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On September 06 2024 16:41 Jockmcplop wrote: You're all asking the wrong question tbh.
The right question isn't whether punishment is effective, its whether it is as effective as alternatives like rehabilitation, education and skills training.
Asking the 2nd question to people that won't even agree on the 1st question is moot for obvious reasons
On September 06 2024 16:41 Jockmcplop wrote: You're all asking the wrong question tbh.
The right question isn't whether punishment is effective, its whether it is as effective as alternatives like rehabilitation, education and skills training.
Asking the 2nd question to people that won't even agree on the 1st question is moot for obvious reasons
Anyone arguing whether punishment is effective in isolation will struggle to prove that it isn't.
Of course its effective to some extent.
If 1000 people are going to do something, you tell them they'd be punished, then 999 go ahead and do it then punishment is effective in stopping some people doing that thing.
Without comparing it to alternatives you leave yourself needing to prove that it is 100% ineffective, or arguing about what parameters you assign to the word effective. That conversation is just boring.
Comparing it to alternatives allows everyone to see what 'effective' can be, and which solutions work best.
Looking at it in isolation only causes people to have no reasonable perspective with which to judge it.
On September 06 2024 16:41 Jockmcplop wrote: You're all asking the wrong question tbh.
The right question isn't whether punishment is effective, its whether it is as effective as alternatives like rehabilitation, education and skills training.
This is exactly right. Obviously in isolation punishment is more effective than nothing at all at preventing whatever behavior; and likewise excessive punishment ramped up to 1000x is going to appear even more effective thus leading to the invalid conclusion that all bad behaviors can be curbed simply by being more cruel. But none of that translates to the real world at all, where different people have different reasons for committing crime, recidivism exists, individual punishments impact multiple people, etc etc.
Going back to monkeys in a cage, if the behavior you want to prevent is that of monkey eating a provided banana, assuming the monkey is content and well fed prior to the experiment, you'll have no trouble stopping the monkey from eating with some cold water spraying. But as the monkey gets more and more hungry, you'll need to ramp up the punishment and at some point no amount of cold water will stop the starving monkey from taking the banana, anyway. So the question shouldn't be, how can we punish the monkey better but rather why isn't the monkey getting fed.
I don't think there's necessarily a dichotomy, here. I think rehabilitation, education and skills training should all be part of punishment. It doesn't mean the punishment-element of the penal system is entirely gone.
Like, a mandatory educational program that you need to attend for 4 hours every week for 6 weeks is still punishment, even if it also has education and rehabilitation as a focus. I don't believe in caning people at all, but depriving people of their freedom, even if you're doing so purely to hinder them from doing future crime and to create a situation where they can be forcefully educated and not at all to inflict pain upon them, that's still punishment.
I also think different crimes need different solutions. Speeding can largely be deterred through monitoring and punishing. I don't think rehabilitation or education are really the issues here. Meanwhile a drug addict who does petty crime to fund a drug addiction, in that case I don't see any value in punishing the person (his/her life already sucks, and the threat of a fine or jail time, or even caning, wouldn't be a deterrence). You can jail indefinitely or murder the person, I guess, but that ends up being excessively cruel. So in that case, some type of forced removal from regular habitat coupled with rehabilitation efforts, programs to help the person overcome his/her addiction, skills training to maintain some type of job, some communal housing seems like the only real option. But this is still, to some degree, a punishment, and the drug addict will initially experience it as a negative sanction too, even if the intentions are wholly positive.
On September 06 2024 17:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think there's necessarily a dichotomy, here. I think rehabilitation, education and skills training should all be part of punishment. It doesn't mean the punishment-element of the penal system is entirely gone.
Like, a mandatory educational program that you need to attend for 4 hours every week for 6 weeks is still punishment, even if it also has education and rehabilitation as a focus. I don't believe in caning people at all, but depriving people of their freedom, even if you're doing so purely to hinder them from doing future crime and to create a situation where they can be forcefully educated and not at all to inflict pain upon them, that's still punishment.
I also think different crimes need different solutions. Speeding can largely be deterred through monitoring and punishing. I don't think rehabilitation or education are really the issues here. Meanwhile a drug addict who does petty crime to fund a drug addiction, in that case I don't see any value in punishing the person (his/her life already sucks, and the threat of a fine or jail time, or even caning, wouldn't be a deterrence). You can jail indefinitely or murder the person, I guess, but that ends up being excessively cruel. So in that case, some type of forced removal from regular habitat coupled with rehabilitation efforts, programs to help the person overcome his/her addiction, skills training to maintain some type of job, some communal housing seems like the only real option. But this is still, to some degree, a punishment, and the drug addict will initially experience it as a negative sanction too, even if the intentions are wholly positive.
