Criminal Justice Philosophy
Rapier7
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
in Discussions
Okay, so I was assigned Frankenstein for my lit class and there was a very attention grabbing bit (as it seemed to me) concerning crime:
The judges (this took place during the late 1700s) would rather let 10 innocents suffer than let one criminal get away.
Of course, in these days, the politcally correct statement is the reverse. Let 10 criminals get away to avoid convicting one innocent person. But is that actually smart? The proportion of hardened criminals to innocent civilians is far less than 1 to 10. From a purely logical point, it doesn't make sense to let 10 criminals go to save 1 innocent person.
So...why is it more important, in rhetoric, to let 10 criminals go to save 1 innocent? And in reality, why do we have to have such a complex legal system that offers an almost endless series of appeals that can absolve a person based on a mistrial, and not on the crime itself? Don't like your ruling? Appeal it! You can literally do this all the way to a Federal District court and if there's at least one considerate judge, then you can make it up to the Circuit courts (right below the Supreme Court) until they finally deny you. The process takes years and consumes so much money that it's incredible that with such an advanced forensics program that we allow it to continue to this point. Because appeals don't absolve on the basis of the crime itself, it happens on an mistrial.
Do we still need such a complex and winding system? Is it really protecting the innocent now rather than just the rich, determined, and famous?
The judges (this took place during the late 1700s) would rather let 10 innocents suffer than let one criminal get away.
Of course, in these days, the politcally correct statement is the reverse. Let 10 criminals get away to avoid convicting one innocent person. But is that actually smart? The proportion of hardened criminals to innocent civilians is far less than 1 to 10. From a purely logical point, it doesn't make sense to let 10 criminals go to save 1 innocent person.
So...why is it more important, in rhetoric, to let 10 criminals go to save 1 innocent? And in reality, why do we have to have such a complex legal system that offers an almost endless series of appeals that can absolve a person based on a mistrial, and not on the crime itself? Don't like your ruling? Appeal it! You can literally do this all the way to a Federal District court and if there's at least one considerate judge, then you can make it up to the Circuit courts (right below the Supreme Court) until they finally deny you. The process takes years and consumes so much money that it's incredible that with such an advanced forensics program that we allow it to continue to this point. Because appeals don't absolve on the basis of the crime itself, it happens on an mistrial.
Do we still need such a complex and winding system? Is it really protecting the innocent now rather than just the rich, determined, and famous?
Comments
And as advanced as our forensic technology is, don't believe what a triumvirate of CSIs would have you believe. There are far more things involved in convicting someone than finding a bottle of bleach in their trash can and potential bleach stains on a pair of the suspect's jeans (also, last I saw, people don't usually breakdown and confess to crimes after that last straw of evidence is laid before them). You get weird political entanglements; I know in Wisconsin there was the Steve Avery murder trial, where one of the forensic analysts had previous connections with the defendant, potentially skewing test results due to the lab's human error.
I think in this specific case, you had a lot of predetermination thinking (the whole 'your fate was decided at birth' thing) and they just didn't have as much interest in saving lives because if you got punished then God must think there's some reason to punish you. Frankenstein was written in the early 1800s, so I'm not entirely sure how applicable that may be in the approaching 'age of reaason'.
I will say that our appeals system is far to bloated with bureaucratic nonsense, but at least your criminals will sit in prison during the process of wasting money. But also imagine what our penal system would look like with 10 times as many inmates (or even twice as many)...and we still convict a few innocents.
So:
1. More respect for the individual's actions and freedoms.
2. Evidence isn't always cut and dry, and criminal law fluctuates often.
3. We like to keep superfluous and often money-wasting bureaucratic departments in our government.
[edit] also, sorry for any spelling mistakes I missed, I don't type quite as well on my laptop[/edit]
I think at the core this gets to the purpose of the criminal justice system, which I believe is to <i>prevent</i> crime. There will always be a conflict between what we'd call "precision" and "recall" in a statistics setting. If you want to be sure you convict all criminals, you will likely have to sacrifice some of the precision of your convictions. You will have to convict some innocent people. If you want to be sure you convict no innocent people you will have to accept that some guilty people will go free. The moral trade-off here is between the crime society commits to an innocent person when it wrongly convicts them, and the crime that a guilty person might later commit to another person because they were incorrectly let free. As I see it, the crime to an innocent wrongly convicted is a certain one, whereas the recidivism of a freed criminal is a probabilistic one. This favors shifting our justice system towards precision and not recall, because it is better to prevent a certain crime than one that may or may not happen.
