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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

I think Americans by and large see prison as this dungeon where we store people we don’t like for as long as possible rather than as a place where people who have made mistakes go to get the training and help they need in order to get back on track. That’s the simplest way to explain things like ultra long sentences compared to the rest of the civilized world, mistreating people after they’ve done their time (felon status for life and offender lists), and the extreme racial disparity among the prison population. It’s a system designed to permanently bifurcate the population into “normals” and “criminals”, often along racial lines, and to by any means keep the second group segregated for as long as possible, as often as possible.

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Calling crimes "mistakes" is a terrible euphemism.

It may be accurate in some cases. But many criminals commit their crimes knowing full well what they are doing, and with no regard for those who are hurt by their actions, and show little or no remorse (unless they think pretending can reduce their sentence).

Now, many are in prison due to unjust laws, selective enforcement, or a flawed prosecution incarcerating the wrong person. But let's not lump those problems together with those who intentionally harm others without remorse.

OK, while I get the sentiment, this story is about a crime that was a mistake.

I think many of us are aware that felons loose their right to vote. I guess I assumed you would be blocked from voting. So I never thought about what the penalty should be. Now that I’ve seen the penalty, I’m appalled.

Frankly, I think we should quit criminalizing everything. The governments responsible for jailing criminals, no-fly lists and a lot of other things. Why not take responsibility for blocking felons from voting?

I posted about my situation and difficulty finding a job on another social media website, and a commenter wrote "Those lists exist for a reason. You made your bed now sleep in it." That's literally what the public thinks they're for, as a permanent form of discrimination and condemnation to prevent people like me from having a job or a good life. It's meant to keep us down all our lives.

If that's what the voting public thinks it's for, then for all practical purposes, that's sure as hell what it's actually for.

If I murdered someone out of curiosity and in doing so realized it was not fun at all should I be allowed to go free immediately since I will not murder again?

In other words the rehabilitation occurred during and as a result of the criminal act.

There's also 'fairness' in law - so you have to serve a sentence similar to others guilty of the same offense. And yes in this strawman case your sentence should perhaps not be a long one.

Except the sociopath angle - a person who commits crime for fun is quite likely to find another fun crime to commit.

Retribution is inherent to punishment and by extension justice. It simply makes no sense to claim otherwise. Mercy makes no sense unless we accept that. A judge cannot show leniency or mercy unless it is, first, acknowledged that the criminal deserves something commensurate with the crime, and second, there is a real, deserved possibility (at least in principle, even if never realized) of receiving one's just deserts. Premeditated murder deserves the death penalty as a matter of principle, though we can decide legally never to manifest that as punishment.

Punishment has three purposes: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. We seem to be suffering from a contemporary bias against retribution [0]. However, these three purposes are intimately connected. When a punishment fits the crime, we communicate the severity of the crime to the criminal. In that way, we help facilitate rehabilitation by making it clear how grave his offense has been. Deterrence is facilitated by the same token. Obviously, these are not absolute measures. For example, a criminal may be unrepentant, but then rehabilitation is not possible. In any case, adequate remorse does not remove the possibility of retribution (though a sincerely remorseful criminal would accept that he deserves commensurate punishment), but it does allow for mercy.

[0] A common confusion here is that retribution entails hatred of the punished. It does not.

Yes, but in America, a hatred of the punished is common regardless of whether you tie that to "retribution", and likely one of the many reasons rehabilitation is not a focus and/or strong outcome of our prison system.

And even if they do rehabilitate, our society is not properly set up to help them come back, so the retribution often outweighs the crime. They do their time in prison- but essentially they do time the rest of their life, because when they come back, they aren't treated as if their retribution is complete.

in your description, what is the actual distinction between "retribution" and "deterrence"?

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