Absolutely. The idea is that all of these play a part in delivering justice, and trying to get people out of the cycle of crime/punishment/more crime. Everyone's on a mission to find a good cocktail of punishment, training, education and rehab. The idea is that by comparing, people can learn the important lesson that none of these things works without the others. If you don't punish, there will always be a pretty high percentage of criminals who will see that as exploitable and commit more crime as a result. If you don't train, rehabilitate or teach criminals many will have little choice (obviously *some* choice) but to go back to a life of crime after jail. At least its the path of least resistance. From what I remember (I did some university essays on this) the more you focus on training and rehab WITHOUT diminishing the punishment aspect the better results you get.
On September 06 2024 16:41 Jockmcplop wrote: You're all asking the wrong question tbh.
The right question isn't whether punishment is effective, its whether it is as effective as alternatives like rehabilitation, education and skills training.
Asking the 2nd question to people that won't even agree on the 1st question is moot for obvious reasons
Anyone arguing whether punishment is effective in isolation will struggle to prove that it isn't.
Of course its effective to some extent.
If 1000 people are going to do something, you tell them they'd be punished, then 999 go ahead and do it then punishment is effective in stopping some people doing that thing.
Without comparing it to alternatives you leave yourself needing to prove that it is 100% ineffective, or arguing about what parameters you assign to the word effective. That conversation is just boring.
Comparing it to alternatives allows everyone to see what 'effective' can be, and which solutions work best.
Looking at it in isolation only causes people to have no reasonable perspective with which to judge it.
Really you think it’s boring? You don’t find it a little bit interesting that people will reject some very obvious behavioral science for whatever reason? Decades of research that animals will change their behavior to avoid negative stimuli but someone just declares it’s bullshit by making up examples that just as many people drank during prohibition or consume western media in North Korea without even providing data to support that?
I think that’s kind of interesting. I think there’s no limit to what people will believe if they get to present themselves as virtuous and empathetic and criticize those who disagree as cruel and bigoted. Punishments don’t work? Sure. If you disagree you’re sadistic. Men can have babies? Why not. If you disagree you’re a transphobe. Being super morbidly obese can be healthy? Of course it can. If you disagree you’re fatphobic. No ask is too big.
On September 06 2024 16:41 Jockmcplop wrote: You're all asking the wrong question tbh.
The right question isn't whether punishment is effective, its whether it is as effective as alternatives like rehabilitation, education and skills training.
Asking the 2nd question to people that won't even agree on the 1st question is moot for obvious reasons
Anyone arguing whether punishment is effective in isolation will struggle to prove that it isn't.
Of course its effective to some extent.
If 1000 people are going to do something, you tell them they'd be punished, then 999 go ahead and do it then punishment is effective in stopping some people doing that thing.
Without comparing it to alternatives you leave yourself needing to prove that it is 100% ineffective, or arguing about what parameters you assign to the word effective. That conversation is just boring.
Comparing it to alternatives allows everyone to see what 'effective' can be, and which solutions work best.
Looking at it in isolation only causes people to have no reasonable perspective with which to judge it.
Really you think it’s boring? You don’t find it a little bit interesting that people will reject some very obvious behavioral science for whatever reason? Decades of research that animals will change their behavior to avoid negative stimuli but someone just declares it’s bullshit by making up examples that just as many people drank during prohibition or consume western media in North Korea without even providing data to support that?
I think that’s kind of interesting. I think there’s no limit to what people will believe if they get to present themselves as virtuous and empathetic and criticize those who disagree as cruel and bigoted. Punishments don’t work? Sure. If you disagree you’re sadistic. Men can have babies? Why not. If you disagree you’re a transphobe. Being super morbidly obese can be healthy? Of course it can. If you disagree you’re fatphobic. No ask is too big.
Nah I'm way more interested in the actual mechanics of justice and how to make it as effective as possible.
You can find a conversation about other people's opinions and why they make those people unreasonable literally anywhere on the internet.
