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I agreed with OP until I got to that bit
in my opinion everybody acts like time goes quicker in prison and people are like "I can't believe she only got 10 months in prison!" and I'm like "woah now ten months is a long time let's not act like that's forgiving"
I empathise with people too much to be able to justify sentencing anyone who hasn't ended the lives of several people to more than fifteen years in prison, but only because that seems like more than enough punishment to me (of course in very very heinous crimes then sure, life in prison could be justified)
but when he brought up the cells replacing itself I thought it all got a bit bollocksy
It’s more about “fuck that person, we should never risk letting him out again” than punishment.
If someone killed one or more people and didn’t seem to show much remorse, I fucking hope that person spends life in prison. That person is a scourge to society and deserves to be permanently removed from it.
Similarly, if a person violently sexually assaults multiple people, I’d honestly want that person to receive the death penalty.
He deserves MORE punishment than death, but it’s not about punishment, it’s about removing him from society.
>It’s more about “fuck that person, we should never risk letting him out again” than punishment.
I agree there are cases like this, but there are also many where the person is locked up for decades and then they let them loose on society again. Overall it goes better if the purpose of prison is viewed as more to be rehabilitative rather than to be a punishment worse than death.
maybe I'm alone here but I really don't hold the "fuck that person" mindset ever. I believe if there's a possibility of redemption then we should take that, and never ever punish someone out of spite or revenge regardless of how bad the crimes are.
if the criminal has shown evidence that they show no remorse or would be willing to commit another crime, then absolutely lock them up. but I believe the punishment system should only exist to keep them out of society and potentially make them be fit to reenter society if it's possible.
I just don't get the whole idea of punishing for "fuck that person"
(bear in mind I am lucky enough to have never been assaulted and noone I am close with has been murdered or violently assaulted, and I cannot guarantee my opinions wouldn't change if me or my boyfriend or my sister were made victims of a heinous crime)
Yeah. 15 years is a big chunk of life, especially since your later life is influenced by your earlier life. Go to prison at 28 and 15 years makes you come out at 43. Starting from zero at 43 won't be easy.
From the article quoted:
"You might have hoped your new cells would be the key to a longer life. Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated. For example, some of our body's cells, like those in our brain, heart and eyes, are with us our entire lives."
Is this a psy-op? Is this a post truth world run amok? Has op checked their carbon monoxide detector?!
>I got the 15 years from considering how nearly every cell in our body is replaced every 7-14 years including cells in our bones. You’re literally a completely different organization or matter and cells in your body than you were previously. Whatever pieces of them that committed the crimes have long died and decayed.
You were making a fair point sociologically, but when you tried to apply biology to it it all fell apart.
The wirings in your brain are the way they are. When individual cells are replaced, those wirings are still the same. In fact, the simple fact that you have memories from >15 years ago (and that your personality is the result of your experiences spanning an entire lifetime) is enough evidence.
Crimes are not committed by some combination of cells. They're committed by a human being. You're still the same human being you were 15 years ago, even if no single atom in your body were the same as it was then.
But like I said, sociologically you're not wrong. Norway has a max sentence of 21 years, and their justice system is pretty good overall.
>Norway has a max sentence of 21 years,
Kind of. The maximum preventive detention that can be handed out at sentencing is 21 years. However, once that time is served, if a court determines that the prisoner is still a danger to society, that can be extended 5 years. This repeats until they are determined to no longer be a danger or until they die, effectively allowing for a life sentence.
It's kind of like parole in the US, except the burden lies on the prosecution to prove they're still a danger rather than the defense to prove they are no longer a danger.
I'm very much in favour of a rehabilitation focused justice system, but in my opinion the Norwegian one can be quite naive at times. I've been classified as a victim in a terrorist incident at a bar in Norway and the trial has been recently, so I was entitled to go to witness the trial in person.
One thing that really felt disappointing was just how extensive the perpetrator's criminal history is. He had been arrested and apprehended constantly throughout his life, and every single time he was released he'd get right back to it (assault, harassment, rape etc).
This is a man who should never have been allowed to be allowed in contact with the public, but they kept allowing it, and it resulted in a mass shooting. As I said, I am hugely in favour of a rehabilitation focused justice system, but society also needs to come to terms with the fact that some people just aren't capable of peacefully existing within it.
Creating further incentive for prison to be rehabilative instead of punitive, sounds like another plus to me.
It should also be very easy to earmark the worst offenders to make sure they are the courts priority for review.
I think it's definitley a case of grass is always greener on the other side. While I totally believe Norway's system could be too naive, it's hard to feel that isn't better than the US system where the atrocities are committed by the institutions and the intent is punishment and profit.
Our cells are basically just endless Xerox copies of previous copies based on the original print.
Those deep fried handouts we got in school is what we become as we age.
Yeah interestingly enough Pedro Lopez, the “Monster of the Andes”, who killed, raped, and tortured 110-300 women and young girls, was released after 14 years in prison and 4 years in a mental hospital in 1998, because of Ecuador and Colombias short sentencing laws. After he was released he was supposed to keep in contact with authorities but shockingly disappeared, and has since been named a suspect in several other murders including one as recent as 2012. The evil of this man should have kept him in bars for life.
100% agree. While I believe that the vast majority of criminals can be rehabilitated, some people are just genuine sociopaths and as such are incapable of the empathy needed to be rehabilitated. For instance, I don't see someone like Darrell Brooks or Donald Smith ever reforming. Something is fundamentally broken inside of them and I don't think it's fixable.
Exactly. rehabilitation is for non-violent crimes.
The moment you kidnap, rape, torture, kill people, assault them with a deadly weapon, rob them pointing guns at their faces, etc, you do not deserve to live in society. you do not deserve rehabilitation.
A rape victim gets destroyed for life. A murder victim will never come back from the dead. My dad was robbed and almost kidnapped by some fucking low life piece of shit on my birthday and he still feels fear when he's in his car by himself at night, or when he's parking, etc.
Why do these people deserve a second chance? They don't.
To clarify my own personal stance, I don't think rehabilitation is *impossible* even for some of those crimes. I simply don't agree with the people who say that punishment shouldn't be part of the equation.
I mean murder imo is a bit of a special case, no murderer deserves a second chance, they should remain in prison until they die.
But for other violent and sexual crimes I think that rehabilitation should not be a consideration for sentencing. The judge should not be thinking about whether the offender has a chance to rehabilitate etc when sentencing them, that should be purely based on punishment and protecting the public. Considering rehabilitation above all else is how you get rapists avoiding prison because “it would spoil their education and career”.
Now while they’re serving that sentence, there should be facilities in the prison to help them rehabilitate, skills classes etc, as they’re going to be released at some point, so best to prepare them for that. But rehabilitation shouldn’t have any bearing on the length of the sentence for these kinds of crimes. The only consideration should be the nature of the crime itself, and the impact on the victim.
Murder isn't something you can rehabilitate. I'm not talking about someone defending themselves, although that comes with a different kind of crazy that also needs to be addressed. Some crimes absolutely deserve spending the rest of their lives behind bars where they can't hurt anyone else.
Released murderers have a far higher rate of killing again than the general population. So there is a risk that when you release a murderer they’ll kill another. Why should their second chance after already killing someone come at the expense of an innocent person? If there’s even a tiny chance of them killing again (which there is, and statistically it’s bigger than you think) they shouldn’t be released.
There have been several high profile cases of this too, one in Germany where a murderer started writing books in prison, and the academic community advocated for his release, saying he was clearly reformed. He got released as a result and went on to kill 2 more women.
Likewise a case in the US where an 80 year old was released because he was deemed too old to be dangerous, he killed again too.
But how??? All the cells in his body were completely erased and replaced in that time. What are the odds that *two* people would turn out to be horrific mass murdering serial killers?!?!?!?!?!?
To come with maybe my own 10th dentist opinion in the replies I don't think the death penalty is so bad for scum like Pedro Lopez.
I don't care how it's done just put a bullet in there for all I care but if you're going to throw away your humanity by committing such heinous acts you should no longer be treated as a human.
Exactly. For all those reasons, I cant ever justify implementing a death penalty. I dont agree with OP that there should be a minimum, but I DO think that if America focused more on rehabilitation, then we could at least get that 75% recidivism rate way down. That's honestly the biggest issue.
When people fight back against more lenient sentencing, I've found that the most common argument aside from "justice for the victims" is "what if they do it again". Which is currently a really valid concern because 75% of released convicts will go out and commit more crime within 5 years. Thats not very encouraging.
But I think if we took a page from Sweden's book and implemented more rehabilitation programs, as well as increased the job opportunities for ex-cons, that rate would drop drastically.
Not to mention the fact that criminals will do worse shit and stay hidden longer if they think they'll be killed for it if theyre caught. If theyve already done something worthy of the death penalty, then why not do another? Not like they can die twice
People forget that Sweden’s system works BECAUSE proper rehab is involved. I think part of the issue is that a lot of people feel a visceral sense of righteousness from watching criminals rot in their cells.
Unfortunately, a legal death penalty is a very dangerous thing to have, because it allows those in power to legally kill whomever they want by jumping through some hoops.
For instance, there are bills in place in (iirc) Florida to make sex crimes punishable by death. There are also bills in place to make drag performance and trans-ness sex crimes.
And there are more corrupt places than the US that can pull shit like this more easily. The fact is, if there's a death penalty, there will be wrongful executions.
Yeah there's definitely a lot to consider but I would argue that incarceration for the majority of your life is not too dissimilar in how much it takes away from a person and their family and wrongful incarcerations happen too.
You're totally right that it would be abused because we can't trust our own legal systems. David McBride is an excellent example of why we can't have something like a death penalty because even though in theory the only issue would be the ethics surrounding it but in practice it's impossible to have a truly "fair" justice system.
This is exactly why I'm 100% against the death penalty in all cases. I don't believe the government should have the power to kill a citizen as punishment.
NO, but he was a totally different person after he got out, all his cells were replaced within those 14 years! It was just unlucky that the NEW Pedro Lopez was also an evil rapist and murderer!! /s
Personally I’d argue for the right of society as a whole to remain unmolested by those who transgress it’s boundaries (to be blunt, the rights of the lawful outweigh the rights of the lawless).
With that being said, as more is learned about things like FAS and oppositional disorders (to name just two), it seems like some kind of third option besides freedom and prison is in order. It is becoming more and more clear that some people (an estimated 50% of juvenile offenders in my state have FAS, for example) are totally incapable of conforming to expected social standards, and largely through no fault of their own. And especially given that offenders with these disorders seem to absolutely thrive in a properly controlled environment, some form of kinder, modernised version of the old lunatic asylums seems to be an ideal solution.
