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by rectang 294 days ago
Rape is not the only crime people get sent to jail for, and at least some fraction of the US population is capable of seeing the imprisoned as human beings.

I agree nevertheless that inflicting maximum misery and pain on prisoners is popular with a substantial segment of the US electorate, and thus there are negative incentives discouraging even simple fixes like the technology changes wished for in this article.
1 comments
cmeacham98 294 days ago
Rape is just a useful litmus test, because it triggers the "prisoners are irredeemable and deserve to be treated less than human" emotions in most people who don't support rehabilitative justice.

It's easy to say someone who stole a loaf of bread should be rehabilitated, but when asked about a one-off rapist people will show their true beliefs.

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rectang 294 days ago
It’s a bad litmus test because people are at least capable of making distinctions between classes of crimes and the extent to which rehabilitation is practical. Many might support rehabilitation for e.g. petty thieves (or murderers, since recidivism for homicide is low!) but not rapists.

It’s like conducting a “push poll” using such an emotionally freighted and skewed framing — you’re obviously looking for the answer “nobody supports rehabilitative justice” by emphasizing “BUT WHAT ABOUT RAPISTS”.

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cmeacham98 294 days ago
> Many might support rehabilitation for e.g. petty thieves (or murderers, since recidivism for homicide is low!) but not rapists.

This would be an example of not supporting rehabilitative justice, as there's no reason to believe this other than emotional reasoning. As a matter of fact, the evidence suggests the contrary - recitivism rates are _lower_ for rape and sexual assault than most other types of crime, including theft: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorsp9yfu0514.pdf

> you’re obviously looking for the answer “nobody supports rehabilitative justice”

I never said nobody or anything close to it, that's a straw man you've made up in your head. Obviously, some people truly do support rehabilitative justice, but I believe they are in the minority.

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awesome_dude 294 days ago
It's not really - the people that believe that the individual was innocent beforehand will always say that he (it's always a he..) can be trusted.

Nothing to do with the rehabilitative prison time.

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