On September 06 2024 17:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think there's necessarily a dichotomy, here. I think rehabilitation, education and skills training should all be part of punishment. It doesn't mean the punishment-element of the penal system is entirely gone.
Like, a mandatory educational program that you need to attend for 4 hours every week for 6 weeks is still punishment, even if it also has education and rehabilitation as a focus. I don't believe in caning people at all, but depriving people of their freedom, even if you're doing so purely to hinder them from doing future crime and to create a situation where they can be forcefully educated and not at all to inflict pain upon them, that's still punishment.
I also think different crimes need different solutions. Speeding can largely be deterred through monitoring and punishing. I don't think rehabilitation or education are really the issues here. Meanwhile a drug addict who does petty crime to fund a drug addiction, in that case I don't see any value in punishing the person (his/her life already sucks, and the threat of a fine or jail time, or even caning, wouldn't be a deterrence). You can jail indefinitely or murder the person, I guess, but that ends up being excessively cruel. So in that case, some type of forced removal from regular habitat coupled with rehabilitation efforts, programs to help the person overcome his/her addiction, skills training to maintain some type of job, some communal housing seems like the only real option. But this is still, to some degree, a punishment, and the drug addict will initially experience it as a negative sanction too, even if the intentions are wholly positive.
The goal of a mandatory educational program (such as school) is to raise a functional member of society, or in the case of criminals we call it rehabilitation. That goal is not included in any of the definitions of punishment. Punishment has no interest in education or rehabilitation unless that purpose is explicitly included in the type of punishment. That means mandatory educational programs cannot be called punishment (although they can be designed to be punishing, but then they'd be losing their purpose, because punishment is explicitly not the goal of education).
Punishment is retaliation. It doesn't exist for any productive sake, it's purely retaliatory.
On September 06 2024 16:41 Jockmcplop wrote: You're all asking the wrong question tbh.
The right question isn't whether punishment is effective, its whether it is as effective as alternatives like rehabilitation, education and skills training.
Asking the 2nd question to people that won't even agree on the 1st question is moot for obvious reasons
Anyone arguing whether punishment is effective in isolation will struggle to prove that it isn't.
Of course its effective to some extent.
If 1000 people are going to do something, you tell them they'd be punished, then 999 go ahead and do it then punishment is effective in stopping some people doing that thing.
Without comparing it to alternatives you leave yourself needing to prove that it is 100% ineffective, or arguing about what parameters you assign to the word effective. That conversation is just boring.
Comparing it to alternatives allows everyone to see what 'effective' can be, and which solutions work best.
Looking at it in isolation only causes people to have no reasonable perspective with which to judge it.
Really you think it’s boring? You don’t find it a little bit interesting that people will reject some very obvious behavioral science for whatever reason? Decades of research that animals will change their behavior to avoid negative stimuli but someone just declares it’s bullshit by making up examples that just as many people drank during prohibition or consume western media in North Korea without even providing data to support that?
I think that’s kind of interesting. I think there’s no limit to what people will believe if they get to present themselves as virtuous and empathetic and criticize those who disagree as cruel and bigoted. Punishments don’t work? Sure. If you disagree you’re sadistic. Men can have babies? Why not. If you disagree you’re a transphobe. Being super morbidly obese can be healthy? Of course it can. If you disagree you’re fatphobic. No ask is too big.
Nobody in this thread rejects the idea that animals change their behavior to avoid negative stimuli. Myself and some others reject the notion that talking about monkeys in cages adds anything useful to the discussion of crime prevention in adult humans. Nobody 'made up' examples about prohibition, either -- I pointed out that prohibition laws were largely inefficient, as in they did not achieve the stated goals or any significant societal changes; if you disagreed with that statement and were interested in a genuine discussion on that, you could talk about how overall consumption of alcohol during prohibition did decline and we could debate whether that was a meaningful enough change or not, but you'd rather go off with bullshit exaggeration and hyperboles rather than actually having a conversation so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess.
On September 06 2024 17:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think there's necessarily a dichotomy, here. I think rehabilitation, education and skills training should all be part of punishment. It doesn't mean the punishment-element of the penal system is entirely gone.
Like, a mandatory educational program that you need to attend for 4 hours every week for 6 weeks is still punishment, even if it also has education and rehabilitation as a focus. I don't believe in caning people at all, but depriving people of their freedom, even if you're doing so purely to hinder them from doing future crime and to create a situation where they can be forcefully educated and not at all to inflict pain upon them, that's still punishment.
