[femiagbabiaka]

This is basically the raison d'etre of the American justice system today. Of course, I also think it would be nice if someone who committed hate crimes was justly punished for it, but stepping back from this specific example, I think the bloodlust around what constitutes a "just punishment" goes too far in most cases.

[progmetaldev]

The American justice system seems to be based upon profit, and keeping people reoffending in order to continue keeping the justice system in place. There is no incentive to reform as the system currently stands. It is a major failure of society that recidivism is an expected consequence of being "in the system."

[femiagbabiaka]

I used to think that it was biased towards profit, but after the last 5 or so years, I think that's just a side effect. American society believes strict and long punishment for wrongdoing is the solution to crime. We had a wave of progressive AD's elected into office and they barely lasted 3 years, they're all getting booted.

[petsfed]

The profit part of it really came down to "well, just punishing them is leaving money on the table!"

Now, it might be the case that the people profiting from the string and long punishments are so cynical and greedy that they started campaigning for longer, harsher sentences specifically for their own enrichment, but the people are buying it as purification and penance through pain. The prison industrial complex only works as a business because the people already want what's being sold to them.

[mrguyorama]

My stance says nothing about punishment. Punishment has nothing to do with lack of forgiveness. Forgiveness is also not a necessity to treat other people, including those who have harmed you, as inherently flawed humans that deserve basic things like dignity.

Forgiveness is a broken concept. Just because you can be a better person later in life should not absolve you of bad things you did before. This isn't a call for everyone to carry grudges, but a call that we should stop trying to play this dumb "just keep pretending everything is always and will always be 'okay' in some way" ideology. People sometimes do bad things because they are bad people or do not care about others, and it's okay to not forgive that. People sometimes do bad things through no real fault of their own and it's okay to still not forgive that.

[femiagbabiaka]

It's an interesting idea. Law, justice systems, were all created in order to adjudicate that level of animosity and prevent it passing on to future generations. Holding on to a grudge, not even out of a sense of justice, but purely out of hate, seems like a path towards poor mental health. But I'm lucky enough to not have any hate that strong -- those I've chosen not to forgive I've instead chosen to forget, which is a privilege relative to the level of wrongs done.