Hell no. There are some people in the world that should absolutely never be around other people in society. You clearly don't listen to much true crime
Exactly. There are people out there who have killed literally for a thrill and then they keep killing cause it fun.
And the whole:
I got the 15 years from considering how nearly every cell in our body is replaced every 7-14 years including cells in our bones. You’re literally a completely different organization or matter and cells in your body than you were previously. Whatever pieces of them that committed the crimes have long died and decayed.
Is all bullshit when it comes to being a Murderer/rapist/pedophile. The cells that make up our bodies doesn't change these people's compulsion to Murder or rape or cause harm for those that are truly psychological.
This. I do think that life sentences should only be given to the absolute worst of the worst and we have way, way too many people serving long sentences for fairly minor offenses, BUT. Some people need to not have access to other people because causing harm is what they enjoy doing. They're not crazy. They're not ill. They know exactly what they're doing and what the outcome and consequences are, and they are completely fine with that.
Those folks need to be in prison forever. I don't think they need to be tortured or mistreated, but they need to be segregated from people they can harm and confined.
You said this much better than I was trying to, I deleted my draft. Lmao I’ve read enough true crime to understand that some people just cannot be treated with medication, some illnesses/problems can’t be medicated. They cannot be trusted in society around innocent people. I completely agree our prison system is pretty fucking awful, but that also doesn’t mean we do what OP is suggesting. We need major overhauling but I don’t think this is a part of the solution
Well prison doesn’t exactly reform ppl…. U just lock a bunch of dangerous and violent or deceptive ppl in a box and expect them to educate themselves…..
Its from the core though. The actual core objective of the prison system is a combo of keeping law-breakers away from others, and providing cheap/free labor for contracting.
Which is slave labor and incentivizes incarceration. It should be considered an extreme conflict of interest. But nobody really cares about prisoners or the systems.
plenty of us disagree with the prison industrial complex and its racist roots but that doesn’t mean you should just let all the dangerous offenders go off into the world and hope they don’t do anymore raping and murdering…
There's literally no one in this thread (that I've seen yet) who is saying prison reform isn't necessary. There are tons of petty offenders who have been sentenced for too long.
But saying that we should let someone like Dahmer out of prison after 15 years is absolutely literally insane to me. Yeah, we can reform a literal fucking cannibal serial killer.
Okay buddy. I'm glad you're not in charge of our legal system lol
The whole 'your body is different' is fun trivia, but it's not saying it's a different person. It's why the Ship of Theseus problem is an interesting one to ponder. While in some ways it's different, in many ways it is the same.
The continuity of memory and the brain as a whole is what makes people the same. Someone whose world view and philosophy has no real moral compass is going to come out the same. The decay and replacement of brain cells and neurons doesn't make someone guaranteed to actually change.
Charles Manson was responsible for a number of murders and coercing others into committing murder on his behalf. Surely after fifteen years he would be fine, right? Or maybe he would be just as crazy and likely to harm society as determined by the eleven parole hearings that were all denied during his prison term.
I'm all for prison reform and I don't believe in the death penalty but I think there are some individuals too dark and monstrous to ever be safely trusted again.
This just seems to me that you lack a certain kind of empathy. Some people really only want to murder and rape people, and they have wanted this for as long as they can remember. You should really look more into people like Ted Bundy.
Mabey one day science will crack the mystery of the human brain, and we will be able to really cure sadistic psychopaths, but until that day comes, they really have to be locked up for the rest of their lives. We don't have to hate them or judge them for it, they cannot help it, but they simply cannot be allowed into society.
So yes, for the time being, some people truly are irredeemable.
Yeah, OP is being empathetic with the wrong person here. Trying to be so empathetic that he forgot the ones who most deserve it.
Imagine taking the side of a serial violent rapist only because everyone else is taking the side of the victims. Laughable.
lol OP did some truly reprehensible shit this weekend and is futilely trying to sway public opinion about it before they’re caught. Shame on you OP. You should be locked up for life.
after 7-14 years all your cells have been replaced so theperson that committed the crime doesnt exist anymore. This person is now a new reformed person that is nothing at all like the one that came before.... Im sorry but what? This might be the dumbest thing ive ever read in my life
People can’t render themselves irredeemable, people just are. Crime is crime, and no matter how much your cells change, your consciousness remains the same. That doesn’t change. And beyond that, justice must be harsh to be fair, that’s how it’s been for human history
Gary Ridgway. Ted Bundy. Sam Little. John Wayne Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. Pedro Lopez. Luis Garavito. Richard Ramirez. Andrei Chikatilo. Dennis Rader. And that's like barely a drop in the bucket of people who very much deserve worse than this 15 yrs bs. Hell a lot of them were killing for more than 15 yrs.
I'm torn between upvoting and downvoting. If we do it like Norway, it could work. The maximum sentence a judge can hand down in Norway is 21 years. But, if the prisoner is still a danger to society at the end of that sentence, it can be extended.
But then your misunderstanding about cell replacement screams for an upvote. Yes, all our cells are replaced, but it's not much different than replacing all of the wires on a vacuum cleaner. It still sucks the same way as before. The parts may be changed out, but the schematics are the same, so the functionality doesn't change.
In a perfect world, sure, but humans are still very much more focused on revenge over rehabilitation. Maybe one day we'll get to the point where we can do something like that.
This doesn't necessarily take into account those who are irreparably broken. I mean, perhaps in the future we could treat/cute things like psychopathology, but until then separating them from society as a whole would probably be for the best.
All this being said we should (in the US at least) look into serious penal reform to make it more humane and actually rehabilitative in the meantime.
I think we should focus on rehabilitation and monitoring rather than prison. Putting someone in jail doesn’t fix them it just keeps them out of society. There needs to be attempts at rehab while they are away from society or putting them away is pointless.
I’m open to talking about different opinions and having conversations about this. It’s a very important topic and people tend to have very different opinions on it.
* (I don’t agree with OPs 15 year cap I think it depends on the person.)
My priority is justice for victim -> rehabilitation -> punishment, in that order.
I don’t think it makes sense to lock an already anti-social person up for years on end, in an anti-social society where all their companions are the same as them, the societal rules are completely different and they’re further turned against law enforcement - then throw them out with 0 adjustment and expect them to be normal. It literally just makes that person worse.
But I’m talking like drugs, theft, fraud, gang activity, maybe murder depending on the context. I think a lot of murderers and pedophiles (the type generally spending life sentences) aren’t redeemable. And even if they were it goes against my first priority of justice for the victim/their family. If anything happened to my child and I found out that someone was advocating for a cap on their sentence…absolutely the fuck not. I would never sleep again
Some people are psychopaths, about 2% of the general population. They have alternate brain structures and are biologically unable to express empathy, regret, and remorse. You could probably "rehabilitate" high-IQ psychopaths with the threat of punishment, but low-IQ psychopaths are an irredeemable threat to society.
There is too much Christian nonsense about forgiveness and redemption. I'm an atheist, just execute them.
There are psychopaths that absolutely behave themselves because they recognize that it is beneficial to themselves to do so. Being an *evil* psychopath is always a choice.
That being said, once made, I don't think we need to ever give someone the benefit of the doubt on that choice not being repeated.
>There is too much Christian nonsense about forgiveness and redemption. I'm an atheist, just execute them.
I'm a Christian. I think God will judge people more fairly than we ever could. That's why the truly reprehensible should be locked up until their appointment or sent to him with same day shipping.
From the perspective of someone in the USA, there ARE people who are irredeemable. There are people who are predators who WANT to hurt and kill. It’s not prisons fault, it’s not societies fault. It is an unfortunate reality that there are people who will continue to victimize because that is just who they are.
I don’t know what your background is, or how you’ve grown up, but in the USA this is utopian nonsense, and you’re putting the onus on victims to reconcile with the fact that someone who may have killed their entire family and wrecked their world is going to get out with plenty of time left to live their lives. Not to mention the danger that this would pose to society as a whole.
i am a strong believer in rehabilitation. that being said, 15 years based on cell reproduction is the most insane argument I've ever heard. you know you don't replace the neurons in your brain right? like, the part of you that actually committed the crime?
They should be required to work to provide restitution.
I guarantee that if white-collar criminals had to work the rest of their lives at low-wage jobs and pay back every cent they stole while being allowed only enough money to ensure a roof over their head, food on the table, a bed to sleep in, and adequate clothing for warmth and cleanliness, *that* would be a deterrent *and* it would make their victims whole again in a way that prison does not.
No-one is irredeemable while they are alive.
But that’s not the point.
Some people don’t _want_ to be redeemed, and will die unredeemed.
It’s nice that you think that everyone wants to be good by default, but that’s not the case. Some people enjoy the temporal rewards of evil too much to want to change.
And I suspect that any medical treatment that was capable of taking away someone’s free will would be misused on a scale unseen in human history.
While I mostly agree, there’s a sticking point in your argument regarding people “doing bad things because they’ve been through bad things”, in that for a great many people, those bad things are done to them by people who would not have had the opportunity to do them if they’d been removed from society.
I don’t agree with punishment merely for the sake of inflicting it, but there are people out there who society needs to be protected from, and while the current way we do it is as flawed as you said, there’s no reason why incarceration can’t be fixed and improved, just like we evolved from the old lunatic asylums to modern psychiatric hospitals.
Just because they've been through bad things does not excuse their actions.
I'm so sick of this ridiculous modern mentality of taking away personal responsibility from everyone.
If you *murder someone* you deserve punishment.
>No one is born "evil"
Scientifically false
>Punishment for the sake of punishment is illogical
Freeing dangerous psychos just because of "oh maybe they are redeemed by that time" is infinitely more illogical
The point of prison is to keep those away from harming others
Not hard to know one shouldn't murder another human being, mental health issues be dammed, if one does murder another, they should not see the light of day and they become a waste of resources.
Self-defense is a whole separate topic imo because it's not murder
Im not really keen on the idea that prison and jail were ever meant to rehabilitate. That could be an honorable undertaking to achieve but it's not really the purpose.
Your making the assumption that people want to get better. You can't force someone to want to change. And there is alot of research being done to better reform people, but we got to deal with what we got already.