The second trade-off centers around the confidence that society has in the system of justice. A competent justice system prevents crime by discouraging criminals, and promotes social order by allowing citizens to feel secure in their property. Convicting innocents and acquitting the guilty both undermine confidence in the system, but the important consideration is the extent to which they do so. I personally feel that convicting the innocent does more damage to the fabric of society than acquitting the guilty. When a person is wrongfully convicted of a felony, it will invariably destroy their life. They will be unable to vote, unable to get a job, and even if later exonerated, the stigma will stay with them for the rest of their life. A wrongful conviction is difficult for someone to take action to protect themselves against. The state is inescapable and it is impossible to treat it's mistakes as dangers you can prepare for. In contrast, individuals have a lot of control over they extent the protect themselves from criminals. You can secure your house against thieves and be successful. If the government decides to take your property you have little recourse. Similarly, you can be cautious in public, carry a weapon, and protect yourself from violent crime if you are concerned about risk. However, if the state decides to execute you, there is little you can do to protect yourself.
For all of these reasons I feel it is far more important to prevent wrongful convictions than wrongful acquittals. I feel that every wrongful conviction does 100 times more damage to individuals in particular and society as a whole than every wrongful acquittal is likely to do.
From a purely logical point, it doesn't make sense to let 10 criminals go to save 1 innocent person.
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double check with kant before you think that. what if youre the innocent guy
The proportion of hardened criminals to innocent civilians is far less than 1 to 10. From a purely logical point, it doesn't make sense to let 10 criminals go to save 1 innocent person.
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This is a rather simplistic view of the comparison. It isn't about the proportion of guilty to innocent, but about the severity of the transgression. Letting one specific guilty person go free has little consequences for society at large. Furthermore, the consequences are not victim specific, so the ethics of the situation are reasonably vague. Imprisoning in innocent person is a very harsh transgression against a very specific individual and is therefore something that we put a lot of weight on. This is, for example, why people will steal a large amount from a large corporation with a much clearer conscience than they would steal a small amount from an individual.
You also have to look at the systems of justice as a product of their age. Our modern, enlightened, view of individual right to non-interference by government comes from an era ( the one that Shelley wrote about ) in which individual freedom was something that could be given or taken on a whim. The systems of law that evolved from breton law and the magna carta during the enlightenment are the basis for many democratic systems of law, and they recognise established rights of the individual, and the need to curtail the power government has over the individual. A healthy democracy must have strong protections against its government. If you depend on the good will of your leaders for individual freedom, then you don't live in a healthy democracy. Central to this is the idea of presumed innocence and the right to a fair and public trial. These concepts are far more important than the nebulous right to bear arms ( in terms of its importance in ensuring that a populace cannot be easily subverted by its government ) , which is arguably irrelevant in the modern era.
I'd much rather see graduated levels of corporal punishment. I'll use myself as an example. Psychological pain has always been much worse than any physical pain I've endured, and it's been much less effective at the designed purpose. Kids on the playground mocking me behind my back? Makes me want to hurt them back, not bow before their might. Guy who later turned out to be a good friend giving me a good thwack in the face when I was out of line? Instantly communicated the intention (shut up about that) and quickly taught me the consequences of my actions.
So, if I ever did anything as bad as say, involuntary manslaughter, I'd much rather take 10, or 20, or 30, or more lashes in front of everyone I ever knew and the family of the ones I accidentally killed than be hauled away and plunked into a hostile environment from which there is no refuge for 20 years. Twenty years is a LONG time. A long time where tax payers are feeding, clothing, and sheltering me when I could still be a productive member of society if I'd just been put in my place. A long time for me to be psychologically tormented and in the end, if I haven't cracked, get back outside to a culture I'm disconnected from and more apt to lash out at the system that did this to me than I was before the did it.
Obviously, some people can't be tamed by physical hardship, but most can, and it's ridiculous to waste value human resources just because we're some how more afraid of physical trauma than psychological torture.
Take the wikipedia page for corporal punishment as a starting point:
"Before 1997, although there were many studies linking spanking with higher levels of misbehaviour in children, people could argue that it was the misbehaviour that caused the spanking. However, since that time several studies have examined changes in behaviour over time and have shown a link between corporal punishment and increasing relative levels of misbehaviour compared to similar children who were not corporally punished. It can no longer be argued that all of the increased misbehaviour seen in spanked children would have happened even if they had not been spanked. Not only has corporal punishment not been shown to improve behaviour in the long run, it has actually been shown to be linked to higher rates of misbehaviour. <a href="http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP41.pdf" target="_blank">[12]</a>".
Of course, many individuals come from parental regimes of corporal punishment and go on to lead reasonably normal lives, but this is in no way relevant to the discussion, unless you think anecdotal evidence has a place in logical reasoning.
