the great ILX capital punishment debate

Am I right in thinking that impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner is still punishable by hanging? I remember that not all of these nineteenth-century laws were repealed.

Some offenders are clearly imprisoned to protect the public.

yah but not individuals -- that's the principle anyway. you're tried for violation of the law.

and the reason for that law is...

i'll answer for you. if a person does violent, illegal things to someone else, removing that person from the community so that they can't do violent, illegal things again is a pretty important thing to do. the community benefits (and any victims also benefit, because they're members of that community.

What about people who are no danger either to individuals or society in general, who are unlikely to reoffend due to the circumstances of why they were banged up in the first place? Eg perjurers? Perpetrators of fraud? What's the point of locking them up if not punishment?

I guess because even though I think rehabilitation is the highest goal, I have some sympathy for the notion that the justice system should not entirely be based around the well-being of the offender. Even with the best system of rehabilitation we're not going to end crime, and a society in which most victims of crime feel they are not getting any kind of justice is not really to be wished for.

xp to Tom D

Deterrent (x-post).

Large fines might be an equally "effective" deterrent.

I would say that the main purpose of the majority of prison sentences is merely retributive punishment.

But, within reason, it's not the severity of the punishment that's the deterrant, but the likelihood of getting caught. Admittedly this breaks down a bit with violent psychopaths.

i'll answer for you. if a person does violent, illegal things to someone else, removing that person from the community so that they can't do violent, illegal things again is a pretty important thing to do. the community benefits (and any victims also benefit, because they're members of that community.

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, February 26, 2008 11:27 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

that's not the "reason for the law", that's an interpretation of the function of laws right now. but anyway you seem to be agreeing with me: offenders are not imprisoned to protect individuals, nor "on behalf of" the victims.

Offenders are not imprisoned so as not to breach Government targets morelike

I've come to the position that punishment without practical benefit - punishment just as retribution - is pretty much pointless. Deterrence, protection for society, rehabilitation; these are valid benefits. But the only benefit conferred by capital punishment - and by our current system of incarceration, to judge by the burgeoning prison numbers - is to satisfy people's moral indignation.

-- ledge, Tuesday, 26 February

yes and no. i think the idea of punishment having a cathartic function as well as the others isn't a bad thing, and if that function isn't satisfied, or isn't felt to be satisfied it can increase societies need for 'vengence' over time

it is more complicated in modern secular societies where the media plays a large role in this, as they are the transmitters of this cathartic function, and as the crimes that make the newspapers are largely abstracted from us, the perception of 'justice' can be skewed more easily, but i don't think thats to detract from the concept, or role it plays

Where are these societies where "the victims of crime feel they are not getting any kind of justice" and there is a widespread "need for vengeance"?

Er, this one, where 99% of people(*) want the death penalty?

(*) of a certain demographic

And you honestly believe that shit?

I'm not sure at what point you think my credulity should be strained.

surely we must be far enough into the future to have the Running Man now?

ANY poll which ends up 99% to 1% has to be taken with a pinch of salt, one feels... a poll on "Do you believe in murdering children" would probably be less one-sided!

hey enrique, WHAT'S THE RESAON FOR THE LAW, THEN?

I think Kafka should answer that one.

A "Do you believe in murdering children" poll would I suspect produce a very different result if conducted on the top deck of a south London bus at school home time.

Esp. if the pollees were Guardian journalists, right?

Absolutely - if we extended the poll to cover the borough of Camden...

hey enrique, WHAT'S THE RESAON FOR THE LAW, THEN?

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, February 26, 2008 11:51 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

historical precedent lol. rly tho.

brilliant

It is a rather overwhelming poll result but I doubt it would be fixed (me so innocent & trusting). Majority of public still in favour of CP I believe.

He was the king of bebop, after all.

Majority of public still in favour of CP I believe

When was it ever any different?

yeah if you're gonna rig a poll you don't make it 99% in favour, you go with something a bit more believable.

If that were the case we'd have had half a century of Communist government by now (xp).

Andy Kershaw to thread.
xp.

yeah if you're gonna rig a poll you don't make it 99% in favour, you go with something a bit more believable

Double bluff

Maybe they only asked one person and one of their left toes was twitching in slight doubt.