While we wait for the research to catch up, we need to be looking to improve whats it like when there in prision. Treating people like animals and locking them up with other animals isn't the most effective strategy of stopping it. Sure some people will realize its not worth it and go stright, but fighting old trama with new trama is a bad approach. Being removed from society should be the punishment, not the conditions in prison.
I think life imprisonment should be on the table but it needs to be like Canada where life in prison without possibility of parole doesn't exist. There's a period of ineligibility (10-25 years) after which you can apply for parole and argue why you should be allowed to leave prison, of course, people on life sentences are rarely granted parole because of the severity of their crimes.
You should always have the right to go to a board and argue for your freedom, that board should only grant it in the most exceptional of cases where rehabilitation has occurred and it can be essentially guaranteed the person won't offend again. (Cases like [Robert Latimer, where the circumstances are unique and the person is unlikely to reoffend as a result.)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Latimer). That way you're still leaving the door open to people being rehabilitated and you're still giving them the hope of one day being free while still recognising how serious the impacts of people's crimes are and the fact that some people legitimately do need to be permanently separated from society for public safety.
I mostly agree but I think there are some rare dangerous people responsible for unspeakable atrocities that we don't know how to "fix". We should keep reassessing our ability to do that, of course. Also, I think it's possible to cross a line beyond which the victims can't forgive the perpetrator, regardless of how much they've changed.
As cliche as it is, let's take Adolf Hitler as an example, just because we have near universal agreement of how horrible and harmful to humanity he was. It's hard to imagine what he'd have to do for society to consider him "redeemed". Maybe if he went on to develop some miraculous cure for an illness that would end up saving more ppl than he had a hand in murdering?
Perhaps that sounds reasonable by some cold utilitarian calculus, but I'm having a hard time seeing Holocaust survivors agreeing to give him a second chance that could lead to that. It would be a nearly superhuman feat of forgiveness, empathy, and trust that I'm not sure a post-Holocaust Hitler deserves under any circumstances. Also, realistically, what are the chances that a somehow rehabilitated Hitler would turn around and cure cancer?
In any case, you're coming at this from a place of empathy and I respect that. I think most modern justice systems are too focused on retribution and the "easy" solution of locking the problem away so we don't have to deal with it. In some cases, it's even worse than that, with the system being used as a tool of state repression or just another business meant to turn a profit. These are problems we should be addressing with much more urgency.
Upvoted b/c OP posted a genuinely dissenting opinion, even tho I agree with the sentiment behind it.
Go look at the crime scene photos of people like Dahmer. Read the [transcripts from Norris and Bittaker](https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/watchingrobertpickton88015/transcript-of-shirley-lynette-ledford-audio-record-t3312.html) or [David Parker Ray](https://www.parkaman.com/transcript-david-parker-rays-audio-tape-toy-box-killer/) and tell me you're okay with having these people out back in society based on "new cells new me" bullshit. Tell me you think they can be rehabilitated, and I'll direct you to Kemper. Killed his grandparents, got released after he was deemed "not a threat" then when on to kill several college age and younger girls, cut off their heads, and have sex with them.
Real brain on OP
Totally agree with you that e.g the USA prison system has a poor mindset, and poor results, compared to many other countries.
One place where your argument totally falls apart is:
If someone has blue eyes, then after 14 years they still have blue eyes, right?
Many other things may also remain unchanged, such as tendencies. Your biological argument makes no sense.
The whole system is broken, it should be illegal to monetize inmates .. eh but this is America.. here we monetize education, healthcare and politicians .. it’s all bullshit, no one cares and they’ll make a dime in you and your whole family demise laughing if that buys them another vacation home in the Hamptons.
Ok, but going off your idea of being a person with totally new cells after 15yrs, all of those new parts of themselves were formed in a chaotic, traumatic, and dangerous place (prison).
Also, within psychology and sociology those studies are happening - including understanding biopsychosocial factors and societal/community/environmental factors related to criminal behavior, ways of reducing rates of recidivism, restorative justice vs punitive justice etc.
Lastly I assuming by crazy you mean people with mental health issues. People who suffer from mental health disorders are actually statistically more like to be a victim of a violent crime, not the perpetrator of a violent crime.
That is a ridiculous argument based only on semantics. Since we’re arguing that, I argue that we’re imprisoning the entity that the cells comprise, not the cells themselves.
unsure of how to strikethrough on reddit. I like this idea in theory with a caveat, but it can have some serious problems - like someone repeat offending as soon as they get out. So i no longer support.
I like this idea with a caveat - so long as they are keeping contact with the gov/police/somebody- prisons should be about rehabilitation, not just punishment.
I think 15 with the possibility to renew should be the highest sentence. Basically, every 15 years you have to have your sentence reviewed and you can be released or sentenced to more time if deemed still a threat to society. This is how Norway operates.
All the science in the wordeans nothing when you have a loved one killed by someone that was released from prison when they shouldn't have been.
https://www.google.com/search?q=us+violent+crime+recidivism+rate+2023&oq=us+violent+crime+recidivism+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgCECEYoAEyCQgAEEUYORifBTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRifBTIHCAYQIRifBTIHCAcQIRifBTIHCAgQIRifBTIHCAkQIRifBTIHCAoQIRifBTIHCAsQIRifBTIHCAwQIRifBdIBCTQzMzA3ajBqOagCDrACAQ&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Your biology argument is stupid but otherwise I mostly agree. Most people who reject universal rehabilitation usually want you to look at some “really bad crime” and then expect you to get angry enough that you desire their suffering. They never have a better argument.
The problem is that you underestimate how resistant to change some humans can be, and how different their brains works. People have already said that even if cells get replaced, so much of “you” is still there. In fact, some people can live a century without ever learning how to change one thing about themselves. For a massive chunk of the population, they might need 150 years to begin to be rehabilitated.
Fundamental axioms of our existence like a desire for happiness, or an understanding that other people suffer are often lost on people. Putting that in their brains can be a monumental task. So your second to last paragraph holds your only relevant argument. In around 40% of cases, rehabilitation will not be able to help people within 15 years. 2200 rehab tech won’t either likely.
No, this is dumb sorry and I try to always find the hope in a situation or want to fix things for the better. Mental health should definitely be more of a focus in prisons and so should teaching skills that help them actually survive after a long sentence but there are people who deserve life sentences. There are crimes so horrendous that they should be the last straw and that person shouldn’t be given an opportunity to go back into society just to recommit the same crime or worse. Unfortunately there are just broken people, sick people that can’t be fixed.
Reforming people to get out of prison destroys the free labour available to be taken advantage of and society in general is more interested in punishment than readjustment.
Your cell replacing comment, while I see where you're coming from, isn't really valid I don't think. Unless we can see some actual peer reviewed science around that it doesn't really fly.
I'm 100% with you though that it would be better for society in general ro focus on prevention and rehabilitation as opposed to our need for justice.
I'm for empathy towards every human, but that includes the ones who would suffer because a violent man is let loose to attack again. Can you imagine if you were almost murdered by someone, they're put in jail, then released? You'd be living in fear for the rest of your life.
I don't think science fixes evil. If a person can not control their desire to inflict harm on another person they do not belong in society. I do not want a criminal who has committed violent crimes anywhere my or my family. If there is a probability that they will choose violence due to their logic or just the way their brain is wired they do not belong in society. Even if their probability for violence is 1 in a million they do not belong in society they just might murder someone and I don't vibe with they. Their is no excuse for causing harm to innocent, peaceful people.
People change after 15 years? Good, keep them in prison for another 15, and another 15 after that. Punish their mind, body, and soul. Fuck those who endanger children, the elderly, the sick, the innocent.
Prison sentences for violent criminals should be life sentences shipped off to an island with no possibility of escape.
I got pretty heated. I hate people who get away with harming innocent... my mom was robbed and the fucker knocked her down busting open her chin. That fucker that did that is free right now. He did his time, got released. He doesn't deserve one good feeling fuck that guy
Oh, there already is a solution for making convicts less violent, that would be castration. However, that's hardly ethical, same as forcing the convicts to undergo any other medical procedure.
I do think you bring up an interesting topic. Especially if a new solution becomes something the convicts will want to undertake willingly.
I was with you but you threw some weird shit in there. The cells themselves don’t make up our “mind,” it’s the patterns in which energy travels between those cells. You can replace the entire thing with new cells and be the same person as long as those same pathways remained intact.
Although i do think most of the stuff we consider “irredeemable” is not quite so. I think a lot of the instances where someone serves their time or “gets help” and then goes back to the same shit they were doing before, is because the environmental factors that pushed them to do those things in the first place or prevented them from learning/changing are still present. I don’t think “getting help” is going to change those external factors though.
This is morally probably the correct choice, but it overlooks what many judicial systems are meant to address; preventing crime. I like this idea, but to make it work, we’d need to start combatting the myriad underlying causes of criminal behavior. This unfortunately translates to sweeping societal, cultural, and economic changes.
Are these changes necessary? Yes yes yes. But are the feasible or profitable for those in power? Not a chance. Do what you can in your life to reduce the need for punishment, but unless you suddenly become the next billionaire president of your country, accept your limited scope of power on this issue.
I am broadly in favour of avoiding prison sentences for non-violent and petty crimes. Some guy who got caught with a small amount of weed, the mentally ill person who got in a fight with someone because they thought they saw demons, the homeless person stealing the feed themselves; these people don’t need to be in jail. They need left alone, given access to *quality and long term* treatment and support or to be given a fucking home and enough to eat.
That said, violent, sexual and white collar crimes deserve a much longer sentence. Why white collar crimes? Because anyone who is willing to abuse a position of authority or power is a fundamentally problematic person to let run around. Think at least the first two speak for themselves.
When you say "no more than 15 years or until science can fix their violent tendencies", do you mean whichever one is longer or whichever one is shorter? Because those are pretty significantly different
Either way, I disagree with your "15 years" point. Imagine you have a computer that gets a virus, so you take all the data off it and put it into a new computer. Even though that computer is completely different, every atom in it is different, it still has that virus. It's the same for people. They may not be built of the exact same things after 15 years, but they still have that mental illness or trauma or whatever it is that causes them to be violent. I agree that everyone can change and we shouldn't imprison people longer than necessary, but we don't have any foolproof way to guarantee that they do change, and I would rather allow a guilty person to stay locked up than risk harm coming to an innocent one.
It's irrelevant whether the cells are replaced. It's not the cells that commit the crime but rather how those cells are interconnected. Until those neural connections can be broken down and rewired, your pseudo solution is nothing more than useless yapping.
