Powerful and engaging column on such an important matter. For post people prison is not for life, and hence we need to think carefully about how to improve these systems to reduce recidivism and to prevent prisoners from becoming worse. Really challenging to think about people who get convicted for a long time given the crimes they committed. short sentences seem problematic, but so do other options. We have heard / read some things about Norway and other systems that appear to achieve much lower rates of reoffending. We wrote a first pass on some of this issues: https://curingcrime.substack.com/p/recidivism-trying-to-rehabilitate-prisoners-91fd4a7b5f5e
Thank you for your kind words & thoughtful comments! Indeed, since prison is not for life, it certainly seems the best use of it to make useful citizens out of our criminals. That said, it hardly seems as if our systems are designed to do that. In fact, every option is more or less problematic, which rather raises the question of what exactly we think we are doing with our criminals…
"But until prison systems improve, we can hardly expect anyone who leaves them to be better than they were when they went in. Rehabilitation – let alone the redemption that Styron dreamt of – is going to remain unlikely."
This quote shows that the public discourse on prison sentences is mostly focused on the aspect of prevention. From a philosophical point of view, however, the aspect of proportional retribution is still relevant. According to this, the level of punishment should correspond to the severity of the crime, not the individual's (favourable or unfavourable) prospects of rehabilitation. I recognize that prison sentences often even have a negative influence on resocialization and thus do not do justice to the preventive aspect of the penal system. However, this shortcoming should not obscure the fact that prison sentences are (and some would even argue: primarily) a punishment. To abandon this principle (which is a sound philosophical opinion) has serious implications that many people aren't willing to accept.
Thank you for your comments! It’s good if you to take the time & make the effort to respond to my newsletter. There are of course at least three justifications of punishment, only one of which concerns rehabilitation, which is what I wrote about here. There are arguments for other justifications. Perhaps we shall approach them in an upcoming newsletter. Meanwhile, my feeling (& it’s probably no more than that) is that rehabilitation is the best use of the prison system. If you can fix a bad guy by putting him in prison, when he comes out we have that much less threat. Evidently that is not what we in the western world seem to think, though - at least in practical terms. It’s just not what we do. I have my reservations about retribution, although I acknowledge that there are philosophical arguments in favour of it. This is a big old subject, & one I raised almost by accident!
Even though you emphasise the importance of rehabilitation (which I do not disagree with) you would probably still (consciously or unconsciously) believe that a prison sentence should be proportionate to the severity of the crime commited. Let's consider two cases: First, a criminal who commits theft all the time, went in and out of prison all his life, with very low chances of rehabilitation. Second, a guy who has never committed crime before in his life, who has a job and a non-criminal social environment, and who killed his wife after a heated end-of-relationship argument. If prison only had the task to rehabilitate the inmate (and nothing more), the person who has killed his wife would have way better prospects of rehabilitation and would therefore get a shorter prison sentence than the thief. Would that be fair?
You make some good points! I definitely don’t think that rehabilitation should be the only aim of punishment. Indeed, if it were, you would be quite right that it wouldn’t make sense to punish murderers in particular. They tend to be if a different character from most other criminals. Indeed, it’s often said that the tenor of their lives is generally to be law-abiding. In their case, I suppose deterrence is the main argument for punishment. Even that has its difficulties. You can very well make the argument that deterrence just doesn’t work, especially when it comes to heated end-of-relationship arguments as the one you mention. Indeed, in some measure, all justifications of punishment fall short. It’s been something of a quandary for me ever since I started studying it, I don’t mind admitting.
Your are right about deterrence as a third philosophical justification for legal punishment. And like you I doubt that deterrence works well in the particular field of violent crime. However, as far as I know, it (arguably) does work better in areas that are more connected to theories of rational choice, such as white collar crime. Unfortunately, the perceived risk of punishment is quite low in the field of white collar crime compared to manslaughter or murder. Somehow ironic, isn't it?
This is not the best example, I know. I only wanted to illustrate that proportionality of punishment is an important philosophical concept, and that its abandonment may lead to unfair outcomes.