I also think different crimes need different solutions. Speeding can largely be deterred through monitoring and punishing. I don't think rehabilitation or education are really the issues here. Meanwhile a drug addict who does petty crime to fund a drug addiction, in that case I don't see any value in punishing the person (his/her life already sucks, and the threat of a fine or jail time, or even caning, wouldn't be a deterrence). You can jail indefinitely or murder the person, I guess, but that ends up being excessively cruel. So in that case, some type of forced removal from regular habitat coupled with rehabilitation efforts, programs to help the person overcome his/her addiction, skills training to maintain some type of job, some communal housing seems like the only real option. But this is still, to some degree, a punishment, and the drug addict will initially experience it as a negative sanction too, even if the intentions are wholly positive.
The goal of a mandatory educational program (such as school) is to raise a functional member of society, or in the case of criminals we call it rehabilitation. That goal is not included in any of the definitions of punishment. Punishment has no interest in education or rehabilitation unless that purpose is explicitly included in the type of punishment. That means mandatory educational programs cannot be called punishment (although they can be designed to be punishing, but then they'd be losing their purpose, because punishment is explicitly not the goal of education).
Punishment is retaliation. It doesn't exist for any productive sake, it's purely retaliatory.
I can't agree with this. Retaliation is not purely unproductive, neither is punishment. Rape victims probably feel much better knowing their attacker has been punished for what they did. Families of murder victims the same. It also acts as a deterrent in many cases. If people think they can do the thing without being punished, they are more likely to do the thing.
Notice how none of this has anything to do with rehabbing or teaching anyone anything, and yet it is still good. Obviously the best approach catches all of this stuff. You need to rehabilitate and educate, its a massive priority. However, if you don't effectively punish, like i said previously, there's a massive percentage of criminals who will see that as green light to behave however they want. These are not guys who want to be educated or rehabilitated. They want to be criminals, and the only thing that will stop them is a severe enough punishment that it makes it not worth it for them.
On September 06 2024 17:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think there's necessarily a dichotomy, here. I think rehabilitation, education and skills training should all be part of punishment. It doesn't mean the punishment-element of the penal system is entirely gone.
Like, a mandatory educational program that you need to attend for 4 hours every week for 6 weeks is still punishment, even if it also has education and rehabilitation as a focus. I don't believe in caning people at all, but depriving people of their freedom, even if you're doing so purely to hinder them from doing future crime and to create a situation where they can be forcefully educated and not at all to inflict pain upon them, that's still punishment.
I also think different crimes need different solutions. Speeding can largely be deterred through monitoring and punishing. I don't think rehabilitation or education are really the issues here. Meanwhile a drug addict who does petty crime to fund a drug addiction, in that case I don't see any value in punishing the person (his/her life already sucks, and the threat of a fine or jail time, or even caning, wouldn't be a deterrence). You can jail indefinitely or murder the person, I guess, but that ends up being excessively cruel. So in that case, some type of forced removal from regular habitat coupled with rehabilitation efforts, programs to help the person overcome his/her addiction, skills training to maintain some type of job, some communal housing seems like the only real option. But this is still, to some degree, a punishment, and the drug addict will initially experience it as a negative sanction too, even if the intentions are wholly positive.
The goal of a mandatory educational program (such as school) is to raise a functional member of society, or in the case of criminals we call it rehabilitation. That goal is not included in any of the definitions of punishment. Punishment has no interest in education or rehabilitation unless that purpose is explicitly included in the type of punishment. That means mandatory educational programs cannot be called punishment (although they can be designed to be punishing, but then they'd be losing their purpose, because punishment is explicitly not the goal of education).
Punishment is retaliation. It doesn't exist for any productive sake, it's purely retaliatory.
I can't agree with this. Retaliation is not purely unproductive, neither is punishment. Rape victims probably feel much better knowing their attacker has been punished for what they did. Families of murder victims the same. It also acts as a deterrent in many cases. If people think they can do the thing without being punished, they are more likely to do the thing.
Notice how none of this has anything to do with rehabbing or teaching anyone anything, and yet it is still good. Obviously the best approach catches all of this stuff. You need to rehabilitate and educate, its a massive priority. However, if you don't effectively punish, like i said previously, there's a massive percentage of criminals who will see that as green light to behave however they want. These are not guys who want to be educated or rehabilitated. They want to be criminals, and the only thing that will stop them is a severe enough punishment that it makes it not worth it for them.
