Droplets from the Inkwell

Blog Prompt: Most days, I think it's the wrong question

From "Blogging Circle of Friends " :

The topic is the death penalty. Are you for it or against it and why?

There are certain questions -- a lot of them seem to be "hot topic" questions too -- that leave me feeling like the question is wrong. This is often because I feel like there are dozens of other questions that have been passed over in order to ask the "big question," questions whose answers will either greatly impact the answer to "the big one" or in some way invalidate that question altogether.

The death penalty question is one such question for me. I think that to really tackle it, we first have to tackle some other questions about our criminal justice system and what purpose we think it is supposed to serve. For example, a lot of people assume that the purpose is to punish criminals. It's an assumption that makes a lot of sense, considering how it works. A criminal is put on trial and once convicted -- assuming zie is convicted -- is handed down a sentence (fine, prison time, and/or death). They do something bad and the system does something harsh to them in return. That bears a great deal of resemblance to how a parent might punish an unruly child.

I admit I don't particularly care for that view of the criminal justice system. For starters, I think that a system of punishments (at least not alone) isn't terribly effective with children or adolescents, so assuming it will be effective for grown adults who clearly didn't learn their lessons about behaving like a civilized person in childhood strikes me as dubious. I think punishment for adults tends to fail as both a deterrent and as a way to get them to change. (And if we're just punishing them for the sake of punishing them or as a form of "comeuppance" with no other goal, well that's vengeance and not justice at all.)

I'll further note that I find the idea of rehabilitating criminals -- whether through punishment or any other means -- as troubling anyway. Oh sure, it's a great idea in theory. The problem in reality is that rehabilitation only works for those who actually want to change and find a better way of living within society. The thought of a criminal justice system that's trying to sort out who actually wants to be rehabilitated and who doesn't frightens me in its own right.

In the end, the one thing I think the criminal justice system can do is try to protect past victims and potential future victims from criminals. If a criminal is taken of the streets and removed from the general population for a period of time, that is time that I, my family, my neighbor, and almost everyone else is safe from said criminal's hurtful actions. It still begs the question of how long to protect the population from any particular criminal and gets back into my questions about the problem of a system that seeks to rehabilitate.

However, I do feel that the one thing that seems obvious is that those violent criminals who repeatedly prey upon and hurt other people deserve to be removed from the population permanently. That can be done as a life sentence. In some cases, that may be done through removing such a repeat offender from this world altogether. I'm not totally sold on even that possibility, but I'm open to it.

But in the end, I still think we need to start thinking about how we look at criminal justice -- and justice in general -- on a more fundamental level.

JarredH

Give me pen and paper and I shall create entire worlds and fill them with adventures.