But is it OK to risk punishing a few innocent people if it greatly reduces the amount of suffering caused by crime?
Nah, it's a principle that was brought in from English common law. E.g Blackstone's Ratio[0] was published at roughly the same time as the American revolution was playing out, and cited plenty of earlier formulations of the same principle. Habeas Corpus was codified in the Magna Carta, but predated it as a concept.
You're right than I'm oversimplifying it, and being very US centric.
In the US, just as in Japan, as soon as you are arrested they begin punishing you. If there were a real assumption of innocence, jail would be pleasant and comfortable, and if you were WFH you wouldn't miss a day. There is a material presumption of guilt, even if there's some sort of ethereal theoretical presumption of innocence.
Instead, you're in a horrible cell, eating horrible food, dressed in a humiliating way, treated in a humiliating way, and exposed to dangerous people. Unless you can pay a bond which you will never get back (because you are too poor to pay bail.) You haven't been convicted of anything. The fine you're facing might be lower than your bond, and the time you're facing might be shorter than the time you'd have to wait in jail to go to court.
At some point, you have to hold the person and figure out if they're a danger or not. Not everything is an unpaid ticket, and jail is probably unpleasant because everyone involved is unpleasant. Has it ever been otherwise?
>pay a bond which you will never get back (because you are too poor to pay bail.)
Why would you not get your bond back if you went to court as required? It would be forfeit if someone stops showing up to hearings, which is a requirement of their bond. It's to get them to return to court instead of just fleeing.
The bondsman guarantees your appearance, but often charges tons of interest or other fees that cost you that $5k, plus whatever collateral you can muster.
Apparently a handful of states bypass the bondsman approach by allowing defendants to post the 10% of the bond in cash to the court itself, and then refunding it minus small fees if the defendant makes their appearances.
Overall, I see where defendants come from but the courts want appearances, and failures to appear aren't rare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_to_appear
(don't go to court if you can avoid it)
That's a rather rose-tinted view of criminal justice here... I do hear that sentiment a lot here, but it's just words, and as you sort of hint at, the reality doesn't match the words.
> But is it OK to risk punishing a few innocent people if it greatly reduces the amount of suffering caused by crime?
That's a big philosophical question. I argue that no, that's not ok, and I'd rather guilty people go free (and possibly hurt others) than put an innocent person behind bars.
My wife was traveling in Central America last year, and befriended another traveler from a nearby country. This woman told my wife that her country used to be fairly dangerous (both for locals and tourists) due to the proliferation of criminal gangs, but that the current president had mobilized the police/military and aggressively cleaned things up. She mentioned that a large number of innocent people got caught in the crossfire and and were now rotting in jail, but if that was the price of safety for everyone else, she was ok with it.
I had a very visceral negative reaction to this story, and found it disappointing that someone would hold that opinion. But I suppose it's a lot easier to take that stance when it's not you or someone you care about being falsely accused and sent to prison.
So I think that's another way to look at your question: would you be ok going to prison as an innocent person, as a known, understood, and societally-accepted side-effect of a safer society? If the answer is no, then you can't expect anyone else to do it. And even if the answer is yes, that's still a personal decision/opinion, and still can't expect anyone else to do it.
(For the record: hell no, I would not be ok with that.)
I have to imagine that from her point of view, it's a lot easier to take the stance that you'd rather see guilty people go free than put an innocent person behind bars when it's not your neighborhood with the dangerous criminal gangs....
Yes, more so than if it was someone else.
I’m not familiar with this term. Is that an old thing?