I didn't say punishment cannot have a productive outcome, I said the purpose of punishment is not aimed at anything productive. It exists for retaliation and nothing else. Retaliation is not aimed at the idea of a productive outcome, it's an expression of being wronged and causing harm in return.
On September 06 2024 17:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think there's necessarily a dichotomy, here. I think rehabilitation, education and skills training should all be part of punishment. It doesn't mean the punishment-element of the penal system is entirely gone.
Like, a mandatory educational program that you need to attend for 4 hours every week for 6 weeks is still punishment, even if it also has education and rehabilitation as a focus. I don't believe in caning people at all, but depriving people of their freedom, even if you're doing so purely to hinder them from doing future crime and to create a situation where they can be forcefully educated and not at all to inflict pain upon them, that's still punishment.
I also think different crimes need different solutions. Speeding can largely be deterred through monitoring and punishing. I don't think rehabilitation or education are really the issues here. Meanwhile a drug addict who does petty crime to fund a drug addiction, in that case I don't see any value in punishing the person (his/her life already sucks, and the threat of a fine or jail time, or even caning, wouldn't be a deterrence). You can jail indefinitely or murder the person, I guess, but that ends up being excessively cruel. So in that case, some type of forced removal from regular habitat coupled with rehabilitation efforts, programs to help the person overcome his/her addiction, skills training to maintain some type of job, some communal housing seems like the only real option. But this is still, to some degree, a punishment, and the drug addict will initially experience it as a negative sanction too, even if the intentions are wholly positive.
The goal of a mandatory educational program (such as school) is to raise a functional member of society, or in the case of criminals we call it rehabilitation. That goal is not included in any of the definitions of punishment. Punishment has no interest in education or rehabilitation unless that purpose is explicitly included in the type of punishment. That means mandatory educational programs cannot be called punishment (although they can be designed to be punishing, but then they'd be losing their purpose, because punishment is explicitly not the goal of education).
Punishment is retaliation. It doesn't exist for any productive sake, it's purely retaliatory.
I can't agree with this. Retaliation is not purely unproductive, neither is punishment. Rape victims probably feel much better knowing their attacker has been punished for what they did. Families of murder victims the same. It also acts as a deterrent in many cases. If people think they can do the thing without being punished, they are more likely to do the thing.
Notice how none of this has anything to do with rehabbing or teaching anyone anything, and yet it is still good. Obviously the best approach catches all of this stuff. You need to rehabilitate and educate, its a massive priority. However, if you don't effectively punish, like i said previously, there's a massive percentage of criminals who will see that as green light to behave however they want. These are not guys who want to be educated or rehabilitated. They want to be criminals, and the only thing that will stop them is a severe enough punishment that it makes it not worth it for them.
I didn't say punishment cannot have a productive outcome, I said the purpose of punishment is not aimed at anything productive. It exists for retaliation and nothing else. Retaliation is not aimed at the idea of a productive outcome, it's an expression of being wronged and causing harm in return.
Putting people in jail prevents them from committing crimes and makes society safer. So punishment is not only retaliation in that case.
It's absolutely aimed at something productive - to deter someone from doing something that is considered harmful in some shape or form.
Now you can argue that some forms of punishment miss this mark and are only a testament to some negative desire for retribution and I'm totally on board with that, which is why figuring out what punishment is 'excessive' (meaning you could've had roughly the same deterrent from a lesser punishment, and I certainly believe you generally want to punish as little as possible because punishment is inherently negative) important, but there should be no question that some forms of punishment have some role as a deterrent.
On September 06 2024 17:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think there's necessarily a dichotomy, here. I think rehabilitation, education and skills training should all be part of punishment. It doesn't mean the punishment-element of the penal system is entirely gone.
Like, a mandatory educational program that you need to attend for 4 hours every week for 6 weeks is still punishment, even if it also has education and rehabilitation as a focus. I don't believe in caning people at all, but depriving people of their freedom, even if you're doing so purely to hinder them from doing future crime and to create a situation where they can be forcefully educated and not at all to inflict pain upon them, that's still punishment.
