determined by post count... :rolleyes:

So essentially punishment has no point whatsoever, apart from hurting the punished? What purpose does that serve?

Revenge.

I think the point of the justice system should be to increase the safety of society. By deterring crimes through punishment; by rehabilitating people, if possible, to become a part of society again; and by keeping irredeemable criminals out of people's way until they longer pose a notable threat to society.
And, I suppose, it fulfills the psychological role of punishing the bad people so society can sleep better at night knowing that all is right in the world (even though it isn't).

Yes i do:(

Then you're probably just pushing the debate because the idea that prisoners live in luxury is straight out of the Daily Mail, among its many other distortions including immigration and race.

I'm ducking out of this since the following link covers most of my thoughts on crime.

http://www.flatearthnews.net/media-falsehoods-and-propaganda/crime

I recently read the book, the world as presented to us by the media is often entirely at odds with reality.

So essentially punishment has no point whatsoever, apart from hurting the punished? What purpose does that serve?It gives people a sense that people get what they deserve. Which makes them lead happier lives; because maybe if they're good they'll get what they "deserve". It's like Santa Claus, except without the fat man and the red suit.

It gives people a sense that people get what they deserve. Which makes them lead happier lives; because maybe if they're good they'll get what they "deserve". It's like Santa Claus, except without the fat man and the red suit.

A possibly false sense of security is better than no sense of security at all eh?

the victim of the crime knows that the criminal has not done something to them and then got away with it entirely! and shit... i meant to mention deterrence

And how does this help the victim, knowing that the criminal got punished, but not rehabilitated?

And how does this help the victim, knowing that the criminal got punished, but not rehabilitated?

Because the victim knows that people cannot get away with hurting them, that would make me feel better, i can't possibly speak for the entire of society however.

A possibly false sense of security is better than no sense of security at all eh?

An unjustified sense of security is certainly the worst option.

An unjustified sense of security is certainly the worst option.

A few lies is preferable to mass panic.

Prison is to keep the offender off the streets so society is safer; to inflict pain/loss on the punished for their offenses (consequences for your actions); and to make the victim of the crime feel better.

In many cases, socio-economic circumstances *do* have a great deal to do with crime, but not for the reasons you may think. It isn't because they don't have and want and are willing to disavow any type of moral code to get whatever they want; it's because they see no hope of having what they want using the same moral code that the general populace uses. Face it, if you read at an 8th grade level and only know the kind of life that involves violence, drug use, high unemployment, etc., what job are you going to be useful for?

This is an American example, btw. I don't know how it is in England or anywhere else, but if you're poor in this country - you can count on being shat upon. The schools in low income neighborhoods are homes for rats compared to other neighborhood schools; social services isn't about service, it's about abuse and the government run-around; and the police... well - let's just say the officer you meet in the upper income neighborhoods is nowhere near the same person you meet in low income neighborhoods. And for those who think innocent people don't rot in jail... you obviously don't live in the US where closing the case is more important than justice. Statistics and all that.

This is not to say that *all* crime can be traced to socio-economic causes or even *most* - it is only to say that it does play a part in the over-all picture. There are those who are simply sociopaths and nothing "caused" their criminal behavior (well, something probably did but it wasn't lack of cash) and nothing is going to change it. Whatever the background of the person who violated the law, prison has nothing to do with rehabilitation. At least not anymore. Why? Because everyone wants criminals locked up and wants them to behave better upon release, but no one wants to pay for it.

These are not simple problems and trying to find a simple answer to them is usually why we end up with a bigger problem than we started with.

A few lies is preferable to mass panic.

Lies have this unfortunate tendency of being found out.
Best to present the truth in a way that won't result in panic.

You speak as though punishment and rehabilitation are mutually exclusive. They are not.

Moreover, it depends upon what sort of crime you are talking about.

The simple fact of the matter is that in the States, at least, the prison system is a revolving door. Recidivism rates are through the roof. And if you think prison doesn't punish people you are crazy. I've never seen a prison in Britain, but I've visited some in the States, and they are not pleasant places. At all.