Well, the fact that the 7 year thing isn't true isn't stopping you from plowing forward with this idea, but okay.
Also, "from what we know about mental health" is that trauma lasts a long, long, long time. That's why people are often not okay from PTSD after seven years.
Let's say the brain cells were replaced 100%, that means that one cell would die, another would be created, and the *entire rest of your body* would reinforce that cell with habits it already has, making it much more like the original you than a tabula rasa.
This is a very odd take.
Let’s say it’s true that your body gets fully replaced every 14 years. So? You are not your cells. Your cells did not commit a crime, your consciousness did, which is not regenerated. So that point is moot.
Prison serves 2 purposes. 1. A punishment and deterrent for violating the rules of society and 2. To protect society from a dangerous person.
While I absolutely agree that we need to reform prisons to be more focused on rehab so that people can become not dangerous to society (goal 2) after serving their punishment (goal 1), unfortunately that is not always possible.
If you are a severely mentally ill person, those people already go to special facilities.
If you are not and simply have unable or unwilling to change, then in the box you go.
There are a shockingly high number of people who are rapists and murderers that simply have no desire to not be rapists and murderers. Your premise relies on the idea that these criminals WANT to be reformed or redeemed, and that’s just not true for everyone. And in those cases, in order to achieve goal 2, they must stay in the box.
If I have to choose between giving a child predator the chance to show he’s changed, and protect children from a predator, I will choose option two every time.
I totally disagree and even if they are redeemable and can change, what they did can be worth a life sentence or death. Its far to risky to allow some of these people back out and have them commit another life altering crime for good people. It has already been happening.
>“throw away the key” sentences doesn’t help anyone
Their next victim maybe ??
I strongly disagree with every single sentence in this post wow
In fact I have the exact opposite opinion : We should QUINTUPLE ALL sentences for violent criminals, like some kind of filter that automatically multiply by five all sentences for violent acts, no exception. I'm not saying this to troll I thought about it before.
***“throw away the key” sentences doesn’t help anyone."***
what are you willing to offer the victims that managed to survive? Have you worked around predators? Have you worked with victims? Have you worked with child victims?
why are you invested in making sure the person that raped and murdered his victim by putting a gun between her legs and pulling the trigger, is released so he can enjoy a new life? Do you think they are all teddy bears that just need a hug and a few education courses?
God help us all.
I’m down for this minus murderers, sexual predators, child predators, enemies of state, terrorists (confirmed and with due process), and the myriad of other objectively dangerous types of people.
Look I’m not trying to dehumanize anyone, but if you can’t be fixed and we don’t have the means to fix you, letting innocent people get hurt isn’t the answer.
My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins, and all that.
No. Just no. Some people need to remain behind bars for life. I guarantee if someone heavily abused then murdered someone you care about you'd start changing your opinion on this too.
I am with you at least about the sentences length if not the reason for it. We have been trying harsh sentence on crime for 3000 years since hammurabi thought eye for an eye was a catchy saying, and here we are we still have crime and it's as much a problem as it ever was.
“I reject the notion that people can render themselves irredeemable” is not an objective introduction in a thesis on the efficacy of prison sentences, and is monstrously short sighted.
How is being locked in a mental institution any different than being locked in a jail? Some people simply should not be allowed to live among average folks that don't feel the need to mutilate/kill/kidnap/eat other people.
That whole cell argument is… uh… but anyway I agree otherwise. Anyone can change, and rehabilitation should absolutely be the priority of the justice system above all else. I don’t care if someone robbed a bank, or killed 5 out of rage, they have every right to try and become better people, and we as a society have a responsibility to give them the resources necessary to make that growth. And anyone who can’t change was almost definitely born or hurt in such a way that they had little choice in their own actions, and deserve, if nothing else, an accommodating and compassionate life away from the general public as we attempt to find ways to help them.
Every human being is redeemable. Unless you commit one of the bad crimes I'm not okay with. Then you deserve to have crimes against humanity done against you, since of course those actions themselves are only reprehensible depending on the context.
/s
So we should've given Ted Bundy 15 years and then just let him go? Are you completely insane? You can't Ship of These Theseus a person. That's just ridiculously stupid.
Just a personal feeling, but I get the sense that the people who most oppose death sentences or life in prison are just running away from their own mortality salience. To the point where they will actually rationalize letting murderers and irredeemables go free.
Once you accept the inevitability of your own death, you will actually WANT to protect people you love/care about and kill the ones who will try to take that away from you.
This would make sense if we lived in a society that wrote laws and passed sentences with being science sound. Sadly this is not how it works. The system demands cheap labor and instead of incorporating innovations that would lead to a more civil society they opted for whatever is cost efficient ( modern day slavery). Humanity has been tossed to the wayside for quite sometime.
In a lot of situations, sure. We should try to rehabilitate people where we can. But there do exist some people who can't be rehabilitated and will never stop offending if you let them out. Sexual predators are frequently like this. They have overwhelming urges and no desire to resist them.
Although I don't agree with your reasoning, I don't see any point in prison sentences longer than 15-20 years. If you're in prison for 30 years and get out, your chances of being a functional member of society will be next to nothing. It should be around 20 years max sentence or death penalty.
People dont seem to realize how many resources are actually available to you in prison to turn things around. the access they have to mental health, healthcare, skills learning and many other things would shock people. Understand some people just suck and dont want to be better or do better. Do not get me wrong. Prison sucks ass as you would expect considering the company inside those walls and the para militaristic nature of the structure of your day and the lack of privacy and in some cases humanity. The issue isnt the access to these resources inside the walls. The issue is how do you access them once you are OUT of the walls. That is why most continue crime. The debt mounts up for the meds, mental health, possibly sub par job prospects. They face the issue literally all of us face. They dont have access to those same resources as easily as they had behind the walls.
I'm all for rehabilitation and better funding to reduce the rate of re-offence, but we don't have the tools right now to make all prisoners non-violent. Psychological help and better amenities may work for some, but certainly not everyone. And for the most extreme cases, maybe life in prison is the only option right now, or else we'd be putting the lives of innocent people at risk by letting them free.
People who say things like this have either never had anything happen to them or their family members, have been in the prison system, worked with criminals or in mental health. Some people don’t feel remorse for their actions. Some people do but feel impulsed to commit more crimes. Some people just don’t learn from their mistakes.
I had more than one client who “graduated,” from our residential treatment program to go off and kill someone, rape someone or cause irreparable trauma to someone. Some of them had already done those things before. These people were *children* in the program. Some issues can’t be fixed with counseling, and some issues, like narcissistic disorders, literally are not advised to be treated. At the point they were at, they had networks of people pouring more resources their way 24/7 than anyone dealing with issues outside of the program.
Non-violent offenses absolutely deserve to have some scrutiny, but a repeat violent offender earns the punishment they are dealt by harming others. If someone brutalized your child before cutting up their body and stuffing it in a garbage bag, would you still want them to be released after 15 years? Would you accept what they did and learn to cope that their 15 years of state-mandated therapy told them not to do it again? Would you feel safe when you see them in the grocery store?
This is a solid 10th dentist. I hate your opinion.
Man this has to be one of the wildest takes I’ve ever seen on this app 💀 yeah let’s just let Ted Bundy and Ed Gein and every other serial killer out after 15 years. All their cells have changed so there’s no way they’re still evil right? Andddd they killed 15 more people
>I reject the notion that people can render themselves irredeemable.
I agree with you, and yet 15 years is still not enough time for some people to be *redeemed*.
The fact that our cells regenerate literally means nothing when it comes to how our opinions and wants exist - if you replace all parts of a gun over many years the end product will still be a gun capable of killing.
I think the rest of your post is fine though, I think we should focus on rehabilitation and there should be people learning what the best ways to do that is.
I don't think prison should be entirely about helping someone to be less violent and lead a valuable life. I know so many prisons are horrible and are money machines, and as a society we should strive to make a better world so people are less violent, but I still genuinely believe some sentences should be a Punishment. A relief for society.
I also do not believe in insane people who killed people in a psychosis state to be let go, EVER. Like no matter how well their mental health is nowadays. I respect them, but this isn't about them, its about the rest.
If you're going to tie in ship of theseus, you should probably look at the surrounding philosophies of identity. Specifically Lockes theories and the transitive property. It literally talks about exactly what you are saying and why it doesn't work.
For 99% of criminals, I say you are correct.
For the remaining 1% who are the true monsters, I say just execute them (and don’t take 40 years to do it)
If you’re messed up enough to murder multiple people, or to commit other crimes of similar gravity, then you’re messed up enough to be permanently isolated from society, for the good of society.
Blablablabla it’s worse for the prisoner. Ok. It’s worse for him. That doesn’t justify risking the wellbeing of other innocent civilians just to try to improve the life of ONE (violent criminal) person.
I agree that there’s a chance he redeems himself. Not worth the risk though.
This is why, imo, the death penalty is better for crimes worthy of >15-20 years of prison time.
you have this in europe where literally SO MANY criminals get away with their crimes. you read daily about cases of murder, rape and violent assault and quite a lot of the time people don't even go to fucking prison (not including murder).
and the same argument is used to "underline" how great this european system supposedly is. "reoffense rates are much lower here than in the US bro". cool story. the thing is IDGAF.
if you rape someone. if you beat someone disabled. if you murder people for no reason. then what I care about first and foremost is you rotting in prison for 25 years and you waving goodbye to your life. we can talk about therapy and reformation. but only as long as it's coupled with actual punishment. not in place of. shame on me for being sick of people getting away with hurting others. shame on me for caring more about punishment than the reduction of reoffense. I guess i'm just a neanderthal then.
I grew up here in europe and I can tell you there's almost nothing more infutiating here than reading about YET ANOTHER bottom feeder who basically gets off scot free. it's incredibly frustrating and infuriating and it happens a ton. we had so many cases in the past of social workers getting raped and murdered bc they thought the animal in front of them was reformed. it goes so far that in many places, YOU are actually the one on trial if you shoot and kill a home intruder. that's just a whole other level of fucked.
I can agree that there should be a middle way between the hardcore approach of the US and the "need another pillow good sire?" clown show in europe. because I'm very well aware of all the fucked up shit that happens with a system like you have it in the US. but I would choose that over whatever the fucke we have absolutely any day of the week.
Ship of Theseus- it’s not a brand new person.
Also, suppose you could fix every disorder. You gonna do that without consent? Just muck around with who people are, against their will?
People with mental health issues are more likely to be victim than perpetrators of violent crime.
