Executions

[TubbaBlubba]

In what way? If I read the story correctly and if the story itself is accurate, Wright has lived quietly without assault on person or society since about 1972.

That's just a description of what we know after the fact. Presumably we wouldn't know about any successfully carried out crimes.


Even if he did indeed pose no danger to society, it would as you yourself admit be beneficial to lock him up, to send a message that escaping won't let you go free even if you can stay away for long enough. So it doesn't really show the point you think it does. There's also the fact that a justice system should be just, roughly meaning equal treatment for equal acts under equal circumstances. We don't start randomly bending the rules, and we already account for good behaviour.

 

[JJM 777]

Prisoners pose a danger to the prison guards.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Prisoners pose a danger to the prison guards.

Well, yes, if that danger was a greater harm than... Anything else, I guess we'd ought not to lock people up.




Good thing that's not the case.

 

[JJM 777]

Well, yes, if that danger was a greater harm than... Anything else, I guess we'd ought not to lock people up.

By the way, at least in Finland prisons are built not to be watertight from escape attempts. And the prisoners know it (possibly they are directly told it). The motive for this is to enhance the work safety of prison guards. If a prisoners wants to attempt escaping, killing a few guards is not on the necessary things-to-do list. The main problem to solve is how to get far enough from the solitary prison undetected. Killing people in the prison would be more harmful than helpful for that objective.

 

[sarge]

That's just a description of what we know after the fact. Presumably we wouldn't know about any successfully carried out crimes.

Why do you presume that he did commit crimes in the interim? According to the story, he lived a non-descript, peaceful life.

Even if he did indeed pose no danger to society, it would as you yourself admit be beneficial to lock him up, to send a message that escaping won't let you go free even if you can stay away for long enough.

Nope. Capturing this guy after 40 years will not deter a single person from making an attempt at escpae that they would otherwise have attempted. There is zero deterent effect from this capture.

So it doesn't really show the point you think it does.

It shows only the point I was making - that the re-capture of this guys serves only the punishment component. There is no deterent effect and he posed no demonstrated risk to society.

There's also the fact that a justice system should be just, roughly meaning equal treatment for equal acts under equal circumstances. We don't start randomly bending the rules, and we already account for good behaviour.

Did you get the impression that I opposed the capture? Justice should be swift, blind, and unemotional - and when it can not be swift, it should be resolute.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Why do you presume that he did commit crimes in the interim? According to the story, he lived a non-descript, peaceful life.

Past performance is indicative of future performance in this case.

Nope. Capturing this guy after 40 years will not deter a single person from making an attempt at escpae that they would otherwise have attempted. There is zero deterent effect from this capture.

Not sending a message of "If you stay away long enough, we won't bother" does not have a deterring effect? Just because you can't point to any single attempt that would not have occurred due to this capture does not mean that this together with many other actions has helped deter attempts.

And it is simply wholly impractical to design a system around the notion that staying away long enough = FREEDOM. That has nothing to do with "punishment", however.

 

[sarge]

Past performance is indicative of future performance in this case.

That is perfectly backwards. In this case, accoridng to every bit of information actually available, his past performance was a poor indicitaor of his future performance.

According to what we currently know, he committed no crime (save being an escapee and entering several countires illegally) during 30.5/40 years of his freedom.

Not sending a message of "If you stay away long enough, we won't bother" does not have a deterring effect?

You either mis-wrote that or you agree with me. I'm not sure which.

Just because you can't point to any single attempt that would not have occurred due to this capture does not mean that this together with many other actions has helped deter attempts.

I'm confused. This says that you agree with me - but "feels" like you are still arguing.

And it is simply wholly impractical to design a system around the notion that staying away long enough = FREEDOM. That has nothing to do with "punishment", however.

We are not talking about a design feature. It remains true that the only practical reason to re-capture after 40 years a fugitive that poses no threat to the public and whose recapture serves no deterent effect is retribution, and retribution can only be served via punsihment.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

We are not talking about a design feature. It remains true that the only practical reason to re-capture after 40 years a fugitive that poses no threat to the public and whose recapture serves no deterent effect is retribution, and retribution can only be served via punsihment.