So what crimes are you talking about? Murder? Rape? Theft? Drug charges? Organized crime? You need to elaborate, since not all crimes are equal.

Revenge.
Aye well if you don't live in a very shitty country, revenge oughtn't to be a part of your justice system.

You are hinting at the view that crime is caused by socio-economic circumstances, a view i have never agreed with. People commit crime because they have either lacked a proper moral upbringing or they have never been taught about right and wrong properly and some people are jsut plain evil of course.

*takes a deep breath*

Ok, firstly I shall put aside those you call "just plain evil". Psychopaths do have a neurological lack of empathy and thus far we haven't found anything that will work with them. They don't appear to have any social causes for their disorder and committ excessive amounts of crimes. But even then, we estimate approximately 1% of the population have clinical levels of psychopathic traits, yet many of them never commit crimes. This one is a complex issue, and given that it's arguably a psychiatric one, is not really relevant to the current argument, since it represents only a small proportion of the prison population.

Firstly, I'm going to make this clear. Prison, on it's own, does not work. It does not work as a deterrent or negative conditioning because: a) it lacks all the criteria necessary to be an effective punishment. It is not certain (and certainly not perceived as certain) and nor is it immediately after the act (takes about a year to get to trial). These are two vital critieria to ensure a punishment works as a negative conditioning. B) Many criminals have high levels of impulsivity, fearlessness and Anti-social Personality Disorder. They will respond much better to reward than punishment, so if it came to committing a property crime for example, the perceived short term rewards will take precedence over the long-term costs.

Prison doesn't work as a punishment, not because it's soft (as a rule, it really really isn't) but simply because a punishment is meant to make people less likley to commit the act in future. Prison, on it's own without any sort of rehabilitation, increases the chance of reoffending. You are taking, often very young and vulnerable males, locking them up together, telling them that they are, in essence, completly worthless, bad people, making them loose any job they may have had, their houses, their friends and giving them a criminal record. And that's not counting possible physical, psychological and sexual brutalities they may be exposed to in prison and the prevalent gang culture many prisoners fall into though a desire for protection. It's no surprise that people going in have a good chance of coming out even more likely to commit crime.

This is not to say we shouldn't send people to prison, certainly for serious offences because the criminal justice system does have to protect the public and the presence of punishment is still important in society. But you ALSO have to rehabilitate. You have to offer prisoners a chance, not only show them there is a better way but equip them with the tools to achieve it. Rehabilitiation does work. The reduction not only in amount of reoffending but also the seriousness of reoffending is significant and this is for a wide variety of offences from simple property offences to violence and sex offending. This is not to count the reduction in reoffending that can come from the use of educational programs, community interventions, and, what seems to be particularly effective, parenting interventions to reduce the generational cycle of crime.

Rehabilitation works, frankly I'm of the opinion that since, for practical and moral reasons, we can't keep criminals locked up forever, to not perform interventions with them whilst they are in prison (or indeed on community orders) is downright negligent as it just makes them more likely to reoffend when they are out.

You speak as though punishment and rehabilitation are mutually exclusive. They are not.

Moreover, it depends upon what sort of crime you are talking about.

The simple fact of the matter is that in the States, at least, the prison system is a revolving door. Recidivism rates are through the roof. And if you think prison doesn't punish people you are crazy. I've never seen a prison in Britain, but I've visited some in the States, and they are not pleasant places. At all.

So what crimes are you talking about? Murder? Rape? Theft? Drug charges? Organized crime? You need to elaborate, since not all crimes are equal.

All crime, each and everyone they ALL should be punished. and point conceded yes its possible to do both, i just think the priority should be on punishment. And yea i know some prisons are not nice places at all but then again some of them have TVs PS2s etc. Its those type of prisons that need cracking down on.

In many cases, socio-economic circumstances *do* have a great deal to do with crime, but not for the reasons you may think. It isn't because they don't have and want and are willing to disavow any type of moral code to get whatever they want; it's because they see no hope of having what they want using the same moral code that the general populace uses. Face it, if you read at an 8th grade level and only know the kind of life that involves violence, drug use, high unemployment, etc., what job are you going to be useful for?
In many studies I've looked at prisoners had a fourth grade reading level.