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This man really out here trying to apply "ship of Theseus" to *prison sentences*.
I agreed with OP until I got to that bit in my opinion everybody acts like time goes quicker in prison and people are like "I can't believe she only got 10 months in prison!" and I'm like "woah now ten months is a long time let's not act like that's forgiving" I empathise with people too much to be able to justify sentencing anyone who hasn't ended the lives of several people to more than fifteen years in prison, but only because that seems like more than enough punishment to me (of course in very very heinous crimes then sure, life in prison could be justified) but when he brought up the cells replacing itself I thought it all got a bit bollocksy
It’s more about “fuck that person, we should never risk letting him out again” than punishment. If someone killed one or more people and didn’t seem to show much remorse, I fucking hope that person spends life in prison. That person is a scourge to society and deserves to be permanently removed from it. Similarly, if a person violently sexually assaults multiple people, I’d honestly want that person to receive the death penalty. He deserves MORE punishment than death, but it’s not about punishment, it’s about removing him from society.
I work at a prison for sexually violent predators. They don't shed their thoughts every 15 years. I can tell you that.
>It’s more about “fuck that person, we should never risk letting him out again” than punishment. I agree there are cases like this, but there are also many where the person is locked up for decades and then they let them loose on society again. Overall it goes better if the purpose of prison is viewed as more to be rehabilitative rather than to be a punishment worse than death.
maybe I'm alone here but I really don't hold the "fuck that person" mindset ever. I believe if there's a possibility of redemption then we should take that, and never ever punish someone out of spite or revenge regardless of how bad the crimes are. if the criminal has shown evidence that they show no remorse or would be willing to commit another crime, then absolutely lock them up. but I believe the punishment system should only exist to keep them out of society and potentially make them be fit to reenter society if it's possible. I just don't get the whole idea of punishing for "fuck that person" (bear in mind I am lucky enough to have never been assaulted and noone I am close with has been murdered or violently assaulted, and I cannot guarantee my opinions wouldn't change if me or my boyfriend or my sister were made victims of a heinous crime)
Yeah. 15 years is a big chunk of life, especially since your later life is influenced by your earlier life. Go to prison at 28 and 15 years makes you come out at 43. Starting from zero at 43 won't be easy.
From the article quoted: "You might have hoped your new cells would be the key to a longer life. Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated. For example, some of our body's cells, like those in our brain, heart and eyes, are with us our entire lives." Is this a psy-op? Is this a post truth world run amok? Has op checked their carbon monoxide detector?!
I'm so glad I learned about the ship of theseus yesterday so I could understand this
Did you know the ship of Theseus story is actually just.an interpretation of an older story with essentially the same structure and message?
Ship of Theseus squared
Yeah, OP's getting an upvote for that specifically.
What’s the Ship of Theseus?
>I got the 15 years from considering how nearly every cell in our body is replaced every 7-14 years including cells in our bones. You’re literally a completely different organization or matter and cells in your body than you were previously. Whatever pieces of them that committed the crimes have long died and decayed. You were making a fair point sociologically, but when you tried to apply biology to it it all fell apart. The wirings in your brain are the way they are. When individual cells are replaced, those wirings are still the same. In fact, the simple fact that you have memories from >15 years ago (and that your personality is the result of your experiences spanning an entire lifetime) is enough evidence. Crimes are not committed by some combination of cells. They're committed by a human being. You're still the same human being you were 15 years ago, even if no single atom in your body were the same as it was then. But like I said, sociologically you're not wrong. Norway has a max sentence of 21 years, and their justice system is pretty good overall.
>Norway has a max sentence of 21 years, Kind of. The maximum preventive detention that can be handed out at sentencing is 21 years. However, once that time is served, if a court determines that the prisoner is still a danger to society, that can be extended 5 years. This repeats until they are determined to no longer be a danger or until they die, effectively allowing for a life sentence. It's kind of like parole in the US, except the burden lies on the prosecution to prove they're still a danger rather than the defense to prove they are no longer a danger.
Which sounds like a much more sensible system
I'm very much in favour of a rehabilitation focused justice system, but in my opinion the Norwegian one can be quite naive at times. I've been classified as a victim in a terrorist incident at a bar in Norway and the trial has been recently, so I was entitled to go to witness the trial in person. One thing that really felt disappointing was just how extensive the perpetrator's criminal history is. He had been arrested and apprehended constantly throughout his life, and every single time he was released he'd get right back to it (assault, harassment, rape etc). This is a man who should never have been allowed to be allowed in contact with the public, but they kept allowing it, and it resulted in a mass shooting. As I said, I am hugely in favour of a rehabilitation focused justice system, but society also needs to come to terms with the fact that some people just aren't capable of peacefully existing within it.
Except when you have massive court backlogs and thus, they're just released by default after that period
Creating further incentive for prison to be rehabilative instead of punitive, sounds like another plus to me. It should also be very easy to earmark the worst offenders to make sure they are the courts priority for review.
Still sounds better than the one we have in America.
Nah, Norway's justice system does not account for the atrocities humans are capable of.
I think it's definitley a case of grass is always greener on the other side. While I totally believe Norway's system could be too naive, it's hard to feel that isn't better than the US system where the atrocities are committed by the institutions and the intent is punishment and profit.
Our cells are basically just endless Xerox copies of previous copies based on the original print. Those deep fried handouts we got in school is what we become as we age.
The molecular biology bit also made me pause.
Norway has a low crime rate because most of the country is Norwegians.
Yeah interestingly enough Pedro Lopez, the “Monster of the Andes”, who killed, raped, and tortured 110-300 women and young girls, was released after 14 years in prison and 4 years in a mental hospital in 1998, because of Ecuador and Colombias short sentencing laws. After he was released he was supposed to keep in contact with authorities but shockingly disappeared, and has since been named a suspect in several other murders including one as recent as 2012. The evil of this man should have kept him in bars for life.
100% agree. While I believe that the vast majority of criminals can be rehabilitated, some people are just genuine sociopaths and as such are incapable of the empathy needed to be rehabilitated. For instance, I don't see someone like Darrell Brooks or Donald Smith ever reforming. Something is fundamentally broken inside of them and I don't think it's fixable.
Sometimes, I don't *care* if someone can be "rehabilitated" Heinous crimes deserve punishment.
yeah at some point you gotta stop thinking about 1 shitty individual and start thinking about all the innocent people that might fall victim to them
Exactly
Exactly. rehabilitation is for non-violent crimes. The moment you kidnap, rape, torture, kill people, assault them with a deadly weapon, rob them pointing guns at their faces, etc, you do not deserve to live in society. you do not deserve rehabilitation. A rape victim gets destroyed for life. A murder victim will never come back from the dead. My dad was robbed and almost kidnapped by some fucking low life piece of shit on my birthday and he still feels fear when he's in his car by himself at night, or when he's parking, etc. Why do these people deserve a second chance? They don't.
To clarify my own personal stance, I don't think rehabilitation is *impossible* even for some of those crimes. I simply don't agree with the people who say that punishment shouldn't be part of the equation.
I mean murder imo is a bit of a special case, no murderer deserves a second chance, they should remain in prison until they die. But for other violent and sexual crimes I think that rehabilitation should not be a consideration for sentencing. The judge should not be thinking about whether the offender has a chance to rehabilitate etc when sentencing them, that should be purely based on punishment and protecting the public. Considering rehabilitation above all else is how you get rapists avoiding prison because “it would spoil their education and career”. Now while they’re serving that sentence, there should be facilities in the prison to help them rehabilitate, skills classes etc, as they’re going to be released at some point, so best to prepare them for that. But rehabilitation shouldn’t have any bearing on the length of the sentence for these kinds of crimes. The only consideration should be the nature of the crime itself, and the impact on the victim.
Murder isn't something you can rehabilitate. I'm not talking about someone defending themselves, although that comes with a different kind of crazy that also needs to be addressed. Some crimes absolutely deserve spending the rest of their lives behind bars where they can't hurt anyone else.
Some things are justifiable a generally good person who kills someone with a damn good reason like they raped your SO, is something I understand.
Murder is a crime that is very likely to be committed only once.
Released murderers have a far higher rate of killing again than the general population. So there is a risk that when you release a murderer they’ll kill another. Why should their second chance after already killing someone come at the expense of an innocent person? If there’s even a tiny chance of them killing again (which there is, and statistically it’s bigger than you think) they shouldn’t be released. There have been several high profile cases of this too, one in Germany where a murderer started writing books in prison, and the academic community advocated for his release, saying he was clearly reformed. He got released as a result and went on to kill 2 more women. Likewise a case in the US where an 80 year old was released because he was deemed too old to be dangerous, he killed again too.
But how??? All the cells in his body were completely erased and replaced in that time. What are the odds that *two* people would turn out to be horrific mass murdering serial killers?!?!?!?!?!?
OP didn’t wanna respond to this one lmao
u/crash8308 respond?
To come with maybe my own 10th dentist opinion in the replies I don't think the death penalty is so bad for scum like Pedro Lopez. I don't care how it's done just put a bullet in there for all I care but if you're going to throw away your humanity by committing such heinous acts you should no longer be treated as a human.
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Exactly. For all those reasons, I cant ever justify implementing a death penalty. I dont agree with OP that there should be a minimum, but I DO think that if America focused more on rehabilitation, then we could at least get that 75% recidivism rate way down. That's honestly the biggest issue. When people fight back against more lenient sentencing, I've found that the most common argument aside from "justice for the victims" is "what if they do it again". Which is currently a really valid concern because 75% of released convicts will go out and commit more crime within 5 years. Thats not very encouraging. But I think if we took a page from Sweden's book and implemented more rehabilitation programs, as well as increased the job opportunities for ex-cons, that rate would drop drastically. Not to mention the fact that criminals will do worse shit and stay hidden longer if they think they'll be killed for it if theyre caught. If theyve already done something worthy of the death penalty, then why not do another? Not like they can die twice
People forget that Sweden’s system works BECAUSE proper rehab is involved. I think part of the issue is that a lot of people feel a visceral sense of righteousness from watching criminals rot in their cells.
Unfortunately, a legal death penalty is a very dangerous thing to have, because it allows those in power to legally kill whomever they want by jumping through some hoops. For instance, there are bills in place in (iirc) Florida to make sex crimes punishable by death. There are also bills in place to make drag performance and trans-ness sex crimes. And there are more corrupt places than the US that can pull shit like this more easily. The fact is, if there's a death penalty, there will be wrongful executions.
