As a Dutch guy, I agree with this in general. However, what the system does not take into account is that some people are just broken beyond any hope of ever being fixed. For example, there was a news story a while back about some petty criminal who stole some iPhones from a locker room and got caught. It was the 163rd time he got arrested. How do you deal with someone like that in a civilised manner ?
Of course, if your point is that certain people are beyond help, then I guess you can always find examples where this is true and then maybe you can set certain rules specific for those extreme cases.
But I think that doesn't invalidate the GP's point. In most cases helping the person recover is actually possible so it's worth giving that road a try.
No, there aren't. You can't force someone into psychiatric care unless they are a danger to themselves or others and even then it's a difficult process.
> But I think that doesn't invalidate the GP's point. In most cases helping the person recover is actually possible so it's worth giving that road a try.
I agree. But the system needs to acknowledge that it simply is not possible for some people. I don't think we should wait for someone to get arrested 100+ times to try a different approach.
My point was that someone that gets arrested not 100+ times, but even 5+ or 10+ is probably someone having serious issues participating in society (assuming we are not talking about North Korea or some other dictatorship regime with absurd incarceration laws).
Sometimes the culprit is going to be a medical reason for which we can try a medical treatment, but if not, there might be other possible treatments like those used with gang members (watch "La Vida Loca" documentary).
When all this fails, then we can maybe argue that we are dealing with one of those people for which there is no possible help, but it's not until now (hopefully) that we consider some potentially uncivilized way of dealing with these extremes.
That's how I would like to (broadly) deal with these people anyway. Not saying it's what happens, unfortunately.
are you suggesting he should be locked up for a very long time for committing a lot of petty crimes?
You might call them "petty" crimes as if they are nothing, but to the person involved they are a very big deal.
for how long, indefinitely?
Yes. 144 crimes? He's not going to stop, so yes, indefinitely.
This isn't about punishing him, it's about keeping him away from everyone else.
For child molesters and murder, the goal is punishment, and then it's a specific amount of years which are determined as an appropriate punishment.
But here the goal is prevention.
The two categories can not be compared to each other because they are not the same. They have different goals, target different people, and have different time frames.
They just both happen to be implemented via jail which leads you to compare them, but it doesn't have to be that way - for example punishment can be corporal, and prevention can theoretically be done other ways (none practical at the moment, but things like an AI that watches behavior and stops the person or sounds an alarm may be possible in the future).
Well there's your problem, those are usually the goals of justice systems in places like the US. The entire point of this artical that those aren't the goals for the dutch
The example at hand was an example of a clear failure of rehabilitation. And when that happened the Dutch had no legal ability (or perhaps desire) to deal with it.
That's why there also is involuntary commitment (TBS), where many people are in so-called "long stay" for decades, often until death, but that has been ruled against the declaration of human rights, so there is a possibility of getting released (which, afaik, has never been granted yet)
What sort of bank do prison owning CEOs make?