I also think different crimes need different solutions. Speeding can largely be deterred through monitoring and punishing. I don't think rehabilitation or education are really the issues here. Meanwhile a drug addict who does petty crime to fund a drug addiction, in that case I don't see any value in punishing the person (his/her life already sucks, and the threat of a fine or jail time, or even caning, wouldn't be a deterrence). You can jail indefinitely or murder the person, I guess, but that ends up being excessively cruel. So in that case, some type of forced removal from regular habitat coupled with rehabilitation efforts, programs to help the person overcome his/her addiction, skills training to maintain some type of job, some communal housing seems like the only real option. But this is still, to some degree, a punishment, and the drug addict will initially experience it as a negative sanction too, even if the intentions are wholly positive.
The goal of a mandatory educational program (such as school) is to raise a functional member of society, or in the case of criminals we call it rehabilitation. That goal is not included in any of the definitions of punishment. Punishment has no interest in education or rehabilitation unless that purpose is explicitly included in the type of punishment. That means mandatory educational programs cannot be called punishment (although they can be designed to be punishing, but then they'd be losing their purpose, because punishment is explicitly not the goal of education).
Punishment is retaliation. It doesn't exist for any productive sake, it's purely retaliatory.
I can't agree with this. Retaliation is not purely unproductive, neither is punishment. Rape victims probably feel much better knowing their attacker has been punished for what they did. Families of murder victims the same. It also acts as a deterrent in many cases. If people think they can do the thing without being punished, they are more likely to do the thing.
Notice how none of this has anything to do with rehabbing or teaching anyone anything, and yet it is still good. Obviously the best approach catches all of this stuff. You need to rehabilitate and educate, its a massive priority. However, if you don't effectively punish, like i said previously, there's a massive percentage of criminals who will see that as green light to behave however they want. These are not guys who want to be educated or rehabilitated. They want to be criminals, and the only thing that will stop them is a severe enough punishment that it makes it not worth it for them.
This post is beginning to touch on the issue. The confusion in this discussion stems from the fact that there are multiple functions of punishment as applied by the legal system today, functions that are often not compatible with each other; punishment as rehabilitation, punishment as retribution, and punishment as deterrence. Because historically legal systems attempt to fulfill each of these functions through a one-size-fits-all approach, we all mistakenly conflate these different functions under the umbrella term “punishment”, and get lost in the weeds.
Yes Magic is right, punishment meant to be effective in delivering retribution or deterrence will not be effective in delivering rehabilitation or meaningful behavioral change. BJ is also right, punishment meant to be effective in delivering deterrence is made more effective by increasing the aversiveness of the consequence. This is a classic false dichotomy, created from differing prioritizations of the functions of punishment.
It’s also clear that all three of these functions need to be addressed in some way, and not choose one over the others…
- If the function of punishment in the legal system was exclusively rehabilitation, then there should be no jail time lasting longer than a week; repeated opportunities to choose between the problem behavior and the alternative replacement behavior, along with consistently ensuring the replacement behavior is followed by a reinforcing stimulus and the problem behavior is followed by a punishing stimulus, is the most effective method of rehabilitation (source: I’m a board certified behavior analyst and do this for a living, also B.F. Skinner). This falls apart when you apply it to severe crimes like murder; you don’t want to provide repeated opportunities at murder to teach the murderer that it’s not worth it, because it puts others at risk. There’s a lot more that goes into this, like identifying the function of the behavior for the individual and ensuring the replacement behavior you’re trying to teach is actually the most effective way for the individual to fulfill said function, but that would take too long to flesh out right now.
- For punishment exclusively as retribution, we’ve fortunately come a long way as a society where it’s almost obvious why this is not a good idea, despite for the vast majority of human history this not being the case. We’re now at a point where it might even be argued that retribution is immoral, which is interesting.
- For punishment exclusively as deterrence, i.e. no amount of any crime can be tolerated by anyone under any circumstance, the most effective method is delivering the most aversive consequence possible every single time it happens, paired with ensuring everyone in the population is made aware of said consequence. Think flyers posted all around town saying you and your loved ones will be executed if you engage in speeding or jaywalking. This approach falls apart when you think about it for more than 2 seconds, for obvious reasons.
So now what? You can’t pick one over the other, but you can’t really do all 3 at once. My solution; drop the retributive aspect completely (or make it monetary, like a fine), designate crimes as either “normal” crimes or “zero tolerance” crimes (like misdemeanors/felonies and capital crimes), and depending on the classification the function of the punishment changes. Overall, pretty similar to what exists already.
