criminal justice
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Locking Up The Neighbors
This week the South Dakota Senate made a good decision for a bad reason. The Senate approved a welcome set of changes to the way the state treats convicted criminals, effectively reducing prison sentences for a variety of offenses.
South Dakota's prisons are nearly full to capacity, and the state was forced to choose between building more prisons and reforming its sentencing laws. The latter choice was the less expensive one, and that appears to be the main reason for the reform.
I've read that in the USA we now have more prisoners than farmers. I'm also told we have more prisoners than any other country in the world, and a much higher per-capita incarceration rate than any other developed country. Either we produce more criminals than other countries, or we are more aggressive in our incarceration policies.
I've argued before that our criminal code should not be devised along economic lines, but along the lines of love. Jens Soering similarly argues forcefully that our prisons are "an expensive way to make bad men worse."
We don't need to make men worse but to give them every opportunity to better themselves.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be tough on crime; we should be very tough on crime. But our current policies are not so much tough on crime as they are tough on criminals.
What I am saying is this: we should not regard criminals as people with a past but as people with a future. Many need to be incarcerated, yes, but if a man is to be locked up, let us lock him up as a neighbor. As they enter the prisons, let it be our first and guiding thought that they will soon emerge as our neighbors. And let us therefore do all we can to allow them to emerge as better men and women, not as worse ones.
South Dakota's prisons are nearly full to capacity, and the state was forced to choose between building more prisons and reforming its sentencing laws. The latter choice was the less expensive one, and that appears to be the main reason for the reform.
I've read that in the USA we now have more prisoners than farmers. I'm also told we have more prisoners than any other country in the world, and a much higher per-capita incarceration rate than any other developed country. Either we produce more criminals than other countries, or we are more aggressive in our incarceration policies.
I've argued before that our criminal code should not be devised along economic lines, but along the lines of love. Jens Soering similarly argues forcefully that our prisons are "an expensive way to make bad men worse."
We don't need to make men worse but to give them every opportunity to better themselves.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be tough on crime; we should be very tough on crime. But our current policies are not so much tough on crime as they are tough on criminals.
What I am saying is this: we should not regard criminals as people with a past but as people with a future. Many need to be incarcerated, yes, but if a man is to be locked up, let us lock him up as a neighbor. As they enter the prisons, let it be our first and guiding thought that they will soon emerge as our neighbors. And let us therefore do all we can to allow them to emerge as better men and women, not as worse ones.
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UPDATE: I did not know it at the time, but as I was writing this post above, a family in my city was pleading with a judge to have mercy on the man who killed one of their family members. Their words, which you can read here, show a remarkable ability to look past their desire for vengeance and exemplify concern for the criminal. It is possible. It is possible. It is possible.
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Secret Poison
South Dakota's Attorney General announced today that he wants the state legislature to protect the names of the manufacturers of the poisons used to kill criminals sentenced to death.
To which I reply--in appeal to the Christians of South Dakota, at least--the scriptures condemn those who make poisons to kill other people for profit. Why then should we offer them a special protection here in our state?
The answer appears to be that if the producers' names become public, they may be shamed into no longer selling human-killing drugs. What they do may be legal, but let them at least face the scrutiny of the marketplace.
If you're ashamed of what you sell, maybe you shouldn't sell it any more.
Unless you're Mossynoecians, that is. The Mossynoecians are mentioned in several ancient texts, notably Xenophon's Anabasis and Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica. They surprised Greek visitors because they regarded love and procreation to be public goods that could be practiced outdoors, while they regarded commerce to be dirty and shameful, something to be practiced indoors. But I take it South Dakota is more like the Greeks than the Mossynoecians.
To which I reply--in appeal to the Christians of South Dakota, at least--the scriptures condemn those who make poisons to kill other people for profit. Why then should we offer them a special protection here in our state?
The answer appears to be that if the producers' names become public, they may be shamed into no longer selling human-killing drugs. What they do may be legal, but let them at least face the scrutiny of the marketplace.
If you're ashamed of what you sell, maybe you shouldn't sell it any more.
*****
Unless you're Mossynoecians, that is. The Mossynoecians are mentioned in several ancient texts, notably Xenophon's Anabasis and Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica. They surprised Greek visitors because they regarded love and procreation to be public goods that could be practiced outdoors, while they regarded commerce to be dirty and shameful, something to be practiced indoors. But I take it South Dakota is more like the Greeks than the Mossynoecians.
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* ("Dmesis" is a Greek word that means "taming," or "breaking.")
Charles Peirce on Criminal Justice
I have posted briefly about Peirce's interest in criminal justice before. I haven't time to comment on it extensively now, so for now I will post this link to his piece entitled "Dmesis"* and these brief comments:
More than once commentators on Peirce's Pragmatism have argued that he does not pay attention to politics or to political, social, and ethical theory. This piece is not alone in refuting that thesis. It would be more accurate to say that for Peirce, it is impossible to treat social and ethical issues apart from the rest of his philosophy. Peirce was a synechist, which means he held that ideas are not independent atoms of thought but interdependent and interconnected with one another. Ideas affect one another.
More than once commentators on Peirce's Pragmatism have argued that he does not pay attention to politics or to political, social, and ethical theory. This piece is not alone in refuting that thesis. It would be more accurate to say that for Peirce, it is impossible to treat social and ethical issues apart from the rest of his philosophy. Peirce was a synechist, which means he held that ideas are not independent atoms of thought but interdependent and interconnected with one another. Ideas affect one another.
One great implication of this is that just as one idea affects another in our private thinking, so our personal beliefs affect other persons. Our ideas are not atoms, and neither are we. The foundation of ethics, and of all philosophy, is agape, or love. As Peirce wrote elsewhere,
“He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the whole world, is illogical in all his inferences, collectively.”
Peirce makes the especially trenchant observation that if we really cared about criminals, then our criminal justice system would make positive habituation a guiding principle in the housing and treatment of prisoners. I'm willing to concede that Peirce may not be right in all he says here, but this point seems spot on: it is inconsistent to habituate people to prison life if our aim is to return them to society.
Peirce's conclusion in the third paragraph also seems right: the fact is, we imprison people "because we detest them."
* ("Dmesis" is a Greek word that means "taming," or "breaking.")
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Crime, Punishment, and the Great Community
How should we treat criminals? "The reply is: Treat them as if you loved them."
-- Charles S. Peirce, 4 May, 1892
-- Charles S. Peirce, 4 May, 1892