These are not simple problems and trying to find a simple answer to them is usually why we end up with a bigger problem than we started with.
QFT

Lies have this unfortunate tendency of being found out.
Best to present the truth in a way that won't result in panic.

If you can find a way of telling people something awful without them panicking i take my hat off to you.

Aye well if you don't live in a very shitty country, revenge oughtn't to be a part of your justice system.

I only answered Cabra's question of what punishment's reason was. I never said that was how, or why we do it.

In many studies I've looked at prisoners had a fourth grade reading level.


And that's an average... the level of education of most prisoners (or lack thereof) is downright scary.

All crime, each and everyone they ALL should be punished. and point conceded yes its possible to do both, i just think the priority should be on punishment. And yea i know some prisons are not nice places at all but then again some of them have TVs PS2s etc. Its those type of prisons that need cracking down on.

I'm of the opinion that the priority should be on making society safer while costing the taxpayer as little money as possible.

People with alcohol and drug addictions need treatment, and giving it to them is the ONLY way to keep them from repeating their crimes ad nauseum.

The inability for ex-cons to find jobs upon release leaves them with little options except to go back to life as a criminal.

What nonviolent criminals need is treatment for their drug and alcohol addictons, education, job training, and job placement upon release. This is the only reasonable way to prevent them from winding up in prison again within 3 years. And I think they should get their treatment and education while in prison.

Also, what do prisons with PS2s and TV sets have to do with the rehabilitation v. punishment debate? Are the prisons claiming that the PS2s help rehabilitate prisoners??

A possibly false sense of security is better than no sense of security at all eh?It's probably a saner way of coping with the world. Magical charms and such should have been eliminated long ago if there wasn't some merit to survival. And since they don't work it must be psychological effects.
Stress kills. So if the stress is worse that the factual lack of security, you're probably better off with a false sense of security than none. Or, euh, something like that.

And of course one should mention that thanks to media exposure people generally feel a lot less safe than facts warrant. So even though it only provided a false sense of security, it balances against a much larger false sense of insecurity.

And how does this help the victim, knowing that the criminal got punished, but not rehabilitated?It helps them cope with their trauma.
Well, technically that only requires they think the criminal got punished. And it's not unheard of some innocent person gets sent to death row. So even though it may help the victim (as long as the truth isn't found out), perhaps it shouldn't play much of a role in the consideration.

*takes a deep breath*

Ok, firstly I shall put aside those you call "just plain evil". Psychopaths do have a neurological lack of empathy and thus far we haven't found anything that will work with them. They don't appear to have any social causes for their disorder and committ excessive amounts of crimes. But even then, we estimate approximately 1% of the population have clinical levels of psychopathic traits, yet many of them never commit crimes. This one is a complex issue, and given that it's arguably a psychiatric one, is not really relevant to the current argument, since it represents only a small proportion of the prison population.

Firstly, I'm going to make this clear. Prison, on it's own, does not work. It does not work as a deterrent or negative conditioning because: a) it lacks all the criteria necessary to be an effective punishment. It is not certain (and certainly not perceived as certain) and nor is it immediately after the act (takes about a year to get to trial). These are two vital critieria to ensure a punishment works as a negative conditioning. B) Many criminals have high levels of impulsivity, fearlessness and Anti-social Personality Disorder. They will respond much better to reward than punishment, so if it came to committing a property crime for example, the perceived short term rewards will take precedence over the long-term costs.

Prison doesn't work as a punishment, not because it's soft (as a rule, it really really isn't) but simply because a punishment is meant to make people less likley to commit the act in future. Prison, on it's own without any sort of rehabilitation, increases the chance of reoffending. You are taking, often very young and vulnerable males, locking them up together, telling them that they are, in essence, completly worthless, bad people, making them loose any job they may have had, their houses, their friends and giving them a criminal record. And that's not counting possible physical, psychological and sexual brutalities they may be exposed to in prison and the prevalent gang culture many prisoners fall into though a desire for protection. It's no surprise that people going in have a good chance of coming out even more likely to commit crime.

