Subject:
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Re: Abortion, consistent with the LP stance? (Re: From Harry Browne
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 16 Nov 2000 11:14:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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1205 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> > I still suspect that if someone can be hardened, they can be softened.
>
> An optimistic notion, to be sure, but I don't know that it's consistent with
> reality. The process by which someone becomes hardened into a life of crime
> is insidious and *very* long term (or at least potentially so); I cannot
> imagine, nor has anyone to date imagined, a process by which criminals are
> fully reclaimed from such lives with any more than anecdotal success.
I expect that if it takes them a long time to harden, it will take at least as
long to soften. And ultimately, I don't know how to do what I'm suggesting.
If you can arrange stewardship over a prison and a somewhat increased budget
with which to experiment, I'll give it a go, though.
> Are you advocating forcible "behavior modification" against the will of a
> mentally competent but criminal adult? Or are you assuming that anyone who
> pursues a life of crime is mental imbalanced?
I suppose that I am suggesting forcible behavior modification. It seems that
in most cases it would be less cruel than a life imprisonment. I dunno. I
just asked myself, would I rather have to replace one third of my personality
with one chosen by the state, or live in prison for the rest of my life, and I
can't answer clearly. On the other hand, I have opted to keep my life of crime
so petty (or so well disguised) that I'm not facing prison and have never even
been officially arrested.
> If you're suggesting the former, I don't know how such a suggestion is
> morally any better than theft, rape, or murder, since it presumes to alter a
> person's mentality against that person's will.
I guess I would use the same reasoning that anyone could use to justify the
slavery that we currently employ. They checked their rights at the door. They
chose (or whatever) to puruse their violence and this is the repercussion. Now
that I've laid it out, I'm uncomfortable with it, but it still seems like an
improvement; the lesser of two evils.
[snip]
> > One who is unrepentent, is either innocent, or broken. If they are broken
> > they require mental therapy. Once they no longer require such therapy,
> > they will want to make amends.
>
> I'm not sure what to make of this statement, because it's amazingly
> naive and I know that you're not naive. You're stating, in effect, that
> everyone either:
>
> A:) wants to be what society calls productive
> B:) would want to be what society calls productive if they weren't "broken"
>
> this is self-fulfilling reasoning unless you include:
>
> C:) some people aren't "broken" and nonetheless don't want to be • "productive"
>
> A great number of criminials, I suspect, fall into this final category and
> would not be redeemed by any proposed system of rehabilitation, and certainly
> not by any yet put forth in history.
I believe that people would generally rather do what is "right" than what is
"wrong." So people not doing right either don't know how to be successful and
still avoid doing wrong, or are broken. As far as productivity goes, at least
until some crime is committed, each person has the freedom to be as productive
or not, as they want. I'm not at all advocating basing their treatment on the
degree to which they want to be productive just in general. I'm talking about
treating them based on their inability to see right and wrong, and to chose
right.
I think the first things done with a newly confined prisoner, is to begin
psychological screening, and to start teaching them how to work effectively
enough that they don't have to take from others. To whatever extent the
prisoner is willing to learn a better way than they knew before, they should be
helped and this in turn will help them to make ammends for their crimes. If
they don't see that right is right, then they need therapy until they do. I am
not a psychiatrist, so I don't know the full range of what that therapy might
take, and probably there are tons of techniqes as yet undiscovered.
> > > How would a system accomodate and/or treat the criminal who is literally
> > > unrepentant and who truly has no intention of working off his debt?
> >
> > Help him to see that working off his debt is the right course of action.
>
> Help in what way? And what if he still refuses to work it off? I'm not
> trying to sound nitpicky, but this seems fundamental to your stance on
> rehabilitation.
I agree that it is fundamental. I think that most of the people are not
broken, but have lost their way. Society (their schools, their parents,
whatever) did not show them how to find peace in our system.
One element of showing the way is to enable them with profitable skills.
Prisons barely do this now, but they fail to provide all kinds of important
corrollary skills such as providing a free-like atmosphere in which the
prisoners also learn things like the importance of being on time to work.
I think that prisoners can be taught, like school children, to value
their empathy. Either their native empathy was driven out of them by the
system (cruel kids, cruel parents, cruel teachers and school systems) or
hurting people hurts them, and they're likely to not ever have found their way
to prison. I suppose it's also possible that they're empathic, but a hot-head
and just acted rashly. (That would explain me in prison if it ever were to
happen.) But those people would already be willing to work off their debt.
And generally, a nurturing atmosphere is needed. Not bootcamp. Kindness
begats kindness. You will never fix people by abusing them. Never. I don't
and can't know that my system (with lots more details worked out, obviously)
will work, but I know for sure that the current paradigm sucks.
Chris
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: What about all the prisoners?
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| (...) I'm still not comfortable with this, since it suggests "choose to conform or we'll make you choose to conform to society's ideals" in a way every bit as totalitarian as the Big Brother states of which Libertopia is the antithesis. (I know you (...) (24 years ago, 16-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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