What has this got to do with corporal punishment for adult crimes? Well, there are three typical justifications for incarceration: retributive, protective, and rehabilitative - AKA make the ******* suffer, keep him away from my children, and teach him a lesson.
Corporal Punishment is really only going to satisfy the retributive role of justice. I can't see how you'll learn anything other than fear of future punishment ( which isn't rehabilitative at all, just prohibitive ( a subset of rehabilitative ) ).
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Obviously, some people can't be tamed by physical hardship, but most can, and it's ridiculous to waste value human resources just because we're some how more afraid of physical trauma than psychological torture.
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You are assuming a lot about the rise of the pacifist movement. The shift away from corporal punishment is not about fear of physical trauma, but is about a larger socio-economic numbers game of long term consequences. Most of the homeless people in Ireland suffered physical abuse in their youth. You beat people up on a mass scale and you produce a lot of basket cases starved of the skills required to participate positively in an fair society. Do not assume that because someone chooses the less macho approach to a problem that they are somehow afraid of the solution. I could turn your comment back on you really easily - "you'll beat people up because you're too greedy to spend a little money". If you don't at least understand the opposing viewpoint, you can't really make accurate comments on its nature.
Anyway, I know you have admitted in a previous post that you were subjected to corporal punishment as a child and it had a positive impact on your life, and I have admitted that I have never been punished physically by either parent ( not even a slap on the bottom ) and it has had a very positive impact on my life ( I haven't used physical violence against another person since about the age of 12-13 ). It's probably more than coincidence that we are inheriting our parent's outlook on this topic, so I'll freely admit that my position on this was well established before I ever read any material on the subject.
What I do know is that, with my parents in the school system and former teachers who I now consider friends telling me how bad our youth is getting, there has to have been a change in procedure some where. Firstly, the school system removed corporal punishment, putting gloves on all the teacher's hands. Next, they tied their hands behind their backs.
These teacher's aren't even allowed to break up a fight, theoretically. Increasing numbers of children begin to understand that they don't really have to do anything. They'll be graduated to the next grade level just because they're too big a pain in the butt to keep around. In a short time, people with this kind of mentality are going to be entering the workforce, or worse yet, draining society's funds on welfare with no intention of finding a job.
This may be a problem in just my area, but even at that, it's a horrible thing. Nature shows us how alpha members of a pack take charge- they take it by force, they maintain order by force. Not force in the brute sense of the word. The controlled and, I dare say, compassionate application of force. What's important is for the one being punished to understand that the one doing the punishing is doing it basically out of love. Is that too radical an idea? Apparently, love and physical trauma don't seem to mix in most people's minds, I don't know.
To me, just as sweet has no meaning without sour and bitter, hot without cold, a loving relationship has no meaning unless there are times of strife. One begins to take things for granted, and the other must demonstrate what life could be like without the relationship at all - a reminder to always be considerate to one another.
Call me crazy, but there's just enough contradiction in nature for me to believe it.
For all of these reasons I feel it is far more important to prevent wrongful convictions than wrongful acquittals. I feel that every wrongful conviction does 100 times more damage to individuals in particular and society as a whole than every wrongful acquittal is likely to do.
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I certainly agree with you for some crimes, but for others letting a guilty person go can cause more harm than convicting an innocent. A wrongful conviction destroys one life, but letting a child molester or serial killer go has the potential to destroy many more. In this case the state is destroying lives indirectly, but it is still guilty of doing so.
I certainly agree with you for some crimes, but for others letting a guilty person go can cause more harm than convicting an innocent. A wrongful conviction destroys one life, but letting a child molester or serial killer go has the potential to destroy many more. In this case the state is destroying lives indirectly, but it is still guilty of doing so.
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You talk about these guilty and innocent people like they are somehow related. As in, it is okay to sentence innocent person A to jail so that guilty person B does not walk free. Why should innocent person A be horse-traded by the justice system because of their failure to provide proof of guilt?
I mean, to take this reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, anyone accused of serial murder should be sent to jail without trial. That way you can be sure to catch all the serial killers, and the only cost is many innocent people serving time in jail.
As a person innocent of serial murder, I'm not going to accept the excuse that a harsh regime catches more guilty people when I'm on my deathbed, reminiscing over the 30 years I've spent in side, and trying to remember what life was like before I was locked up.
Secondly, you are saying that it is okay to sentence innocent people for the <b>potential</b> future crimes of someone <b>alleged</b> to be guilty. This was the rational behind the subversion of the justice system to convict the Guilford four. Not only was their reasoning fallacious, but they were in fact, dealing with innocent people.
