Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bsuvc 812 days ago
> as opposed to just punish and ruin people lives for their mistakes for the sake of making random commenters on internet feel good

That is a strawman.

Besides (potentially) rehabilitation, prison serves to protect the populace from dangerous people who would harm others and as a deterrent to others who can see what punishment they might get if they do something illegal.

I am not claiming prison does a good job of these things, just that its goal is not to "ruin people's lives".

1 comments

> Besides (potentially) rehabilitation, prison serves to protect the populace from dangerous people who would harm others and as a deterrent to others who can see what punishment they might get if they do something illegal.

It is not like he will be getting away with a slap on the wrist one way or another. I just don't see more years in prison past some reasonable threshold as a good deterrent.

> I am not claiming prison does a good job of these things, just that its goal is not to "ruin people's lives".

The purpose of a system is what it does.