I usually stay out of the POlitics area, but wandered by to look at some other stuff and saw this thread and peeked in.
First of all, to all of you who are decrying the absolute horribleness of incarceration - a question and a comment. Q -- what about incarceration is horrible? Even for the innocent who is deprived of their liberty, what is so all-fired intolerably horrible? C -- Partly in response to my own question, I remind some, and expound as news for the others: "Criminals don't think like you and me."
1While there is some restriction on personal liberty, a written ban on engaging in any commercial enterprise, a relative paucity of cable TV channels to choose from, and some limitation on the amount and type of healthcare provided, incarceration is not physically punishing. Incarceration for life does get rather routine and boring rather quickly, but then again so does incarceration for 30 days. The difference is the absence of a determinable light at the end of the tunnel. The number of inmate-on-inmate assaults is, relatively speaking, low -- much lower than in the free population. The reason I suppose such events get so much news coverage is because they occurr in an environment where conduct is
supposed to be rigidly controlled.
Even today, some 40 years after Samenow and Yokelson wrote about their study of the criminal personality the greatest amount of their findings still remain valid. Over the years the biggest change I have witnessed is that the desire to get locked up has increased, while the reasons for desiring to get locked up remain the same. Getting locked up "proves" you are a person to be reckoned with. Getting further locked up (segregation, isolation) while incarcerated just further "proves" you are one to be reckoned with.
One does not need to be a deranged Charlie Manson, or a misled/misguided Sirhan Sirhan, to want recognition.
For those of you who say that the death penalty does not deter crime - I ask you to point out one executed individual who has ever committed another crime following execution. No, I'm not being funny. Even when pirates were hanged in public and their bodies left to rot at the gates of the city, that did not deter any other pirates that there is historical record of such. Yes, it made the general public queasy to see the condemned twitching until they strangled to death, and the rotting body added somewhat to the existing stench and disease (meaning both illness and uncomfortableness) of living.
At one point the death penalty was "justice" in its purest form. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life" prevented blood fueds and allowed civilization such as it was to progress and develop into a more "civilized" form. In the not so distant past in Western, Eastern, and Middle Eastern culture the use of incarceration was quite rare. Also, the number of offenses that were considered "capital" crimes were so few you could count them on the fingers of your hands. Just this past legislative session the Virginia General Assembly passed laws creating three new capital offenses. I'm opposed as the next guy to allowing folks to go around murdering other folks, but what makes the murder of a county water meter reader more significant than the murder of my grey-haired old granny? But kill a meter-reader and you qualify for the death penalty, while granny only gets you life unless there were specified aggravating circumstances.
Once people started getting squeamish about executing folks in public, where the act of execution might have actually had some deterrent effect on those witnessing the event, society started looking for "humane" ways to kill those it did not want. Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin played both the "humane" and "equality" cards with his invention. Review the history of lethal injection as oppopsed to using the electric chair, hanging, or the firing squad.
The pendulum of criminal sentencing swings between incapacitation, with the death penalty at the far extreme of that line, and reform, with "restorative justive"
http://www.restorativejustice.org/ at the extreme on the other side. That pendulum will continue to swing back and forth as the monetary and social costs rise and fall, for incarceration is a cost that can neither be made popular nor eliminated (if you wish to do without pure anarchy).
My own opinion is that the death penalty ought to be swift, sure and certain. Carried out no later than sunrise the next day if sentencing occurs after dark. The standard should not be "beyond a reasonable doubt" but "with absolute certainty". You get convicted there is no alternative, no mercy, no commutation of sentence, no pardon. All that being said, the reason for the death penalty needs to be scaled waaaay back. Treason. Dessertion in the face of the enemy in time of declared war. Assination of the King -- oh, wait! We don't have a King. Nevermind.
Everybody gets three bites at reform. After that 3rd bite bite is permanent incapacitation. Absolute life. However, in oder to carry this out sucessfully I am going to bring back corporal punishment -- starting with public humiliation - the Scarlet Letter. Belling.
http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/67.html If that does not work we go to the stocks/pillory. No throwing of spoiled fruit/ vegetables at the miscreant. Just some serious time out and some discomfort added to the peer pressure, if you will.
If that does not work we go to flogging. Maximum of 30 stripes well laid on with a cat o' nine tails - water-soaked leather with straight unfeathered edges and tips. Right out of the Royal Navy manual. Third
What we have here is essentially parenting for those that missed it the first time around. Time out. Go stand in the corner. The single swat on the backside to get your attention. If that and hearing from everybody you meet that you should not do it again, then a spanking. If you still don't get it, then permanent time out. Grounded for life. Banished from the playground. Prison will not be a place where you lose all of civilization's privileges and amenities - it will just be a place where all the rules are enforced all the time. Disobey and you get sent to your room for the rest of the day. Otherwise you go to school (go learn something - anything. I prefer offering the liberal arts as opposed to small engine repair.), go to work - there are lots of things that need to be done to make the place run without allowing you near anything that could seriously hurt the place. Appropriate (notice I did not call it "good") behavior earns you privileges such as dessert after dinner, extra time for recreation, extra time for visits. Again, feel free to add what you believe should be there.
Seriously, does anybody have a better idea?
stay safe.
skidmark
1 Samenow & Yokelson,
The Criminal Personality, Vols I, II & III