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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (136871)	6/17/2004 5:36:36 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Respond to of 281500

Jacob, the question of how and why we punish is not a simple one. There are so many competing issues that it is difficult to view punishments for various crimes and then draw fine distinctions or, conversely, make broad assumptions with respect to the "justice" of our justice system. One thing that is crystal clear, however, is that those who make our laws clearly assign less approbation to the kinds of violations that are more common to their peers than they do to those that are more common to those who they perceive as beneath them in terms of economic, social and political success. In addition, those who enforce the laws seem clearly inclined to empathize with and exercise leniency with respect to violators that live like them, look like them and share their values. The bottom line is that, in most instances, it's not a good thing to be accused or convicted of a crime in America if you are "different" from those with their fingers on the penal "triggers." Even aside from that sad fact there are, however, all kinds of complex considerations that go into the determination of why we punish and how severely we punish. The considerations include the level of abhorrence we feel for the crime itself, our expectation of the reasonable needs of the victims to be "revenged," and the expected beneficial deterrent effect the punishment will have on preventing future crimes of that nature. Looking at the death penalty crimes, some people argue that revenge should play little or no role in punishment but the fact is that if society doesn't exact a proper measure of revenge, then the victims or the law enforcement people will often exact that revenge through extrajudicial means. The merits of that argument are like arguing religion; no matter how long and hard you discuss it you end up at the same starting point with no one's mind changed. Another really tough one to quantify is the "deterrent" justification. I know that you don't believe that state-sponsored killing is the answer, and you may be right. While some people claim that the death penalty deters those who might otherwise commit such crimes, there are all kinds of studies which go both ways. For me it's more of a "some people don't deserve to live and consume resources that could go for better purposes" rationale. I'm not married to religious, moral or pragmatic beliefs that would prevent me from accepting executions, but I would support a necessary finding that required an even higher level of certainty in the guilt of the accused than is presently required before a death sentence can be carried out. I guess my original point is that morality and punishment overlap but that because of other valid interests of society, there is not, and has not been, a need to harness the two together in order to achieve "justice."