This is not to say we shouldn't send people to prison, certainly for serious offences because the criminal justice system does have to protect the public and the presence of punishment is still important in society. But you ALSO have to rehabilitate. You have to offer prisoners a chance, not only show them there is a better way but equip them with the tools to achieve it. Rehabilitiation does work. The reduction not only in amount of reoffending but also the seriousness of reoffending is significant and this is for a wide variety of offences from simple property offences to violence and sex offending. This is not to count the reduction in reoffending that can come from the use of educational programs, community interventions, and, what seems to be particularly effective, parenting interventions to reduce the generational cycle of crime.

Rehabilitation works, frankly I'm of the opinion that since, for practical and moral reasons, we can't keep criminals locked up forever, to not perform interventions with them whilst they are in prison (or indeed on community orders) is downright negligent as it just makes them more likely to reoffend when they are out.

Not everyone who is evil is vunerable or a psycopath but ok we'll leave that point for now.

I dissagree with what i hope was the point of that, that people respond better to rewards than to punishment. If you fail a task and don't get rewarded you lose nothing, if you fail a task and get punished you lose alot. Simply put people will work much harder to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure that basic evolutionary principles coming into play.

Once again you make the mistake of assuming that everyone who commits a crime is not motivated purely by greed but is instead a poor mistreated vunerable person. I'm by no means saying that there arnt those who commit crime out of desperation but the majority are simply lacking in morals and seem to think that rules don't apply to them.

If you so convined that rehabilitation works then why do we have such high reoffending rates? I put it to you that it's because people know that if they commit a crime they're only going to get a slap on the wrist and then be let out again.

If you can find a way of telling people something awful without them panicking i take my hat off to you.

You must respect politicians like Gordon Brown quite a lot...

Also, what do prisons with PS2s and TV sets have to do with the rehabilitation v. punishment debate? Are the prisons claiming that the PS2s help rehabilitate prisoners??

No not directly but if we establish that prison is for punishment then there is no longer any need for stupid expensive luxuries like that.

You must respect politicians like Gordon Brown quite a lot...

Hell no i hate the bastard...

If you can find a way of telling people something awful without them panicking i take my hat off to you.

I'm sorry, I think I got lost somewhere. What is this awful thing that people should or should not be told?

I'm sorry, I think I got lost somewhere. What is this awful thing that people should or should not be told?

I'm not sure... we got a little side tracked

And yea i know some prisons are not nice places at all but then again some of them have TVs PS2s etc. Its those type of prisons that need cracking down on.Will that make the prisoners better people? Will it make society safer? Will it make the prison warden's job easier or safer?
I doubt it.
Besides, giving them privileges based on their behaviour may play an important role in rehabilitation. If they have TV, and they misbehave, you can take their TV privilege away. If they haven't got anything in the first place, then you have nothing to control their behaviour in jail, except force; and that would teach them the opposite of what they should learn.

Not everyone who is evil is vunerable or a psycopath but ok we'll leave that point for now.

I dissagree with what i hope was the point of that, that people respond better to rewards than to punishment. If you fail a task and don't get rewarded you lose nothing, if you fail a task and get punished you lose alot. Simply put people will work much harder to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure that basic evolutionary principles coming into play.

Once again you make the mistake of assuming that everyone who commits a crime is not motivated purely by greed but is instead a poor mistreated vunerable person. I'm by no means saying that there arnt those who commit crime out of desperation but the majority are simply lacking in morals and seem to think that rules don't apply to them.

If you so convined that rehabilitation works then why do we have such high reoffending rates? I put it to you that it's because people know that if they commit a crime they're only going to get a slap on the wrist and then be let out again.

Honey, you are quite simply wrong. I would be more than happy to break down your argument and expain to you quite clearly exactly what makes completely incorrect after I get home from work. But for now, I need to go to work.