It's probably not a rigged poll, but it's pretty much a self-selecting poll because only people who want the death penalty are going to bother phoning in. Especially given that it's in the Sun.

99% does seem pretty ridiculous though.

http://www.dictatorofthemonth.com/Hoxha/Hoxha_mail.jpg

I doubt it was rigged. I saw it but never bothered phoning.It was a foregone conclusion what the result was going to be why waste a call?

wording is all

Incapacitation now serves as the principal justification for imprisonment in American criminal justice: offenders are imprisoned in the United States to restrain them from physically offending again while they are confined. The singular importance of incapacitation as a purpose of imprisonment is of relatively recent vintage. In the 1970s, the rhetoric of rehabilitation was a dominant feature of the literature and discussion of imprisonment, and the deterrence justification was more prominent than incapacitation in debates about punishment. It is only in the last fifteen years that something approaching a consensus about the priority of restraint has begun to emerge.

...

Although it is logically and legally possible to continue both to administer prisons and to use imprisonment as a punishment without the support of any specific justification or ideology of imprisonment, it would be difficult in a political democracy to do so without any positive sense of purpose or function for them. Those who work in prison, those who sentence offenders to prison, and those who support the institution in less palpable ways all need some paradigm of imprisonment, a sharp image of what prisons are needed for and may achieve.

...

Incapacitation rose to prominence by a process of elimination as scholarly and public debate about other functions of imprisonment undermined faith in prison rehabilitation as an effective process and in deterrence as a basis for making fine-tuned allocations of imprisonment resources.

Incapacitation: Penal Confinement and the Restraint of Crime By Franklin E. Zimring, Gordon Hawkins, 1997

SUN POLL EXCLUSIVE: 99% OF OUR READERS SAY YES TO PROPOSITION: "ALL SO-CALLED ASYLUM SEEKERS TO BE BEATEN TO WITHIN INCH OF LIVES BY IMMIGRATION OFFICERS LIKE JAMES WOODS IN SALVADOR SO AS TO TEACH THEM A LESSON AND NOT COME HERE AND WORK HARD AND SHOW ALL THE REST OF US BRITISH IDLERS UP AND ANYWAY THEY'RE ALL P4EDO TERRORISTS"

CELEBRITY BACKERS OF THIS MOTION INCLUDE!
AL MURRAY AS THE PUB LANDLORD
DAVID DICKINSON
JEREMY CLARKSON
SIMON COWELL
ROBERT KILROY SILK
JONATHAN ROSS
BEN ELTON
DEBORAH OUT OF DRAGONS DEN
TV'S GRAHAM NORTON
JASON OUT OF DANCING ON ICE

Those who work in prison, those who sentence offenders to prison, and those who support the institution in less palpable ways all need some paradigm of imprisonment

Imprisonment solely as punishment is a perfectly valid paradigm and ideology, albeit one I don't agree with. xp.

The sun comments seem to be along the lines that people in prison have it cushy so it's better to kill them.

Up next: Sun poll on the re-introduction of crucifixion

Well, at least it gets you out in the open air.

offenders are imprisoned in the United States to restrain them from physically offending again while they are confined.

That goes against the whole idea of sentences being proportionate to the crime. A petty thief is much more likely to reoffend than a spur-of-the-moment murderer, so they should get a much longer sentence.

The sun comments seem to be along the lines that people in prison non-dom fat cats have it cushy so it's better to kill them.

Fixed.

I'm sure Nondom Fatcatz is a Turkish restaurant on Stoke Newington High Street

According to Michael Hann it's no good because the waiters don't serve him ordinary people.

haha, "Those who work in prison, those who sentence offenders to prison, and those who support the institution in less palpable ways all need some paradigm of imprisonment" is an outrageously pollyanna-ish way of putting it. and about the US system yet!

does that functionalist puff-piece on contemporary rhetorical justifications for imprisonment -- and again, it's about the US, which has an insane number of people banged up -- reflect historical reality or the political status quo? if the idea was public safety, ramping up recidivism rates by locking up minor offenders in conditions of unredeemed brutality would not be the way to do it. punishment is still if not the, then an order of the day.

anyway ffs it's still not saying we lock people up to protect individuals or on behalf of victims, which was my original point.

ok!

Maryland Senate votes to abolish death penalty.