[gjsman-1000]

> EDIT: Prison should still be about rehabilitation and treating humans humanely, to be clear.

No. Prison should be about punishment combined with rehabilitation, neither at the expense of the other.

It is perfectly OK to say that punishment, the infliction of pain, for a crime, is warranted even if it has no rehabilitative value, assuming that it is not demeaning or cruel.

Why? Several reasons:

1. Punishment has it's own value for the sake of justice. A hypothetical: Imagine there was a drug, with a 10% fatality rate, that perfectly rendered the receiver incapable of murder without any other side effects. They just perfectly gain control of their emotions and reason, or something to that effect. If a person goes and murders 50 individuals, but takes the drug and lives; they've been theoretically perfectly rehabilitated and need to be let back into society, right?

If you think, "of course not," you are now admitting that punishment has a value by itself.

EDIT: Also, this hypothetical, actually exists. Imagine this case with SBF. Imagine if the only penalty for his actions, were that he could not run a banking organization ever again, or hold more than $1,000,000 in any account that he controls. Perfectly rehabilitated, my hypothetical with the drug, in one swoop. He will never be able to commit this crime again.

I think I might very well run and do a financial fraud tomorrow. At least I'll enjoy the high life for several years. You are literally telling me, in that case, I could live for years, possibly decades (if I'm Madoff), and my only punishment will be that I can't do it again. After all, it's only about rehabilitation for myself; and to do otherwise would be punishment for punishment's sake.

2. If punishment is not given out fairly, and is only contingent upon rehabilitation; you are ignoring the rights and feelings of the victims and focusing too heavily on the rights and feelings of the criminal. Victims have feelings and rights, and considering they are the harmed, their feelings and rights ought to be first priority, and the criminal's second. Otherwise, victims feel the need to take things into their own hands. Always have, always will, as part of human nature. That's how you get societal meltdown, followed by vigilantism.

[jddj]

> If you think, "of course not"...

And if you think it sounds reasonable?

While there's some benefit (deterrence) to there being perceived costs to bad behaviour, it's arguable whether punishment for the sake of punishment stands up on its own merits.

In your proposed world, where murderousness is recognised as a treatable illness, it doesn't really seem reasonable to punish to punish or to imprison as a deterrent.

[gjsman-1000]

I'll kill your daughter, scatter her remains on the road, take the drug, and see if you think otherwise.

Think about it. Under this hypothetical (which I think is OK, everybody does Trolly Problems all the time), you should be just fine with this result. The deterrence value is there (10% chance of death), I've been rehabilitated permanently so I can be let out a week after I did the murder, it's all good. I might as well add some torture to the mix as well, because the drug will perfectly rehabilitate that too, of course, so it doesn't really matter how I did it either.

[nkozyra]

> you should be just fine with this result.

Some people are. Some people who have been victimized do forgive and ask for leniency.

There is an emotional and personal aspect to that, but typically we don't set laws that way.

I'd also argue that "it's all good" is not a fair measure for when we consider justice to be served. Practically, when there's nothing left to gain, the scale tips from justice to pure retribution.

[gjsman-1000]

> Some people are. Some people who have been victimized do forgive and ask for leniency.

I think you're confusing forgiveness with punishment. The two are not incompatible.

If your son hits your daughter, you forgive him immediately (you do not hold hatred or anger in your heart for that action); but you still punish him to deter the future behavior. The two are not incompatible, or at odds with one another. Similarly, it is not incompatible that a man who committed mass murder might be forgiven by the families (in that they won't hold hate in their hearts, or use his name as a curse), but the families may also simultaneously desire that the individual be removed from society.

> Practically, when there's nothing left to gain, the scale tips from justice to pure retribution.

Retribution is part of justice, and is not at odds with it. If I steal $500, I owe $500 as part of justice. If I steal $1,000; I owe $1,000 as part of justice. If I steal $10 billion dollars, a sum I shall never repay, I can only beg forgiveness and pay the most I reasonably can, for a reasonable amount of my life. For justice, at that point, recognizes that a society which allowed me to steal $10 billion in the first place, has some responsibility as well, reducing the required amount for retribution.

[nkozyra]

> I think you're confusing forgiveness with punishment. The two are not incompatible.

Not at all. You said "you should be fine with it," which is really "acceptance" rather than forgiveness, although they go hand in hand.

My point was simply that being fine with it or not being fine with it as an personal, emotional response typically does not guide modern societal rules.

> Retribution is part of justice, and is not at odds with it.

Inherently this is probably true, but we actually have laws that are intended to specifically exclude that as a factor, depending on jurisdiction.

[jddj]

In this case, the deterrent makes sense.

The punishment so that the universe feels more fair to me isn't all that useful. Maybe as you suggest the mob lynchings in this case are unavoidable but I'm not convinced.

Happily (both for those who want to subjectively See Justice Done, and for those who upon reflection find it all a little perverse), the two don't really seem to be separable beyond a certain point.

[gjsman-1000]

It might work for you, but are you telling me that if you were the murderer in question, you wouldn't be afraid that the family wouldn't assassinate you at first opportunity if this happened to their daughter?

A heavy sentence is safety for the criminal as well.

[jddj]

That seems completely orthogonal to the point I disagreed with, which was (loosely, sorry) that punishment purely for punishment's sake is a social good.