| I am not very concerned with immediate effects, but with the long term effects of eroding responsibility. Nevertheless, I think that the punishment helps to make the criminal whole, if he accepts that he deserved it. In other words, I think that there is a penitential aspect of punishment, as a way of dealing with guilt and resolving to make something of oneself. Obviously, it is not foolproof, but there are a number of people who come to Christ or Allah in the "big house", as part of a program of personal reform. As for crimes not committed out of malice, by definition, a crime is malicious. It is not, that is, a matter of feeling, but of will. Assuming that one recognizes the difference between right and wrong, and have a choice, to deliberately choose the wrong is to act out of malice. It is true that the law recognizes less responsible states, for example, acting in the heat of the moment, without deliberation, but even that entails failing at a reasonable expectation of discretion and self- control, and therefore is similar in degree of responsibility to the malice standard----- that is, one behaved with gross recklessness or negligence, in self- abandonment, which one should know better than to do....... |
