From: manley@optilink.COM (Terry Manley)
Newsgroups: ca.politics
Subject: Punishment, lack of (was Re: Carjackers/Citizens/Life/Guns/Bernhard Goetz)
Date: 4 Jan 93 18:41:28 GMT
Organization: DSC/Optilink Access Products

In article <dliebman.32q7@terapin.com> dliebman@terapin.com (David Liebman) writes:
>In article <13719@optilink.COM>, manley@optilink.COM (Terry Manley) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec22.220137.4445@octel.com> keithp@octel.com (Keith Perrin)
>wri
>>tes:
>>>In article <13704@optilink.COM> manley@optilink.COM (Terry Manley) writes:
>>
>>>>Just think if we "blew away" anyone convicted of committing
>>>>three felonies.  You get three chances.  Then you die.
>>
>>>>What do you think?
>>
>>>>Would that have an effect on crime rates?
>>
>>>Well, yes it would, so whats your point.
>>
>>I dunno, which way do you think it would change
>>crime rates and why?
>
>quite possibly crime rates would go up.  as fast as we'd be able to
>knock them off, we'd replace them with others who've been taught
>that human life is of such little value, ... 

They already do not value human life, they have already been "taught"
that.  Wake up.  Someone who hijacks a car, throws a baby out the
window and drags a woman to her death is just not a caring person.

>                                            who've grown up so
>impressed and compressed by authority that they could not develop
>a moral sensibility of their own, ...

I submit to you that we are already at that point.  The
existing system is failing to punish those guilty of
offenses (i.e the police no longer respond to "minor"
crimes in many cities, jails are so full inmates are
released before their time is up, etc).  The existing
criminal enforcement and justice system has little
deterent value.  A whole clase of individuals are
already growing up "[un]impressed and compressed by
authority".  We are there now.  Witness the reports of
individuals who have served time having a higher
standing in their peer groups.  These people are looked
upto because they have served time. They are "graduates".
They are "teachers".

>                             ... and to whom the threat of death
>is just one more proof that society does not give a shit about
>them.

Society would be able to easily afford "give[ing] a shit about them"
if it wasn't constantly spending ludicrous sums building new prisons.
If we quit adding to the current prison populations by presenting a
true deterence and divert the sums we would be spending on prisons to
law enforcement, education, health care, housing loans, business
loans, drug treatment programs, etc, maybe we could find a way
out of this mess.

>most of us these days do not consider it sufficient to tell our
>children "Because I'll hit you if you do," because we've realized
>that they will tend to assume that this is a universally valid
>axiom. 

No doubt people should do the right thing because they know
it is the right thing to do and not because of a threat hanging
over their heads, but what do you do with individuals who refuse
to do the right thing and repeatedly commit offenses against
society?  Putting them in jail would work - but we don't keep
them there, we release them, and then they are soon commiting offenses
again.  Are you telling me that someone who had already been
convicted twice for a criminal act wouldn't think twice about
committing a third act if he knew he would caught and executed?

> threat is not a reason; it is the absence of reasons.

What are our existing laws? They state: if you commit
these criminal acts we will find you and punish you as
follows.  Is this a threat?  By your definition? Yes.
(If no why not.) Does it lack reason?  No.  It
establishes guidelines for what is and what is not
appropriate social behavior and defines consequences.  I
agree that it is not sufficient to tell a child do not
do that or I'll hit you.  That does not mean you do not
inform a child what is and what is not appropriate
behavior and what the consequences will be - and that
the consequences will happen.  As a parent I can make
sure my child knows what she did and why it is wrong,
and I can make her understand why she should not do it I
again.  If she does it again, in spite of knowing it is
wrong, she has to be punished in some way.  In your
terms that is a threat, in my terms it is not.  If
criminals are to be children and society is to be parent
we need to ask why are so many children acting so badly
and why are we not being better parents.  Criminals
however are mostly not children and they know the
criminal justice system is mostly not a good parent.
Many act with knowledge that no punishment will be
given.  That's broken. 

>by the way, these words should not be construed as a reply directed
>solely at the crap that commonly issues forth from that manley fellow,
>but to the question of punitive measures in general, not limited to
>corporal ones.

Gee dave, thanks for letting me know what you think of
my opinions.  Perhaps if you'd respond to the "crap that
commonly issues forth" I could learn something from you.
(You've got to admit - this issue is more interesting
than NAMBLA, child molesting, homosexual percentages,
etc. Perhaps you're confusing we with the source
of that?) 

BTW: Is this the way you treat your child when they say
something you don't like - call it crap?  Gee, what an
understanding fellow.  Ok, I apologize for that,
tit-for-tat, an eye for an eye, and all that.  If you
could I'd appreciate it if you'd keep the personal
insults to your self, if you need to insult me send me
email.  Even if you don't need to send the insults, why
don't you email - or post - the opinions I've stated on
USENET that you consider to be crap. I'll do my best to
defend them or change them when shown they are
incorrect.  I promise I'll give you a better answer than
calling your opinions crap. 

Let me know what you think of punitive measures, corporal
and otherwise.  Perhaps we should move this to t.p.m.

>regards,
>dave

and my best personal regards to you dave,
dave
manley@optilink.com