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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

This is poorly focused. I'm absolutely against 3 strikes sentencing laws and mandatory sentencing escalations that can put petty criminals in prison for life.

On the other hand, I'm perfectly OK with some criminals dying behind bars, such as the recently sentenced Whitey Bulger, and so are most other people. By making the headline about the undesirability of custodial life sentences in general, they'er losing a large chunk of their potential audience straight out of the gate.

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So, question- if you actively support putting people behind bars with the intent of seeing them die there, why not just kill them right away? If the intent is for them to not cause any harm to society, then that'll get the job done while saving money for society and making them suffer for a shorter period of time.

Unless the goal is to make them suffer for their entire life as punishment; in which case, why not just torture them? That seems like it would be more efficient.

I'm legitimately curious as to why one would support prison if one does not believe that society should aspire to transform criminals into better, law abiding citizens.

Personally, I would support hanging them high instead of putting them in prison for life... except I do hold certain relevant beliefs about the future of humanity. I think there's a decent chance that before this century is out, us humans will have mastery over our brains (which may or may not be the same gooey brains we've always had), and I think it would be tragic if we put even a bad man to death instead of imprisoning him for several decades then fixing his brain when the technology comes along. If prisons become too costly for the rest of us to support or if it's going to take a lot longer for the tech, then mass cryogenic suspensions would be better than straight up executions, and for free people cryonics would be better than dying of old age... Of course if I thought humans will never gain mastery over the brain, then sure, why not have executions for those with life sentences, who ideally are those where "education" and rehabilitation are impossible due to the way their brains are?

> then fixing his brain when the technology comes along.

This is not an improvement over killing him.

Everyone supports reforming criminals. However we don't have any system that can achieve that reliably.

I find three strikes to be to strict. But if they've proven unwilling or unable to reform it's preposterous to let them out of prison.

Countries like Sweden and Norway have much better results than the USA regards reforming prisoners, you think?

Killing someone actually ends up costing more than imprisoning them for life (Just an FYI). I do however agree with your point about what the goal of prison should be.

If our powers that be decided that the death penalty should be done in a cost-effective way, I'm sure they'd find a solution :)

It's less the cost of death vs life imprisonment, more the cost of appeals. Death is permanent, the appeals process is thorough (tragically, not thorough enough) in an effort to ensure that only those who are guilty are killed. Doesn't work very well, thus the moratorium and banning of it in some states when their leaders finally acknowledged the severity of the situation.

I'm legitimately curious as to why one would support prison if one does not believe that society should aspire to transform criminals into better, law abiding citizens.

Deterrence. Not that trying to reform criminals is a bad idea, but it's not the only goal of the system.

Well, my points about torture and death penalty hold for deterrence. One could even argue that they'd be even more efficient, especially if performed publicly!

It's very difficult to release an executed man if new evidence shows he's innocent after all.

This is a nicety that might ring hollow to someone who spent the time between turning 22 and turning 60 in jail, only to finally be released on evidence that the prosecutor framed him. In the same way that you can't resurrect the wrongfully executed, you can't restore the vitality, family, or place in the world that the innocent guy would have had.

I don't find the death penalty especially sui generis for that reason.

Do you have any price quotes re: execution vs life sentence to support your assertion that money are to be saved?

why not just kill them right away?

Because evidence might come up later that proves them innocent. Because killing someone deprives them of all of the rest of their life, whereas life imprisonment offers them some fraction of it.

I actually do think there are some people we should just hang-- after due process, of course-- but definitely not everyone who has a long sentence.

Also, a "life" sentence usually just means 20 years in the US, for whatever reason.

>On the other hand, I'm perfectly OK with some criminals dying behind bars

Lots of people from similar backward countries are perfectly OK with this.

I mean, if I recall correctly you even still have the death penalty. Heck, it's only like 4 decades since you ended racial seggregation (in paper).

Hopefully, in 3-4 decades you'll turn to more modern and humanistic views on justice, catcing up to most Western European and Skandinavian countries.

Meanwhile, some can cheer and advocate for minor BS changes to laws like the gay marriage (talk about a upper middle class issue, if there ever was one), while others rot in prison for "crimes" such as the ones described in TFA, blacks constitute the lion's share of prisoners, prisons are turned into private for profit enterprises, 16 year olds are sentenced to death, SWAT teams get employed for BS offences, etc... Talk about not seeing the big issues...

Scandanavian countries don't have as many blacks as the US.

I'm from Ireland, actually, although I live in the US.

The largest word in the title is "what", as part of the phrase "for what?", making clear that the focus is on the reasons for--as opposed to the mere existence of--custodial life sentences.

This 3 strikes law reeks of injustice. I too am fine with certain violent offenders spending life behind bars, but this is just plain stupid and frankly not cost effective[1].

Let's save the jail space for murders, pedophiles, rapists, and violent offenders then put money into programs to rehabilitate folks.

1) I still get mad when I hear other small government folks who are ok with this crap. I'm against the death penalty because it costs too much and I don't trust the government to be 100% right.

Please don't lump pedophiles in with murderers. Many of them are in prison simply for downloading a file from the internet. In some cases, the content is perfectly legal and harmless but was edited to be sexually suggestive and the people caught with it end up in prison. That's not to say some don't actually abuse children, but many do not.

Sorry, let be clarify, when I say pedophiles (as opposed to some of these "sex offenders"[1]), I mean adults who molest children. Since I don't believe (although courts seem to think the other way) that lists after release are constitutional, I am one of those that believe dangerous people need to stay in jail. Those people need to serve a long, long time.

I am not up on the psychology of adults who look at suggestive pictures of children, but I don't think that is healthy.

1) some 17 or 18 year old having consensual sex with their 14 to 17 year old partner is not something I count. That should be a parents discussion and not the courts. 100 years ago, that was marriage age.

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