There are at least four reasons we punish criminals: retribution, rehabilitation, prevention, and deterrence. We punish criminals out of a sense that this is just, regardless of the other effects. This is an emotional idea, but it is still useful to ensure a peaceful society: A society that citizens viewed as grossly unjust, in which criminals did not pay for their crimes, would be unstable and likely violent, full of vigilantes. The benefits of rehabilitation are obvious. This makes it unfortunate that that particular aspect usually takes a back seat to the other three. Prevention simply involves keeping dangerous people off the streets so they cannot re-offend. It is 100% certain (for that individual, obviously), but also, if permanent, removes the chance of rehabilitation and is quite sad, really. Prison is also horrendously expensive: It costs around $30,000 per inmate per year!*
The final aspect is deterrence: the idea that those who might be contemplating a crime are more likely to decide against it if there's a decent chance they will be caught and face unacceptable punishment. The approach to this in America has been "more is better": if short prison stays deter some, longer ones must deter more, right? Right, but only partly. There are at least two problems. The first: the longer prison sentences become, the less differences between them matter and the more abstract they are. One year in prison is surely a lot worse than six months. But what happens when we're talking 15 years versus 25? Sure, 25 is a lot more awful to contemplate than 15, but 15 horrendous years facing possible physical and mental violence on a daily basis is almost to horrible for most of us to contemplate. Those undeterred by that are those tough enough to excel at prison life. If that doesn't deter them, do we really think those last 10 years would make the difference? Studies suggest they do not.
The second problem is related to the first: From the beginning, criminologists have argued that different severities of crimes must carry different severities of punishment. This is not just fair, it also serves an important purpose in deterring violent crimes in particular. To see why, imagine you are robbing a someone's home. They are not home, but you are armed with a gun (after all, they might have one, too, and you may need to protect yourself). I've surveyed a few websites about penalties, but it's complicated, so this is purely illustrative. This would be armed burglary, I guess, which carries a sentence of something like 5 years for your first offence. If you've bee caught before, it could be longer. Let's say it's double. Now, the owner walks in with a gun. You cannot run, or he may shoot. You point the gun back at him, potentially adding another 10 years to your sentence. Your only options now are to surrender, and face at least 10 but possibly even 20 years in prison, or kill him and face 25, but only if you are caught. In the spur and fear of the moment, it is more likely your personal attitude towards killing will make a bigger difference than 5-10 years more in prison, the prospect of which is anyway offset by the fact that you may be able to get away scot free if you commit murder. It may be that the difference between theft, threatening violence, committing violence, and committing murder is not great enough and not optimal. Many European countries have much shorter prison sentences combined with lower rates of violent crime.
Sure, there are lots of reasons for this: greater social spending probably makes people less likely to commit crimes. The lack of guns in Europe is a big reason for reduced gun crime (and higher rates of knife crime in the UK, at least). This is not THE answer, just an illustration of the idea that lower prison sentences are not always "soft on crime." In fact, they may sometimes even reduce it. Plow some of those savings into greater rehabilitation and education efforts, and crime and re-offending could fall further, saving more money and making everyone better off again. Some Republican states are already trying such things and the results are promising. In that regard, at least, more really is better.
*As a tangent, I would argue that, since many criminals end up in crime due to low educational prospects and opportunities, it would be cheaper and perhaps more effective to send them to (community) college! At least then they would emerge from their time with better job prospects, not worse ones. They'd then be less likely to re-offed, saving money, and they'd earn more, paying the government more in taxes. Massive savings all around and a life saved from wasting away uselessly in prison.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
Is pushing people with intolerant views to resign just another form of intolerance?
When the CEO of Mozilla recently stepped down amid anger about his political views, many on the political left and right worried that this was a sign of intolerance, a sort of totalitarian progressivism. Is it?
Philosophers call it the “paradox of tolerance”: defending tolerance may require intolerance of intolerance. Is this liberalism turning illiberal?
Liberal democracies like the United States protect citizens’ freedom of speech, religion, and conscience. So you should be free to argue against gay marriage, right? Absolutely, at least as far as the government and laws are concerned. You are also free to believe and argue that all blacks should be deported to Africa if you like. Being a bigot is not a crime. But that doesn’t mean others cannot be angered by your beliefs and protest against them. Legal rights and protections put limits on the government, not the people. Views the majority in society see as distasteful will be punished in the court of public opinion. You are not protected from the consequences of your speech, only from the government trying to suppress it. That majority may be wrong, of course, but more on that below.
The second problem is when people say things like “isn’t pushing a person out of a job because of his/her beliefs just as bad as doing the same to a gay person?” Frankly, no. Sexuality, like race, sex, gender, physical capabilities, ethnicity, etc. are immutable aspects of identity. They are NOT beliefs. Arguing with someone, pushing them out of a job, refusing them service, etc. on the basis of their identity is discrimination. It is unfair, unjustified, and unjustifiable in most circumstances (you may want a black actor to play a black role in a movie, so there are a few exceptions, of course). Beliefs are changeable and, unlike identities, they may be harmful to others.
The harm caused by beliefs is how we judge where to draw lines. This is highly problematic, however. Throughout history, people have been harassed, cast out of societies, and even killed because they held beliefs that challenged the status quo. This continues today, though in “liberal” countries people, thankfully, are usually not killed for their beliefs. We rightly condemn racist beliefs. We also limit freedom of religion and speech when these may harm others, for example when Christian Scientists deny their children life-saving medical treatment or when fundamentalists incite violence in the name of their god(s).
