In a way I kind of agree. Because while yes the victims shouldn't have a say in what sentence or punishment a perpetrator gets, taking it to the extreme and just completely disregarding the other party's grievances is probably dangerous and undermines the justice system. If you get a lot of people feeling that there is no justice to be had from the system, you end up with a super dangerous situation & I know how deeply that feeling can erode the social fabric since it happened in my home country.
There are many reform advocates that suggest things should shift more towards those latter two, but the current state is that the main point is to do something bad to someone who did something bad.
That's not correct, and tells something about your preconception. I was told by someone who had been to prison that those doing time for murder or manslaughter are considered less dangerous, they killed their target and that was that. The ones in there for GBH, those are the ones you have to look out for, they have low impulse control and low intelligence and are basically incorrigible.
From a policy POV, the comment is entirely serious and rational, appropriate.
Laws from what I’ve seen are to codify expected behavior so it isn’t arbitrary. The tone and nature of them is up to the legislator.
Which is not to say that we do in fact write laws that codify those ideals, hence the words "supposed to" in my prior comment.
I can probably dig up a citation tomorrow when I hope have a little more free time, but not making any promises either, sorry
One chapter covers the basic forces regulating behavior:
Physics - The world and our understanding of it place bounds on what can and cannot be done.
Money and Markets - The cost of things place bounds on what can and cannot be done.
Both of these prevent behavior, as in taking behavior off the table no matter how compelling it may otherwise be.
The other two, norms and laws lack this property, instead act post fact.
Laws - Describe acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and carry consequences, remedies for unacceptable behavior.
Physics takes driving above some speeds impossible. Speed bumps, etc...
Speed limits do not actually prevent anything, only impose costs, by way of example.
Norms - Work like laws, only are largely enforced socially.
There is a lot more in the book.
My point here is leaning on law to manage behavior is not particularly effective. Getting more of the better behavior more of the time is systemic. Requires action on all fronts.
The idea that all prisoners can be compared to murderers is a major reinforcing myth that perpetuates the system of abuse and allows people to tell themselves it's okay. It's not okay.
The world looks at us in horror, rightly.
The duty of the state shouldn't be to exact revenge (which by the way, studies show, after a threshold incremental punishment does nothing) but rather to give folks the tools to escape their environments. That means showing them how to live in the real world.
At the end of the day the state should measure the efficacy of a prison system against recidivism and total population crime rate. The individual cases shouldn't really factor in.
> That violent people should be removed from society to prevent them from injuring other people?
No, I made it clear that I believe the efficacy of a prison system should be measured by total population crime rate and recidivism rates. The US prison system fails to achieve the goal you're implying it does. It has a very high recidivism and reconviction rate. In a sense, my point is more that "we've tried it your way and it's not working."
The goal should be to, as you say, "stop people from injuring other people" in the future. You can't un-injure someone in the past, and the constitution provides for proportional punishments in the 8th amendment if I'm not mistaken, so people will end up out of prison at some point. The question on my mind is how to make sure that when they do, they don't injure more people.
Recidivism rates are available for your review: [1]. My point is rather that the plan you're advocating for isn't achieving the result that you're telling me it is.
> Being in a constant state of understanding is not how you govern a country if you want it to be peaceful and cleaned up.
Being data-driven is how you achieve goals, and the data says this is the wrong approach.
It's not portrayed as an unusual thing that the entire system seems to purely be designed for retribution and all the characters act as though that be obvious.