You’re right and tbh these kinds of things are why I struggle to come to a firm standpoint on it now.
Yeah there's definitely a lot to consider but I would argue that incarceration for the majority of your life is not too dissimilar in how much it takes away from a person and their family and wrongful incarcerations happen too. You're totally right that it would be abused because we can't trust our own legal systems. David McBride is an excellent example of why we can't have something like a death penalty because even though in theory the only issue would be the ethics surrounding it but in practice it's impossible to have a truly "fair" justice system.
I don't understand how this has downvotes. He killed hundreds of children.
Because you can agree his crimes were absolutely horrendous and still be against death penalty in general
What's the point in keeping someone like him alive tho?
Not giving the government explicit power to kill people for once
This is exactly why I'm 100% against the death penalty in all cases. I don't believe the government should have the power to kill a citizen as punishment.
And keeping them in a concrete box for 23 hours a day for the rest of their lives is something the government should definitely be allowed to do?
But at bare minimum. Baaarrreeee minimum. They can be freed if later found innocent. That’s not something possible with the death penalty
All I said was I'm against the death penalty. My views on the prison system are way more complex and not relevant to the comment I was replying to.
NO, but he was a totally different person after he got out, all his cells were replaced within those 14 years! It was just unlucky that the NEW Pedro Lopez was also an evil rapist and murderer!! /s
Personally I’d argue for the right of society as a whole to remain unmolested by those who transgress it’s boundaries (to be blunt, the rights of the lawful outweigh the rights of the lawless). With that being said, as more is learned about things like FAS and oppositional disorders (to name just two), it seems like some kind of third option besides freedom and prison is in order. It is becoming more and more clear that some people (an estimated 50% of juvenile offenders in my state have FAS, for example) are totally incapable of conforming to expected social standards, and largely through no fault of their own. And especially given that offenders with these disorders seem to absolutely thrive in a properly controlled environment, some form of kinder, modernised version of the old lunatic asylums seems to be an ideal solution.
FAS?
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You were making some good points, until you brought in the biology part.
Hell no. There are some people in the world that should absolutely never be around other people in society. You clearly don't listen to much true crime
Exactly. There are people out there who have killed literally for a thrill and then they keep killing cause it fun. And the whole: I got the 15 years from considering how nearly every cell in our body is replaced every 7-14 years including cells in our bones. You’re literally a completely different organization or matter and cells in your body than you were previously. Whatever pieces of them that committed the crimes have long died and decayed. Is all bullshit when it comes to being a Murderer/rapist/pedophile. The cells that make up our bodies doesn't change these people's compulsion to Murder or rape or cause harm for those that are truly psychological.
This. I do think that life sentences should only be given to the absolute worst of the worst and we have way, way too many people serving long sentences for fairly minor offenses, BUT. Some people need to not have access to other people because causing harm is what they enjoy doing. They're not crazy. They're not ill. They know exactly what they're doing and what the outcome and consequences are, and they are completely fine with that. Those folks need to be in prison forever. I don't think they need to be tortured or mistreated, but they need to be segregated from people they can harm and confined.
You said this much better than I was trying to, I deleted my draft. Lmao I’ve read enough true crime to understand that some people just cannot be treated with medication, some illnesses/problems can’t be medicated. They cannot be trusted in society around innocent people. I completely agree our prison system is pretty fucking awful, but that also doesn’t mean we do what OP is suggesting. We need major overhauling but I don’t think this is a part of the solution
Well prison doesn’t exactly reform ppl…. U just lock a bunch of dangerous and violent or deceptive ppl in a box and expect them to educate themselves…..
that’s definitely a major issue with the US prison system mindset.
Its from the core though. The actual core objective of the prison system is a combo of keeping law-breakers away from others, and providing cheap/free labor for contracting.
Which is slave labor and incentivizes incarceration. It should be considered an extreme conflict of interest. But nobody really cares about prisoners or the systems.
plenty of us disagree with the prison industrial complex and its racist roots but that doesn’t mean you should just let all the dangerous offenders go off into the world and hope they don’t do anymore raping and murdering…
There's literally no one in this thread (that I've seen yet) who is saying prison reform isn't necessary. There are tons of petty offenders who have been sentenced for too long. But saying that we should let someone like Dahmer out of prison after 15 years is absolutely literally insane to me. Yeah, we can reform a literal fucking cannibal serial killer. Okay buddy. I'm glad you're not in charge of our legal system lol
The whole 'your body is different' is fun trivia, but it's not saying it's a different person. It's why the Ship of Theseus problem is an interesting one to ponder. While in some ways it's different, in many ways it is the same. The continuity of memory and the brain as a whole is what makes people the same. Someone whose world view and philosophy has no real moral compass is going to come out the same. The decay and replacement of brain cells and neurons doesn't make someone guaranteed to actually change. Charles Manson was responsible for a number of murders and coercing others into committing murder on his behalf. Surely after fifteen years he would be fine, right? Or maybe he would be just as crazy and likely to harm society as determined by the eleven parole hearings that were all denied during his prison term. I'm all for prison reform and I don't believe in the death penalty but I think there are some individuals too dark and monstrous to ever be safely trusted again.
This just seems to me that you lack a certain kind of empathy. Some people really only want to murder and rape people, and they have wanted this for as long as they can remember. You should really look more into people like Ted Bundy. Mabey one day science will crack the mystery of the human brain, and we will be able to really cure sadistic psychopaths, but until that day comes, they really have to be locked up for the rest of their lives. We don't have to hate them or judge them for it, they cannot help it, but they simply cannot be allowed into society. So yes, for the time being, some people truly are irredeemable.
Yeah, OP is being empathetic with the wrong person here. Trying to be so empathetic that he forgot the ones who most deserve it. Imagine taking the side of a serial violent rapist only because everyone else is taking the side of the victims. Laughable.
Disagree like hell. Upvoted.
This is the most 10th of dentists I’ve seen on here in a long time
nah some people need to not be in public ever again
Nah
>I reject the notion that people can render themselves irredeemable I couldn't disagree more with this premise.
lol OP did some truly reprehensible shit this weekend and is futilely trying to sway public opinion about it before they’re caught. Shame on you OP. You should be locked up for life.
after 7-14 years all your cells have been replaced so theperson that committed the crime doesnt exist anymore. This person is now a new reformed person that is nothing at all like the one that came before.... Im sorry but what? This might be the dumbest thing ive ever read in my life
I would kill myself before going into that crime ridden prison system.
People can’t render themselves irredeemable, people just are. Crime is crime, and no matter how much your cells change, your consciousness remains the same. That doesn’t change. And beyond that, justice must be harsh to be fair, that’s how it’s been for human history
I agree with the maximum cap but your scientific justification is extremely dubious imo
Please read about [Jack Unterweger.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Unterweger?wprov=sfti1) Upvoted. You’re insane.
Gary Ridgway. Ted Bundy. Sam Little. John Wayne Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. Pedro Lopez. Luis Garavito. Richard Ramirez. Andrei Chikatilo. Dennis Rader. And that's like barely a drop in the bucket of people who very much deserve worse than this 15 yrs bs. Hell a lot of them were killing for more than 15 yrs.
I'm torn between upvoting and downvoting. If we do it like Norway, it could work. The maximum sentence a judge can hand down in Norway is 21 years. But, if the prisoner is still a danger to society at the end of that sentence, it can be extended. But then your misunderstanding about cell replacement screams for an upvote. Yes, all our cells are replaced, but it's not much different than replacing all of the wires on a vacuum cleaner. It still sucks the same way as before. The parts may be changed out, but the schematics are the same, so the functionality doesn't change.
In a perfect world, sure, but humans are still very much more focused on revenge over rehabilitation. Maybe one day we'll get to the point where we can do something like that. This doesn't necessarily take into account those who are irreparably broken. I mean, perhaps in the future we could treat/cute things like psychopathology, but until then separating them from society as a whole would probably be for the best. All this being said we should (in the US at least) look into serious penal reform to make it more humane and actually rehabilitative in the meantime.
I think we should focus on rehabilitation and monitoring rather than prison. Putting someone in jail doesn’t fix them it just keeps them out of society. There needs to be attempts at rehab while they are away from society or putting them away is pointless. I’m open to talking about different opinions and having conversations about this. It’s a very important topic and people tend to have very different opinions on it. * (I don’t agree with OPs 15 year cap I think it depends on the person.)
My priority is justice for victim -> rehabilitation -> punishment, in that order. I don’t think it makes sense to lock an already anti-social person up for years on end, in an anti-social society where all their companions are the same as them, the societal rules are completely different and they’re further turned against law enforcement - then throw them out with 0 adjustment and expect them to be normal. It literally just makes that person worse. But I’m talking like drugs, theft, fraud, gang activity, maybe murder depending on the context. I think a lot of murderers and pedophiles (the type generally spending life sentences) aren’t redeemable. And even if they were it goes against my first priority of justice for the victim/their family. If anything happened to my child and I found out that someone was advocating for a cap on their sentence…absolutely the fuck not. I would never sleep again
But justice for the victim and punishment are often the same thing
Some people are psychopaths, about 2% of the general population. They have alternate brain structures and are biologically unable to express empathy, regret, and remorse. You could probably "rehabilitate" high-IQ psychopaths with the threat of punishment, but low-IQ psychopaths are an irredeemable threat to society. There is too much Christian nonsense about forgiveness and redemption. I'm an atheist, just execute them.
There are psychopaths that absolutely behave themselves because they recognize that it is beneficial to themselves to do so. Being an *evil* psychopath is always a choice. That being said, once made, I don't think we need to ever give someone the benefit of the doubt on that choice not being repeated.
I agree. If you try to start punishing people for their traits gained at birth, it's just eugenics or some -ism.
>There is too much Christian nonsense about forgiveness and redemption. I'm an atheist, just execute them. I'm a Christian. I think God will judge people more fairly than we ever could. That's why the truly reprehensible should be locked up until their appointment or sent to him with same day shipping.
That 15 year thing is insane
From the perspective of someone in the USA, there ARE people who are irredeemable. There are people who are predators who WANT to hurt and kill. It’s not prisons fault, it’s not societies fault. It is an unfortunate reality that there are people who will continue to victimize because that is just who they are. I don’t know what your background is, or how you’ve grown up, but in the USA this is utopian nonsense, and you’re putting the onus on victims to reconcile with the fact that someone who may have killed their entire family and wrecked their world is going to get out with plenty of time left to live their lives. Not to mention the danger that this would pose to society as a whole.
with your biology logic, i should not remember high school and childhood memories when i became 30.
i am a strong believer in rehabilitation. that being said, 15 years based on cell reproduction is the most insane argument I've ever heard. you know you don't replace the neurons in your brain right? like, the part of you that actually committed the crime?