But people have been treated poorly for all manner of beliefs many in society thought were harmful at the time. Where do we draw the line? The test is harm. Does preventing gays from marrying cause harm? Those effected would surely say so (take me, who was prevented for 10 years from moving back to my home country due to marriage and immigration discrimination). Does believing the sun is at the center of the solar system? Not directly, but if it spread, it would damage the progress of knowledge that benefits humanity. Likewise, creationism is not harmful unless it spreads by being taught to children who are then deprived of a proper education. You are thus free to teach your children creationism, but the government should not teach things for which there is a consensus that they are not true. At the same time, such beliefs should not be “respected” in the sense that they remain unchallenged. This is how a liberal society functions.
What do I mean by “challenge”? The judgment about which beliefs are harmful will always, to some extent, be subjective and relative to current social conditions. Try as we might, we cannot escape the societal context in which we exist and cannot see things completely “objectively.” Harm is a good guiding principle, but it is imperfect. In most cases, the best move is to counter ideas rather than people. The best way to do that is through open debate. This means exercising our right to free speech to call out things we consider harmful. Beyond what the law says, however, we also need to listen and take time to consider.
As for Eich, a gay commentator on the Colbert Report, an American comedy talk show with a large following, recently opined that protesting against and boycotting the state of Arizona for its proposed anti-gay law was OK, but suggested that what happened to Eich was not. In fact, Mozilla customers angry about its CEO’s political views protested and boycotted, exercising their rights to free speech and their economic right to choose. There was nothing illiberal about it. A portion of the United States has come to realize that preventing same-sex couples from marrying is just as wrong as preventing any other two consenting adults from doing so. Saying otherwise is increasingly indefensible (literally: there are no good reasons for it, that side has lost the debate). That is free speech and open debate in action, resulting in intolerance of an intolerant view. A liberal democracy in action, in other words.
Philosophers call it the “paradox of tolerance”: defending tolerance may require intolerance of intolerance. Is this liberalism turning illiberal?
Liberal democracies like the United States protect citizens’ freedom of speech, religion, and conscience. So you should be free to argue against gay marriage, right? Absolutely, at least as far as the government and laws are concerned. You are also free to believe and argue that all blacks should be deported to Africa if you like. Being a bigot is not a crime. But that doesn’t mean others cannot be angered by your beliefs and protest against them. Legal rights and protections put limits on the government, not the people. Views the majority in society see as distasteful will be punished in the court of public opinion. You are not protected from the consequences of your speech, only from the government trying to suppress it. That majority may be wrong, of course, but more on that below.
The second problem is when people say things like “isn’t pushing a person out of a job because of his/her beliefs just as bad as doing the same to a gay person?” Frankly, no. Sexuality, like race, sex, gender, physical capabilities, ethnicity, etc. are immutable aspects of identity. They are NOT beliefs. Arguing with someone, pushing them out of a job, refusing them service, etc. on the basis of their identity is discrimination. It is unfair, unjustified, and unjustifiable in most circumstances (you may want a black actor to play a black role in a movie, so there are a few exceptions, of course). Beliefs are changeable and, unlike identities, they may be harmful to others.
The harm caused by beliefs is how we judge where to draw lines. This is highly problematic, however. Throughout history, people have been harassed, cast out of societies, and even killed because they held beliefs that challenged the status quo. This continues today, though in “liberal” countries people, thankfully, are usually not killed for their beliefs. We rightly condemn racist beliefs. We also limit freedom of religion and speech when these may harm others, for example when Christian Scientists deny their children life-saving medical treatment or when fundamentalists incite violence in the name of their god(s).
But people have been treated poorly for all manner of beliefs many in society thought were harmful at the time. Where do we draw the line? The test is harm. Does preventing gays from marrying cause harm? Those effected would surely say so (take me, who was prevented for 10 years from moving back to my home country due to marriage and immigration discrimination). Does believing the sun is at the center of the solar system? Not directly, but if it spread, it would damage the progress of knowledge that benefits humanity. Likewise, creationism is not harmful unless it spreads by being taught to children who are then deprived of a proper education. You are thus free to teach your children creationism, but the government should not teach things for which there is a consensus that they are not true. At the same time, such beliefs should not be “respected” in the sense that they remain unchallenged. This is how a liberal society functions.
What do I mean by “challenge”? The judgment about which beliefs are harmful will always, to some extent, be subjective and relative to current social conditions. Try as we might, we cannot escape the societal context in which we exist and cannot see things completely “objectively.” Harm is a good guiding principle, but it is imperfect. In most cases, the best move is to counter ideas rather than people. The best way to do that is through open debate. This means exercising our right to free speech to call out things we consider harmful. Beyond what the law says, however, we also need to listen and take time to consider.
As for Eich, a gay commentator on the Colbert Report, an American comedy talk show with a large following, recently opined that protesting against and boycotting the state of Arizona for its proposed anti-gay law was OK, but suggested that what happened to Eich was not. In fact, Mozilla customers angry about its CEO’s political views protested and boycotted, exercising their rights to free speech and their economic right to choose. There was nothing illiberal about it. A portion of the United States has come to realize that preventing same-sex couples from marrying is just as wrong as preventing any other two consenting adults from doing so. Saying otherwise is increasingly indefensible (literally: there are no good reasons for it, that side has lost the debate). That is free speech and open debate in action, resulting in intolerance of an intolerant view. A liberal democracy in action, in other words.
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