Timote Wrote:As far as the Death Penalty not acting as a deterant, of course not when the punishment is delayed 10+ years. That's like punishing a dog for crapping on the carpet, but waiting a week before you do so. The punishment and the 'crime' aren't linked in the minds of the punished or observers.I would argue that certain crimes are in fact linked with the death penalty in the public imagination in the United States (murder especially). As I said before, the reason it isn't a deterrent is because people do not generally commit crimes while weighing the consequences of being caught (either because they do not believe they will be caught, or because they are only thinking of the moment). Also, your analogy is invalid. Dogs do not know what you're punishing them for a week later because they are dogs. Nobody, least of all OJ Simpson, had forgotten what OJ Simpson was on trial for, despite how long it took for a verdict to be reached - and nobody had forgotten by the second civil trial, either.
When I can commit a crime, get sent to prison and live better in there than I can out of out of prison, it's more of a encouragement than a deterrant.
If prisons are so ineffective, then what do you suggest society do to those who break the law? Shake your finger at them and say 'that's bad, now play nice'? If there's no punishment for breaking the law, then it's not a law, it's a suggestion.
I will repeat what I said before that if is better living in your jails than out of them, then this is more damning of your society than your jails. In any case, it is certainly not true that United States prisons are luxurious. Even the "white collar" prisons, of which such a description is still dubious, can hardly be considered an upgrade to the lifestyle of the sort of people (rich corrupt businessmen) who typically go to them. Do you have any evidence at all to suggest that significant numbers of people are deliberately going to jail? This all ignores the fact, of course, that as I noted above most people do not expect to get caught when committing crimes. This is why increasing sentences invariably fails to lower crime rates, despite how well it plays with the "get tough with criminals" crowd.
Finally, I never said prisons were ineffective per se. I said that making them miserable in an attempt to "punish" people was ineffective. If you had read my post, you would have noticed I argued that the point of prisons and the justice system in general is to protect the innocent - and I said that this is best done by separating incurably dangerous people (Charles Manson, let's say) from the public, but for the vast majority of prisoners who are not incurably insane, the main purpose is to reduce recidivism. It's been proven many times over that allowing people to educate, train and improve themselves in prison hugely reduces the rate at which they commit crimes upon their release. This is not ivory-tower theorising, but actually how things are done in many parts of the world. And without exception, they work far better than systems designed around "punishing the guilty" as its main goal.