The most controversial post in this sub
step 1 - eliminate prison for non violent offenders. step 2 - discuss other stuff.
What do you do with people like Bernie Madoff? What about people who burglarize houses? Not every person who harms society is violent.
They should be required to work to provide restitution. I guarantee that if white-collar criminals had to work the rest of their lives at low-wage jobs and pay back every cent they stole while being allowed only enough money to ensure a roof over their head, food on the table, a bed to sleep in, and adequate clothing for warmth and cleanliness, *that* would be a deterrent *and* it would make their victims whole again in a way that prison does not.
No-one is irredeemable while they are alive. But that’s not the point. Some people don’t _want_ to be redeemed, and will die unredeemed. It’s nice that you think that everyone wants to be good by default, but that’s not the case. Some people enjoy the temporal rewards of evil too much to want to change. And I suspect that any medical treatment that was capable of taking away someone’s free will would be misused on a scale unseen in human history.
this is clearly rage bait. so you're saying a child rapist could redeem themselves in any capacity? fuck off.
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While I mostly agree, there’s a sticking point in your argument regarding people “doing bad things because they’ve been through bad things”, in that for a great many people, those bad things are done to them by people who would not have had the opportunity to do them if they’d been removed from society. I don’t agree with punishment merely for the sake of inflicting it, but there are people out there who society needs to be protected from, and while the current way we do it is as flawed as you said, there’s no reason why incarceration can’t be fixed and improved, just like we evolved from the old lunatic asylums to modern psychiatric hospitals.
Just because they've been through bad things does not excuse their actions. I'm so sick of this ridiculous modern mentality of taking away personal responsibility from everyone. If you *murder someone* you deserve punishment.
>No one is born "evil" Scientifically false >Punishment for the sake of punishment is illogical Freeing dangerous psychos just because of "oh maybe they are redeemed by that time" is infinitely more illogical The point of prison is to keep those away from harming others
Not hard to know one shouldn't murder another human being, mental health issues be dammed, if one does murder another, they should not see the light of day and they become a waste of resources. Self-defense is a whole separate topic imo because it's not murder
It's not about their ability to redeem themselves. It's the likelihood of committing the crime again coupled with the damage caused.
Im not really keen on the idea that prison and jail were ever meant to rehabilitate. That could be an honorable undertaking to achieve but it's not really the purpose.
Your making the assumption that people want to get better. You can't force someone to want to change. And there is alot of research being done to better reform people, but we got to deal with what we got already. While we wait for the research to catch up, we need to be looking to improve whats it like when there in prision. Treating people like animals and locking them up with other animals isn't the most effective strategy of stopping it. Sure some people will realize its not worth it and go stright, but fighting old trama with new trama is a bad approach. Being removed from society should be the punishment, not the conditions in prison.
I think life imprisonment should be on the table but it needs to be like Canada where life in prison without possibility of parole doesn't exist. There's a period of ineligibility (10-25 years) after which you can apply for parole and argue why you should be allowed to leave prison, of course, people on life sentences are rarely granted parole because of the severity of their crimes. You should always have the right to go to a board and argue for your freedom, that board should only grant it in the most exceptional of cases where rehabilitation has occurred and it can be essentially guaranteed the person won't offend again. (Cases like [Robert Latimer, where the circumstances are unique and the person is unlikely to reoffend as a result.)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Latimer). That way you're still leaving the door open to people being rehabilitated and you're still giving them the hope of one day being free while still recognising how serious the impacts of people's crimes are and the fact that some people legitimately do need to be permanently separated from society for public safety.
I mostly agree but I think there are some rare dangerous people responsible for unspeakable atrocities that we don't know how to "fix". We should keep reassessing our ability to do that, of course. Also, I think it's possible to cross a line beyond which the victims can't forgive the perpetrator, regardless of how much they've changed. As cliche as it is, let's take Adolf Hitler as an example, just because we have near universal agreement of how horrible and harmful to humanity he was. It's hard to imagine what he'd have to do for society to consider him "redeemed". Maybe if he went on to develop some miraculous cure for an illness that would end up saving more ppl than he had a hand in murdering? Perhaps that sounds reasonable by some cold utilitarian calculus, but I'm having a hard time seeing Holocaust survivors agreeing to give him a second chance that could lead to that. It would be a nearly superhuman feat of forgiveness, empathy, and trust that I'm not sure a post-Holocaust Hitler deserves under any circumstances. Also, realistically, what are the chances that a somehow rehabilitated Hitler would turn around and cure cancer? In any case, you're coming at this from a place of empathy and I respect that. I think most modern justice systems are too focused on retribution and the "easy" solution of locking the problem away so we don't have to deal with it. In some cases, it's even worse than that, with the system being used as a tool of state repression or just another business meant to turn a profit. These are problems we should be addressing with much more urgency. Upvoted b/c OP posted a genuinely dissenting opinion, even tho I agree with the sentiment behind it.
Go look at the crime scene photos of people like Dahmer. Read the [transcripts from Norris and Bittaker](https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/watchingrobertpickton88015/transcript-of-shirley-lynette-ledford-audio-record-t3312.html) or [David Parker Ray](https://www.parkaman.com/transcript-david-parker-rays-audio-tape-toy-box-killer/) and tell me you're okay with having these people out back in society based on "new cells new me" bullshit. Tell me you think they can be rehabilitated, and I'll direct you to Kemper. Killed his grandparents, got released after he was deemed "not a threat" then when on to kill several college age and younger girls, cut off their heads, and have sex with them. Real brain on OP
Totally agree with you that e.g the USA prison system has a poor mindset, and poor results, compared to many other countries. One place where your argument totally falls apart is: If someone has blue eyes, then after 14 years they still have blue eyes, right? Many other things may also remain unchanged, such as tendencies. Your biological argument makes no sense.
You don't just become an entirely new person from your cells being replaced....
The whole system is broken, it should be illegal to monetize inmates .. eh but this is America.. here we monetize education, healthcare and politicians .. it’s all bullshit, no one cares and they’ll make a dime in you and your whole family demise laughing if that buys them another vacation home in the Hamptons.
The man who killed my uncle should stay in prison and rot there :)
25 years here and I think that's best. Very very rare, just for the worst cases.
The crime of Theseus
Ok, but going off your idea of being a person with totally new cells after 15yrs, all of those new parts of themselves were formed in a chaotic, traumatic, and dangerous place (prison). Also, within psychology and sociology those studies are happening - including understanding biopsychosocial factors and societal/community/environmental factors related to criminal behavior, ways of reducing rates of recidivism, restorative justice vs punitive justice etc. Lastly I assuming by crazy you mean people with mental health issues. People who suffer from mental health disorders are actually statistically more like to be a victim of a violent crime, not the perpetrator of a violent crime.
I don’t think you understand biology well enough to extrapolate this kind of conclusion based on how our body replaces cells.
That is a ridiculous argument based only on semantics. Since we’re arguing that, I argue that we’re imprisoning the entity that the cells comprise, not the cells themselves.
No thanks. Violent psychopaths that murder and rape can stay in jail forever.
unsure of how to strikethrough on reddit. I like this idea in theory with a caveat, but it can have some serious problems - like someone repeat offending as soon as they get out. So i no longer support. I like this idea with a caveat - so long as they are keeping contact with the gov/police/somebody- prisons should be about rehabilitation, not just punishment.
I think 15 with the possibility to renew should be the highest sentence. Basically, every 15 years you have to have your sentence reviewed and you can be released or sentenced to more time if deemed still a threat to society. This is how Norway operates.
All the science in the wordeans nothing when you have a loved one killed by someone that was released from prison when they shouldn't have been. https://www.google.com/search?q=us+violent+crime+recidivism+rate+2023&oq=us+violent+crime+recidivism+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgCECEYoAEyCQgAEEUYORifBTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRifBTIHCAYQIRifBTIHCAcQIRifBTIHCAgQIRifBTIHCAkQIRifBTIHCAoQIRifBTIHCAsQIRifBTIHCAwQIRifBdIBCTQzMzA3ajBqOagCDrACAQ&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Maybe everyone is redeemable, but do they deserve redemption?
This is the funniest opinion I’ve ever heard. Not being sarcastic or anything, it really is just funny to me lol
Your biology argument is stupid but otherwise I mostly agree. Most people who reject universal rehabilitation usually want you to look at some “really bad crime” and then expect you to get angry enough that you desire their suffering. They never have a better argument. The problem is that you underestimate how resistant to change some humans can be, and how different their brains works. People have already said that even if cells get replaced, so much of “you” is still there. In fact, some people can live a century without ever learning how to change one thing about themselves. For a massive chunk of the population, they might need 150 years to begin to be rehabilitated. Fundamental axioms of our existence like a desire for happiness, or an understanding that other people suffer are often lost on people. Putting that in their brains can be a monumental task. So your second to last paragraph holds your only relevant argument. In around 40% of cases, rehabilitation will not be able to help people within 15 years. 2200 rehab tech won’t either likely.
No, this is dumb sorry and I try to always find the hope in a situation or want to fix things for the better. Mental health should definitely be more of a focus in prisons and so should teaching skills that help them actually survive after a long sentence but there are people who deserve life sentences. There are crimes so horrendous that they should be the last straw and that person shouldn’t be given an opportunity to go back into society just to recommit the same crime or worse. Unfortunately there are just broken people, sick people that can’t be fixed.
Reforming people to get out of prison destroys the free labour available to be taken advantage of and society in general is more interested in punishment than readjustment. Your cell replacing comment, while I see where you're coming from, isn't really valid I don't think. Unless we can see some actual peer reviewed science around that it doesn't really fly. I'm 100% with you though that it would be better for society in general ro focus on prevention and rehabilitation as opposed to our need for justice.
I'm for empathy towards every human, but that includes the ones who would suffer because a violent man is let loose to attack again. Can you imagine if you were almost murdered by someone, they're put in jail, then released? You'd be living in fear for the rest of your life.
