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griffin tucker

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eradicate punishment from the law system. instead, teach.

we as a species should learn to teach right from wrong instead of simply casting away our own species into seclusion, and hoping the problem will go away.

popular law and politics dictates that we should make examples of people who commit a crime to show other people that an action shouldn't be done through means of fear.

in my opinion, fear does not work for the long-run, especially in modern times where upon the public doubts governmental law and even politicians/law-makers themselves.

i propose that methods should be developed that involve mandatory psychologists and sociologists to attend court cases with follow-ups on individuals who are jailed, periodically with the intention to develop reports on as many elements as possible that led up to the crime itself.

with privacy kept in mind, reports could then be made publicly available and delivered to current law-makers/politicians to change or remove elements of a recipe for popular crime.

in cases where societal elements themselves are part of the recipe for a crime, and can be changed or removed, politicians and law-makers have the power to do so via means of education.

to do so through schools is a start, but humans don't ever stop learning throughout their lives, so other ways of educating people who have committed a crime _and_ the public (potential crime-committers) should be made available to change or remove elements of society that lead to a crime and eventually remove the crime itself.

EDIT: as Christophe Cop first mentioned, removing some people from society is necessary. while these people can still learn, i still think that they don't need to be punished in order to do so. for further information to back up my belief please see this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Positive_and_negative_reinforcement

Topics: courts and cases ethics evolutionary psychology law laws moral psychology sociology
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Closing Statement from griffin tucker

i closed this idea early, simply because the amount and quality of feedback has led me to want to re-write the idea.

while many people demand justice by way of punishment, i believe the idea of punishment is not the best way to solve a re-occurring problem, but instead increases the likelihood of it happening again.

positive reinforcement simply works better than punishment in any case, but due to the current model of western society, there are certain restraints that mean there are more immediate demands at hand that require attention. so, other methods including punishment are used instead of positive reinforcement.

i believe social policy needs to be changed as a result.

according to the model of 'systematic evidence-based preventative social policy' (i think it needs a new name) it is what is proven to be working better than existing methods by means of already existing objective evidence.

in other words, if it works, and it's proven, the idea will be started. but this is not democracy.

currently, law-makers work on the assumption that if they don't get enough votes at the next election, they will lose their power to make laws - and since the easiest way to keep their power is to do whatever the majority says, this is what they have a tendancy to do.

law-makers react to popular opinion, but is popular opinion necessarily more correct or incorrect than evidence-based social policy? i don't know, myself.


thank-you all for your contributions.

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  • Denomyar 01

    • +1
    Oct 9 2011: Aah yes Colleen, that the current system is the most expensive is the deeper truth. One only need lift the veneer to see. I say the 'most expensive' because it 'does not work' to guide offenders clear which in turn would benefit society in the long term. If we got that part right we would close prisons down rather than build new ones. So in terms of our getting value for money, the current 'correctional' system is wasteful in the extreme. If the size of a correctional institution's budget was somehow partially dependent on their ability prevent offender re-offence, I think we'd observe a rapid improvement in efficiency.
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      griffin tucker 10+

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      Oct 9 2011: whilst i agree that a lot of correctional facilities around the globe need more money, without the right guidance on how to spend the money will simply result in little progress being made.

      in the u.s. there is www.coalition4evidence.org that claims to be unaffiliated with any political party.

      in australia there is a relatively lengthy 2009 article on an australian government website www.apsc.gov.au/publications09/evidencebasedpolicy.htm that describes the 'challenge' of evidence-based policy.
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        Anca Tiurean 10+

        • +2
        Oct 9 2011: The Prison in our city has its doors open for volunteers, closed for people who want jobs there, open for inmates who wish to work for the community and closed for inmates who wish to do nothing all day. I was impressed to see the prison as being a rather animated place. Volunteers work for free - they are not taken advantage of - as they only give a little bit of their time to this endeavor - but being so many, they almost cover all the days of the week with accompanying inmates who wish to be involved in self-development and purposeful activities. Yet many inmates just don't want to participate in anything - similar to school-children who don't really wanna be in class at first, they can grow to enjoy it if they're forced to attend anyway in the beginning. I always start by telling them - you're gonna be here weather you like it or not, so why not like it rather than not? And that's the start of our exploration of resources - inside those people and around them.
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      Colleen Steen 500+

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      Oct 9 2011: If the expense was proving to provide benefits, that's one thing, but, as you say Ray..."it is wasteful in the extreme". It is getting even worse, because prisons/correctional institutions are now profitable businesses.
      Rarely are they administered by the state or federal government any more. Who is going to be at a loss if offenders are rehabilitated? The profitable business.
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        griffin tucker 10+

        • +1
        Oct 9 2011: there should be a way to give an incentive to the correctional business to rehabilitate, otherwise there is an incentive to do the opposite.
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        griffin tucker 10+

        • +1
        Oct 9 2011: well being a business, i suppose they would want a money incentive for each individual fully rehabilitated, but in the long-term this would mean eventually they would have very few incoming people to be rehabilitated, so the future of the business would be in jeapordy.

        perhaps if the business was given more money incentives from the government depending on how successful it is, as compared to schools?
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          Colleen Steen 500+

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          Oct 9 2011: How about turning all correctional facilities into schools?

          We're running out of time Griffin. We need to solve this in 28 minutes!!!
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        griffin tucker 10+

        • +1
        Oct 10 2011: turning all correctional facilitieis into schools? sounds like a good idea to me. i can't fault it.

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