Bullies: Go To Jail?

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I'd just say that more kids need fathers like yours, or, fathers at all for that matter. Parents are all different in how they encourage their kids to think or what they place emphasis on when they raise them, which ultimately in that sense and that young - very few kids will have the self awareness to solve their own problems or even have the tools, perhaps if they're lucky enough to just learn quick by osmosis to where they can spar with friends and have that turn out well, usually those aren't the types of kids having problems of that sort though.

The first item on your list is a bunch of populist hogwash. I don't live in Canada but here in the US parents most certainly DO have plenty of legal authority over their children. But most of all, parents are clearly NOT THE SOLUTION TO BULLYING!

Regarding item 2, what if the bully is bigger and stronger? Or what if the victim is bullied by a "bully gang" who are prepared to physically gang up and beat the crap out of their victims if they resist?

IMO, jail is the perfect place for bullies because then they can have a turn being a victim at the hands of Big Bad Bubba.

I don't think anybody should go to jail, and that includes murderers, rapists, paedophiles, etc. I'm not in favour of punishment in general. The most I would support is, in a very small number of cases, forcing people to be put in institutions seperate from the rest of society. I suppose you could call these jails, but I wouldn't support depriving them of any other luxuries or liberties, so such institutions would be far less harsh than the current ones we have.

So, to answer your subject question: no.

Why are you against jails? The types of people you mentioned are a danger to society. They need to be taught that that behavior is wrong, and the people around them need to be protected. How do you plan to accomplish this without jail?

If you view jail as an educational experience, it is pretty much a failure and it probably generates more permanently criminally oriented people than reformed ones.

Last edited by Sand on 10 Apr 2010, 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm against prisons because I don't believe it's justified to impose suffering on a person simply on the basis that they have imposed suffering on somebody else previously. Of course, that's not to say that there are no reasons to impose suffering on people. We might still find that the current system has deterrent value, for example. However, I'm not convinced that it does, and I think the money spent on it could probably do more good elsewhere.

I agree that there is value in teaching people that certain forms of behaviour are 'wrong'. I don't agree that prisons are even remotely effective in doing this, though.

I acknowledge that the sick portion of our society will likely always be sick. Laws, penalties, punishments, none of the above will likely appeal or modify their behavior. What offering 'jail' or waving it out there does is modify the severity that the typically law abiding see it with and an issue at that point finds itself more front-and-center on society's radar of cognition.

Also, even as a person who strongly believes that free will is illusionary - I still believe that what has to be done still has to be done, that if some rapes, steals, murders, that the math needs to follow, its the necessary evil of cause and effect as well as healthy society defending itself without vigilantism.

Basically, what you're saying is that something has to be done. I agree. It's apparent current systems are not only not working, they are making things worse. Perhaps some reasoning might be a good idea..

I can't figure out what your argument is here - I'm not even sure whether or not you're in agreement with me. Could you elaborate a bit, or rephrase what you've said? Sorry about this.

What I mean is that, even if a certain individual was predestined to rape a child or kill someone since the big bang - logic follows that they still need to go to jail, whether or not they could have done anything differently is somewhat irrelevant as the act was till committed and more acts would be if they were not stopped.

Sand - as for your argument - its a big problem that there's so little monitoring that we can say that a person's chance of getting raped in prison or being further corrupted with new plans is as high as it is. I don't think prisons need to go away, they just really need to think their structure, perhaps more solitary and limited contact with other prisoners.

I've never really cared much about free will in this context - whether or not people were determined to commit crimes, I'd still oppose prisons. I do not oppose prisons on free will grounds.

I don't know what your alternative suggestion is I guess. I really don't see many short of either executing them rather than imprisoning them, vigilante justice, making Haitian zombies of them as someone else in this thread once suggested, or simply offering your kids to the pedophile when they come around in sympathy and understanding that they have an urge that needs to be gratified.

All of these alternatives frankly suck. You may have another idea though for which I'm all ears.

Paedophiles are among those small number of criminals who I would have put in an seperate from the rest of us. Hopefully they could be encouraged to voluntarily submit themselves to it. As I've said, though, I wouldn't support depriving them of any other liberties.

The thing is, I don't think prisons are nearly as effective as a lot of people believe. Certainly, the idea that prisons prevent crime is obviously wrong. Prison only prevents prisoners committing crimes on people outside the prison (and then, only for the time each prisoner is in the prison). Inside prisons, extortion, assault, rape, etc, are at least as high if not higher than rates outside prisons. I'm also not at all convinced that going to prison reduces the chance of somebody committing a crime once they get out, or that, in the majority of cases, the threat of prison prevents people from committing crimes.

Since I reject the idea that we should impose suffering on people simply because they've imposed suffering on others previously, I have to find other reasons to support prisons. I'm not sure that these reasons hold up, or that there are avenues in which the money that's spent on prisons could go to better use (like, for example, medical research). So I don't really have an alternative. For now, I would go for simply withholding any kind of direct punishment (vigilante justice is a form of punishment, so I wouldn't encourage people to do that). That may not be the best option, but I suspect it would be better than the current system.

I accept and agree with everything you say except that the problem is insoluble. It is hellishly complicated and society has more or less never really tackled it. Legal solutions are half assed attempts with oversimplified decisions imposing horrible consequences on whoever gets entangled in the law. Crime itself is as complicated and as sophisticated as society itself and each crime must be examined by highly trained people in the mores of society, in psychology and in the very individual situation and individuals involved in the crime. To merely dump individuals into a secondary highly brutal society for a prescribed period of time is simply stupid and a waste of time and money and the possibilities of the individuals in returning in a productive state to a functioning society. That some individuals cannot be converted into safe social individuals is no excuse to punish them for their basic fixed nature. Killing them is murder so some social situation must be worked out to protect both society and the individual concerned. It's difficult enough to modify human behavior of normal human beings. Those clever enough or stupid enough to work mayhem on their fellows or unfortunate enough to be put in a situation where crime seems the only obvious solution to their problems should be handled as extremely tough psychological problems. And society has never accepted that this difficult conversion requires huge amounts of money and patience and understanding so it has never been properly attempted. It demands too much and society prefers the human garbage dump known as prison.

Yeah, I really think 'prison' serves a more conceptual purpose to the law abiding more than anything - ie. the threat thereof isn't so much feared as much as it communicates an order of salience regarding what sorts of behavior that society is against, somewhat against, or strongly against. Psychological factors aren't necessarily less important though. While I think our system could use an overhaul I still think the concept is worth enough.

They should be made to be humiliated in public and then lynched!