No, the reason we do that is to follow the law. The law is set up for the best of society. Unfortunately it cannot yield perfect results in every case. Deciding NOT to lock up a guy like this would require either an element of utter arbitration, which is undesirable for a number of reasons. OR it would require a system where we said, "OK, stay away for 30 years and you're good", which would be bad because it encourages escapes (leading to a detrimental society effect, etc)


All of this has nothing to do with your "retribution". You want punishment for the sake of punishment, which is meaningless. Punishment (locking up) is done to an END, such as deterring future crimes, protecting society, and so on. Retribution is not a useful end, because it leads to no net increase in utility anywhere.

 

[JJM 777]

Retribution is not a useful end, because it leads to no net increase in utility anywhere.

People´s feelings are a utility, and if 200 million people feel better when one murderer is hanged, the retribution serves utility.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

People´s feelings are a utility, and if 200 million people feel better when one murderer is hanged, the retribution serves utility.

Yes, but that has to be weighed against the cost of it (hence net). These things are hard to quantify, but we can ask: are there any obvious advantages in societies that execute people versus societies that don't?

 

[JJM 777]

we can ask: are there any obvious advantages in societies that execute people versus societies that don't?

The quick answer might be: better motive for people to refrain from killing others, lower cost of maintaining the convicted murderers, and lower chance of recidivism of the crime.

We can ask this, if we are utilitarianists. But we might not be.

What we really should start asking is what people want. Then scrap the existing countries and reform the global political map with states based on major political opinion trends. Then some of the societies would use death penalty, some others not, and you would have a choice to move where the political climate suits yourself.

 

[sarge]

No, the reason we do that is to follow the law. The law is set up for the best of society. Unfortunately it cannot yield perfect results in every case. Deciding NOT to lock up a guy like this would require either an element of utter arbitration, which is undesirable for a number of reasons. OR it would require a system where we said, "OK, stay away for 30 years and you're good", which would be bad because it encourages escapes (leading to a detrimental society effect, etc)

Nope. There is no deterent effect in persuing a 30 year escapee. Not one incarcerated person will decide to forego an escape attempt because we re-captured an escapee after 30 years of freedom.

And what you call "following the law" is retribution. There is no reason to chase down and return to jail a criminal that has lived trouble free for 30 years except to enforce his punishment. No deterent effect, and no threat to society.

All of this has nothing to do with your "retribution". You want punishment for the sake of punishment, which is meaningless.

Your opinion isn't shared by those that have made a career in criminal justice. Punisjment (retributive justice) is a component of every western criminal justice system. Punishment is its own end, even though it may also serve to deter future crimes and safeguard the public.

Punishment (locking up) is done to an END, such as deterring future crimes, protecting society, and so on. Retribution is not a useful end, because it leads to no net increase in utility anywhere.

Nice sentiment, but 100% of human history says you are wrong. Humans punish for punishments sake. They have always done so.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Nope. There is no deterent effect in persuing a 30 year escapee. Not one incarcerated person will decide to forego an escape attempt because we re-captured an escapee after 30 years of freedom.

See, you're committing the same fallacy again. It's similar to saying that just because there's no single mutation that makes an ancestor to Homo Sapiens not Homo Sapiens, they could not possibly have evolved into Homo Sapiens.

Locking him up, as part of a larger justice system, helps deter people. Even if it were a fact that locking him up had no deterrent effect (which I don't believe - people would surely try escaping more if they knew that staying away for long enough let you go free), it is STILL wholly impractical to make an exception in law for him, for reasons I have already explained.

And what you call "following the law" is retribution. There is no reason to chase down and return to jail a criminal that has lived trouble free for 30 years except to enforce his punishment. No deterent effect, and no threat to society.

No, following the law means following an imperfect, blunt set of rules in order to keep society stable. This means that in some cases such as this, there might not be an OBVIOUS benefit to locking someone up; however it is still preferred to allowing exceptions in the law. We'd rather not want to write new laws for every case at the whim of whatever judge is sitting there.

Your opinion isn't shared by those that have made a career in criminal justice. Punisjment (retributive justice) is a component of every western criminal justice system. Punishment is its own end, even though it may also serve to deter future crimes and safeguard the public.


Nice sentiment, but 100% of human history says you are wrong. Humans punish for punishments sake. They have always done so.

I could not care less. Humans have burned people at stakes accusing them of witchcraft for a very long time. This does not mean that it's an intelligent or desirable thing in a justice system.