IMO, the interesting questions to ask would be…
- What crimes should fall under rehabilitation vs which ones should fall under deterrence? - How can society better ensure alternative replacement (legal) behaviors fulfill the functions of people than problem (illegal) behaviors? And how can we best ensure they are taught to as many people as possible? - What is an alternative to retribution that can fulfill the same function for those who have been wronged in a crime, while still facilitating rehabilitation for the criminal?
I'm going by generally accepted definitions. The more common definitions of punishment allude to retaliation (or retribution). There's no mention of behavioral correction in the definition of the word. There is only an explanation of how certain appropriations of punishment can be utilized secondarily towards correction.
Look up Britannica, it's generally one of the best sources for definitions.
Britannica refers to "social objectives" as secondary. It is neither required nor intended. There's nothing inherent about punishment that aims for behavioral correction. An attempt CAN be made to utililize punishment to accomplish correction of behavior. Punishment is not explicitly a tool for correction, it CAN be used as a tool for correction if one intends it so, but the intent is not inherent in the tool. It's effectively like using a spoon to cut bread - of course it can be attempted and perhaps accomplished, but it's not intended for this purpose and it may be entirely suboptimal compared to the alternative of a bread knife.
On September 06 2024 22:51 Magic Powers wrote: I'm going by generally accepted definitions. The more common definitions of punishment allude to retaliation (or retribution). There's no mention of behavioral correction in the definition of the word. There is only an explanation of how certain appropriations of punishment can be utilized secondarily towards correction.
Look up Britannica, it's generally one of the best sources for definitions.
Britannica refers to "social objectives" as secondary. It is neither required nor intended. There's nothing inherent about punishment that aims for behavioral correction. An attempt CAN be made to utililize punishment to accomplish correction of behavior. Punishment is not explicitly a tool for correction, it CAN be used as a tool for correction if one intends it so, but the intent is not inherent in the tool. It's effectively like using a spoon to cut bread - of course it can be attempted and perhaps accomplished, but it's not intended for this purpose and it may be entirely suboptimal compared to the alternative of a bread knife.
You are referring to an overly narrow definition of punishment in order to "be right", despite BJ very obviously using punishment to mean "negative reinforcement", which is a very common use of the word punishment and if it isn't in the Britannica, that's their problem, not BJ's.
In other words, you are trying to win the conversation rather than contributing constructively. I wouldn't mind some retributive punishment that also serves the purpose of keeping you out of the thread for a while
On September 06 2024 22:51 Magic Powers wrote: I'm going by generally accepted definitions. The more common definitions of punishment allude to retaliation (or retribution). There's no mention of behavioral correction in the definition of the word. There is only an explanation of how certain appropriations of punishment can be utilized secondarily towards correction.
Look up Britannica, it's generally one of the best sources for definitions.
Britannica refers to "social objectives" as secondary. It is neither required nor intended. There's nothing inherent about punishment that aims for behavioral correction. An attempt CAN be made to utililize punishment to accomplish correction of behavior. Punishment is not explicitly a tool for correction, it CAN be used as a tool for correction if one intends it so, but the intent is not inherent in the tool. It's effectively like using a spoon to cut bread - of course it can be attempted and perhaps accomplished, but it's not intended for this purpose and it may be entirely suboptimal compared to the alternative of a bread knife.
That’s fine, but if you’re interested in discussing rehabilitation and behavior change, you’ll want to use the definitions of the word as it’s being used by behaviorists.
What you’re doing is the equivalent of discounting string theory in a discussion about physics because when you look up the word string in the dictionary it doesn’t mention anything about physics.
Also, I scrolled down in your link and there’s a whole section on rehabilitation, including the sentence “…purpose of punishment is to apply treatment and training to the offender…”. Yeah it doesn’t explicitly say the word behavior in there, but what other kind of “treatment” could they be referring to?
EDIT - @Acro above, not to be nitpicky but technically BJ is referring to negative punishment; the removal of a stimulus (life outside of prison) that willl make it less likely the behavior occurs in the future. You can check the link for more info
Having just read the first 20% of that Britannica article, i can only conclude that you either did not read it yourself, or you did not understand it, if you are claiming that it does not explicitly state that deterrence is part of the goal.
During most of the 19th and 20th centuries, individuals who broke the law were viewed as the product of social conditions, and accordingly punishment was considered justified only insofar as (1) it protected society by acting as a deterrent or by temporarily or permanently removing one who has injured it
EPT