Powerful and engaging column on such an important matter. For post people prison is not for life, and hence we need to think carefully about how to improve these systems to reduce recidivism and to prevent prisoners from becoming worse. Really challenging to think about people who get convicted for a long time given the crimes they committed. short sentences seem problematic, but so do other options. We have heard / read some things about Norway and other systems that appear to achieve much lower rates of reoffending. We wrote a first pass on some of this issues: https://curingcrime.substack.com/p/recidivism-trying-to-rehabilitate-prisoners-91fd4a7b5f5e
Thank you for your kind words & thoughtful comments! Indeed, since prison is not for life, it certainly seems the best use of it to make useful citizens out of our criminals. That said, it hardly seems as if our systems are designed to do that. In fact, every option is more or less problematic, which rather raises the question of what exactly we think we are doing with our criminals…
"But until prison systems improve, we can hardly expect anyone who leaves them to be better than they were when they went in. Rehabilitation – let alone the redemption that Styron dreamt of – is going to remain unlikely."
This quote shows that the public discourse on prison sentences is mostly focused on the aspect of prevention. From a philosophical point of view, however, the aspect of proportional retribution is still relevant. According to this, the level of punishment should correspond to the severity of the crime, not the individual's (favourable or unfavourable) prospects of rehabilitation. I recognize that prison sentences often even have a negative influence on resocialization and thus do not do justice to the preventive aspect of the penal system. However, this shortcoming should not obscure the fact that prison sentences are (and some would even argue: primarily) a punishment. To abandon this principle (which is a sound philosophical opinion) has serious implications that many people aren't willing to accept.
Thank you for your comments! It’s good if you to take the time & make the effort to respond to my newsletter. There are of course at least three justifications of punishment, only one of which concerns rehabilitation, which is what I wrote about here. There are arguments for other justifications. Perhaps we shall approach them in an upcoming newsletter. Meanwhile, my feeling (& it’s probably no more than that) is that rehabilitation is the best use of the prison system. If you can fix a bad guy by putting him in prison, when he comes out we have that much less threat. Evidently that is not what we in the western world seem to think, though - at least in practical terms. It’s just not what we do. I have my reservations about retribution, although I acknowledge that there are philosophical arguments in favour of it. This is a big old subject, & one I raised almost by accident!
Even though you emphasise the importance of rehabilitation (which I do not disagree with) you would probably still (consciously or unconsciously) believe that a prison sentence should be proportionate to the severity of the crime commited. Let's consider two cases: First, a criminal who commits theft all the time, went in and out of prison all his life, with very low chances of rehabilitation. Second, a guy who has never committed crime before in his life, who has a job and a non-criminal social environment, and who killed his wife after a heated end-of-relationship argument. If prison only had the task to rehabilitate the inmate (and nothing more), the person who has killed his wife would have way better prospects of rehabilitation and would therefore get a shorter prison sentence than the thief. Would that be fair?
You make some good points! I definitely don’t think that rehabilitation should be the only aim of punishment. Indeed, if it were, you would be quite right that it wouldn’t make sense to punish murderers in particular. They tend to be if a different character from most other criminals. Indeed, it’s often said that the tenor of their lives is generally to be law-abiding. In their case, I suppose deterrence is the main argument for punishment. Even that has its difficulties. You can very well make the argument that deterrence just doesn’t work, especially when it comes to heated end-of-relationship arguments as the one you mention. Indeed, in some measure, all justifications of punishment fall short. It’s been something of a quandary for me ever since I started studying it, I don’t mind admitting.
Your are right about deterrence as a third philosophical justification for legal punishment. And like you I doubt that deterrence works well in the particular field of violent crime. However, as far as I know, it (arguably) does work better in areas that are more connected to theories of rational choice, such as white collar crime. Unfortunately, the perceived risk of punishment is quite low in the field of white collar crime compared to manslaughter or murder. Somehow ironic, isn't it?
This is not the best example, I know. I only wanted to illustrate that proportionality of punishment is an important philosophical concept, and that its abandonment may lead to unfair outcomes.