This isn't about punishing the guilty, it's about punishing the accused and accepting that innocent people will be accused. I don't know about you, but I think the idea of being able to live your life, with out fear of a random act of injustice by the state, is one of the most precious achievements of the modern world. When we abandon that we drop the facade of an enlightened society and become no better than the regimes we claim to stand against. You guys are talking about abandoning the presumption of innocence.
What does it matter that we lock a potentially innocent person up for life? Sure, it's an injustice, but it's an injustice to someone who is locked up for life, no longer a part of society. Are we making society any less safer in this way? We're not making society LESS safe by locking this person up. However, if he is actually guilty, we're making society MORE safe by removing him from it.
So it seems like we're not quite in a win/win situation, but in a draw/win situation. We either gain or lose nothing, or we gain higher safety for the rest of society. Sure, it sucks for the convicted innocents, but we're sacrificing a few people for the greater good here. They should be proud to serve society. Freedom is nothing, safety is everything.
Allow me to play the devil's advocate here for a moment:
What does it matter that we lock a potentially innocent person up for life? Sure, it's an injustice, but it's an injustice to someone who is locked up for life, no longer a part of society. Are we making society any less safer in this way? We're not making society LESS safe by locking this person up. However, if he is actually guilty, we're making society MORE safe by removing him from it.
So it seems like we're not quite in a win/win situation, but in a draw/win situation. We either gain or lose nothing, or we gain higher safety for the rest of society. Sure, it sucks for the convicted innocents, but we're sacrificing a few people for the greater good here. They should be proud to serve society. Freedom is nothing, safety is everything.
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Except you could easily be locking up an upstanding member of society - maybe a pulitzer prize winning writer or a nobel prize winning chemist or something. Or you could take it even (absurdly) further: why don't we just lock up everyone, that way the whole society is safe because no one's in it.
Plus for each innocent person you lock up, there's going to have to be another crime to get the real guilty person in jail. I mean, you can't just arrest 10 completely independent people, charge them all with the same crime, and punish them all, since obviously not all 10 of them can be the culprit.
...as your (I'm guessing/hoping) sarcastic quip about freedom and safety indicates, safety is not the only aspect of society.
I DID say I was playing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate" target="_blank">Devil's advocate.</a> Not for the sake of instruction though, but for the sake of debate.
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I thought your first paragraph was advocacy and your second paragraph was commentary on your advocacy (I do it all the time <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> ). Of course, why would someone in the role of the devil's advocate be concerned with sarcasm at all. Anyway, I think I've thrown a couple of valid points out there against your 'hellbourne' advocate <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> .
I for one don't really agree with the prison system. As far as I'm concerned, there's very few people who go in there for such horrible crimes that they deserve to be segregated from the rest of the society. When they come out after a long time, they're changed, for sure, but not always for the better.
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heh here's another twist on that.
"Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime. The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 accounted for nearly 4,877,000 arrest charges over their recorded careers."
Those numbers havnt changed much in more recent years either.
Our prisons are so overcrowded as it is, many people simply get probation or some other deferred penalty for "minor crimes" Minor crimes could also include assaults/batteries, large thefts etc.
Which is worse?
Mr. Jones is a child molester. He has victimized 11 children. One night he breaks into a house, and takes a little girl and kills her but before doing some terrible things to the little girl. he is caught and sent to prison for life.
Mr. Smith is a high school drop out, DUI charges, drivers liscence is revoked from so many DUI charges, has been arrested countless times throughout his life for small thefts, and drug posession charges. Mr. Smith is unemployed, he is an alcoholic and addicted to drugs. He steals, and breaks into peoples houses to support his drug habit. Mr. Smith transports crack sometimes for other dealers. Due to his alcoholism he goes out drinking often in bars. many a time he gets kicked out. He fights with people, he has anger managment problems. He fights with the police when they have to respond to his incideints. When Mr. Smith has girlfriends he usually beats them. He does not work, he collects disabiliy and welfare.
he is a constant problem for everyone. Basically all he does is leech and mooch off of the rest of tax paying society as he does nothing beneficial to contribute to society.
Mr. Smith has never really served a long jail sentence due to the already backlogged CJ system.
is Mr. Smith (which there are many, many, many like him out there) any better than a murderer or rapist or child molester? Even a one time murderer?
For all of these reasons I feel it is far more important to prevent wrongful convictions than wrongful acquittals. I feel that every wrongful conviction does 100 times more damage to individuals in particular and society as a whole than every wrongful acquittal is likely to do.
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Very insightful post. You've actually changed my view on a few of these issues.
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Or you could take it even (absurdly) further: why don't we just lock up everyone, that way the whole society is safe because no one's in it. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now this line's just hilarious. We should totally do that. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
But there must be a lot of people in prison that just messed up in life and could come on the right track again, right? This of course, still assuming unlimited resources to help these people back on track.