Not everyone who is evil is vunerable or a psycopath but ok we'll leave that point for now.

I dissagree with what i hope was the point of that, that people respond better to rewards than to punishment. If you fail a task and don't get rewarded you lose nothing, if you fail a task and get punished you lose alot. Simply put people will work much harder to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure that basic evolutionary principles coming into play.

I'm sorry, the research evidence from psychology simply does not back you up here. Not everyone responds better to rewards than punishment, it is very much dependant on your physiological responsiveness. Firstly, they are two seperate systems involved, the Behavioural Inhbition System and the Behavioural Activation (or Approach) System, or BIS and BAS. The BIS system responds to punishment, the BAS to rewards. As much as we have evolutionary drives to avoid things that harm us, we also have very strong evolutionary drives to do things that reward us (through food, water and sex being the most basic drives). It is a simple physiological fact that some people have stronger BIS systems than BAS systems (at an extreme, this is why you get anxiety disorders) and others who have chronically unresponsive BIS systems but highly responsive BAS.

Once again you make the mistake of assuming that everyone who commits a crime is not motivated purely by greed but is instead a poor mistreated vunerable person. I'm by no means saying that there arnt those who commit crime out of desperation but the majority are simply lacking in morals and seem to think that rules don't apply to them.

I never said that all criminals are poor mistreated vulnerable people, but where do you think the lack of 'morals' (and I'd argue that) comes from. Social disadvantage, poor education, poor parenting, abuse, neglect... all these things lead to individuals with very poor socialization, who generally feel attacked and rejected by society and as a rule are lacking the skills (be they congitive, social or educational) to succeed in society. What? Do you think someone with all the options in the world suddently turns around one day and decides to be a criminal? I'm not saying there's not a choice, life isn't completly deterministic, but generally there are a lot of other factors involved to cause it.

If you so convined that rehabilitation works then why do we have such high reoffending rates? I put it to you that it's because people know that if they commit a crime they're only going to get a slap on the wrist and then be let out again.

A) our reoffending (and hell our offending rates) aren't as bad as we often like to paint, certainly not with serious crimes
B) our reoffending rates are lower (about 10-20% lower) than they would be if we didn't use rehabilitation. It's not perfect and there are issues in it's implementation (wrong programs for wrong people, overuse of targets etc) but it's still better than nothing
C) We have a big, big problem with short prison sentences, the "short sharp shock" approach, which sends people to jail for 3 months or so, thus losing housing, job, friends, social support etc..., not to mention the psychological damage of prison, but which are too short for us to do any interventions. This prison sentences actually increase the reoffending rate by about 10% compared to if the person got a community sentence.


Edit: no need to break down the argument WC Imperial Court... I did it for you :D

OK i have things to do, i'll be back later, yes i know i'm sure you'll all miss me

Once again you make the mistake of assuming that everyone who commits a crime is not motivated purely by greed but is instead a poor mistreated vunerable person. I'm by no means saying that there arnt those who commit crime out of desperation but the majority are simply lacking in morals and seem to think that rules don't apply to them.

If you so convined that rehabilitation works then why do we have such high reoffending rates? I put it to you that it's because people know that if they commit a crime they're only going to get a slap on the wrist and then be let out again.


Generally speaking, criminals whose crime is motivated strictly by greed (i.e., white collar crimes, bank robberies, drug trafficking (no, not the guy selling crack on the corner - the big guys), politicians, you know - the high end stuff) are punishable by extremely lax sentences and penalties. That is because they have the funds to hire teams of lawyers and work the system. Most people in prison do not have those advantages.

High recitivism rates are a clear indication that there is no such thing as rehabilitation anymore. Don't know how it is in other places, but in the US if you have a record, you can forget having any kind of job unless you enjoy McDonalds. How long do you think it's going to take for a person to realize that their only hope of having any money whatsoever is to commit another crime? I am not a bleeding-heart liberal who thinks we should take those poor individuals and solve all their problems and give them lots of hugs; however I am quite familiar with the definition of Catch-22.