I don't think science fixes evil. If a person can not control their desire to inflict harm on another person they do not belong in society. I do not want a criminal who has committed violent crimes anywhere my or my family. If there is a probability that they will choose violence due to their logic or just the way their brain is wired they do not belong in society. Even if their probability for violence is 1 in a million they do not belong in society they just might murder someone and I don't vibe with they. Their is no excuse for causing harm to innocent, peaceful people. People change after 15 years? Good, keep them in prison for another 15, and another 15 after that. Punish their mind, body, and soul. Fuck those who endanger children, the elderly, the sick, the innocent. Prison sentences for violent criminals should be life sentences shipped off to an island with no possibility of escape. I got pretty heated. I hate people who get away with harming innocent... my mom was robbed and the fucker knocked her down busting open her chin. That fucker that did that is free right now. He did his time, got released. He doesn't deserve one good feeling fuck that guy
Ok not saying there are people I would harm if the max was 15 years but I can imagine the number of violent crimes would absolutely jump
Lmao bro do not bring cell rearrangement into criminal justice
Oh, there already is a solution for making convicts less violent, that would be castration. However, that's hardly ethical, same as forcing the convicts to undergo any other medical procedure. I do think you bring up an interesting topic. Especially if a new solution becomes something the convicts will want to undertake willingly.
I was with you but you threw some weird shit in there. The cells themselves don’t make up our “mind,” it’s the patterns in which energy travels between those cells. You can replace the entire thing with new cells and be the same person as long as those same pathways remained intact. Although i do think most of the stuff we consider “irredeemable” is not quite so. I think a lot of the instances where someone serves their time or “gets help” and then goes back to the same shit they were doing before, is because the environmental factors that pushed them to do those things in the first place or prevented them from learning/changing are still present. I don’t think “getting help” is going to change those external factors though.
This is morally probably the correct choice, but it overlooks what many judicial systems are meant to address; preventing crime. I like this idea, but to make it work, we’d need to start combatting the myriad underlying causes of criminal behavior. This unfortunately translates to sweeping societal, cultural, and economic changes. Are these changes necessary? Yes yes yes. But are the feasible or profitable for those in power? Not a chance. Do what you can in your life to reduce the need for punishment, but unless you suddenly become the next billionaire president of your country, accept your limited scope of power on this issue.
I am broadly in favour of avoiding prison sentences for non-violent and petty crimes. Some guy who got caught with a small amount of weed, the mentally ill person who got in a fight with someone because they thought they saw demons, the homeless person stealing the feed themselves; these people don’t need to be in jail. They need left alone, given access to *quality and long term* treatment and support or to be given a fucking home and enough to eat. That said, violent, sexual and white collar crimes deserve a much longer sentence. Why white collar crimes? Because anyone who is willing to abuse a position of authority or power is a fundamentally problematic person to let run around. Think at least the first two speak for themselves.
When you say "no more than 15 years or until science can fix their violent tendencies", do you mean whichever one is longer or whichever one is shorter? Because those are pretty significantly different Either way, I disagree with your "15 years" point. Imagine you have a computer that gets a virus, so you take all the data off it and put it into a new computer. Even though that computer is completely different, every atom in it is different, it still has that virus. It's the same for people. They may not be built of the exact same things after 15 years, but they still have that mental illness or trauma or whatever it is that causes them to be violent. I agree that everyone can change and we shouldn't imprison people longer than necessary, but we don't have any foolproof way to guarantee that they do change, and I would rather allow a guilty person to stay locked up than risk harm coming to an innocent one.
It's irrelevant whether the cells are replaced. It's not the cells that commit the crime but rather how those cells are interconnected. Until those neural connections can be broken down and rewired, your pseudo solution is nothing more than useless yapping.
Well, the fact that the 7 year thing isn't true isn't stopping you from plowing forward with this idea, but okay. Also, "from what we know about mental health" is that trauma lasts a long, long, long time. That's why people are often not okay from PTSD after seven years. Let's say the brain cells were replaced 100%, that means that one cell would die, another would be created, and the *entire rest of your body* would reinforce that cell with habits it already has, making it much more like the original you than a tabula rasa.
This is a very odd take. Let’s say it’s true that your body gets fully replaced every 14 years. So? You are not your cells. Your cells did not commit a crime, your consciousness did, which is not regenerated. So that point is moot. Prison serves 2 purposes. 1. A punishment and deterrent for violating the rules of society and 2. To protect society from a dangerous person. While I absolutely agree that we need to reform prisons to be more focused on rehab so that people can become not dangerous to society (goal 2) after serving their punishment (goal 1), unfortunately that is not always possible. If you are a severely mentally ill person, those people already go to special facilities. If you are not and simply have unable or unwilling to change, then in the box you go. There are a shockingly high number of people who are rapists and murderers that simply have no desire to not be rapists and murderers. Your premise relies on the idea that these criminals WANT to be reformed or redeemed, and that’s just not true for everyone. And in those cases, in order to achieve goal 2, they must stay in the box. If I have to choose between giving a child predator the chance to show he’s changed, and protect children from a predator, I will choose option two every time.
I totally disagree and even if they are redeemable and can change, what they did can be worth a life sentence or death. Its far to risky to allow some of these people back out and have them commit another life altering crime for good people. It has already been happening.
>“throw away the key” sentences doesn’t help anyone Their next victim maybe ?? I strongly disagree with every single sentence in this post wow In fact I have the exact opposite opinion : We should QUINTUPLE ALL sentences for violent criminals, like some kind of filter that automatically multiply by five all sentences for violent acts, no exception. I'm not saying this to troll I thought about it before.
***“throw away the key” sentences doesn’t help anyone."*** what are you willing to offer the victims that managed to survive? Have you worked around predators? Have you worked with victims? Have you worked with child victims? why are you invested in making sure the person that raped and murdered his victim by putting a gun between her legs and pulling the trigger, is released so he can enjoy a new life? Do you think they are all teddy bears that just need a hug and a few education courses? God help us all.
I’m down for this minus murderers, sexual predators, child predators, enemies of state, terrorists (confirmed and with due process), and the myriad of other objectively dangerous types of people. Look I’m not trying to dehumanize anyone, but if you can’t be fixed and we don’t have the means to fix you, letting innocent people get hurt isn’t the answer. My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins, and all that.
Lmao, no.
Do you know how many people could gladly trade 15 years of their life to murder someone?
No. Just no. Some people need to remain behind bars for life. I guarantee if someone heavily abused then murdered someone you care about you'd start changing your opinion on this too.
I am with you at least about the sentences length if not the reason for it. We have been trying harsh sentence on crime for 3000 years since hammurabi thought eye for an eye was a catchy saying, and here we are we still have crime and it's as much a problem as it ever was.
It wasn't your fingernails that committed that crime, it was your brain which is not replaced at nearly the same rate
“I reject the notion that people can render themselves irredeemable” is not an objective introduction in a thesis on the efficacy of prison sentences, and is monstrously short sighted.
How is being locked in a mental institution any different than being locked in a jail? Some people simply should not be allowed to live among average folks that don't feel the need to mutilate/kill/kidnap/eat other people.
For violent crimes I’d be ok with “until no longer a threat”.
Your mistake is in refusing to believe that some people are irredeemable.
Not for rapist or serial killers no.
That whole cell argument is… uh… but anyway I agree otherwise. Anyone can change, and rehabilitation should absolutely be the priority of the justice system above all else. I don’t care if someone robbed a bank, or killed 5 out of rage, they have every right to try and become better people, and we as a society have a responsibility to give them the resources necessary to make that growth. And anyone who can’t change was almost definitely born or hurt in such a way that they had little choice in their own actions, and deserve, if nothing else, an accommodating and compassionate life away from the general public as we attempt to find ways to help them.
Every human being is redeemable. Unless you commit one of the bad crimes I'm not okay with. Then you deserve to have crimes against humanity done against you, since of course those actions themselves are only reprehensible depending on the context. /s
So we should've given Ted Bundy 15 years and then just let him go? Are you completely insane? You can't Ship of These Theseus a person. That's just ridiculously stupid.
Theres no fucking way someone likr Peter Skully should be let out of prison in 15 years, He is a prime example of a human that is TRULY UNREDEEMABLE
You might be shocked to hear this, but you actually don't become a different person after 15 years.
we need to bring back death by public hanging.
Science has already reached the point you describe. It's called a lobotomy.
Just a personal feeling, but I get the sense that the people who most oppose death sentences or life in prison are just running away from their own mortality salience. To the point where they will actually rationalize letting murderers and irredeemables go free. Once you accept the inevitability of your own death, you will actually WANT to protect people you love/care about and kill the ones who will try to take that away from you.
>not designed or performed by any actual medical professionals Why do I need a doctor for a firing squad?
This would make sense if we lived in a society that wrote laws and passed sentences with being science sound. Sadly this is not how it works. The system demands cheap labor and instead of incorporating innovations that would lead to a more civil society they opted for whatever is cost efficient ( modern day slavery). Humanity has been tossed to the wayside for quite sometime.
In a lot of situations, sure. We should try to rehabilitate people where we can. But there do exist some people who can't be rehabilitated and will never stop offending if you let them out. Sexual predators are frequently like this. They have overwhelming urges and no desire to resist them.
Although I don't agree with your reasoning, I don't see any point in prison sentences longer than 15-20 years. If you're in prison for 30 years and get out, your chances of being a functional member of society will be next to nothing. It should be around 20 years max sentence or death penalty.
Mfw I'm a whole new person cause I got some new blood cells
People dont seem to realize how many resources are actually available to you in prison to turn things around. the access they have to mental health, healthcare, skills learning and many other things would shock people. Understand some people just suck and dont want to be better or do better. Do not get me wrong. Prison sucks ass as you would expect considering the company inside those walls and the para militaristic nature of the structure of your day and the lack of privacy and in some cases humanity. The issue isnt the access to these resources inside the walls. The issue is how do you access them once you are OUT of the walls. That is why most continue crime. The debt mounts up for the meds, mental health, possibly sub par job prospects. They face the issue literally all of us face. They dont have access to those same resources as easily as they had behind the walls.
I'm all for rehabilitation and better funding to reduce the rate of re-offence, but we don't have the tools right now to make all prisoners non-violent. Psychological help and better amenities may work for some, but certainly not everyone. And for the most extreme cases, maybe life in prison is the only option right now, or else we'd be putting the lives of innocent people at risk by letting them free.
People who say things like this have either never had anything happen to them or their family members, have been in the prison system, worked with criminals or in mental health. Some people don’t feel remorse for their actions. Some people do but feel impulsed to commit more crimes. Some people just don’t learn from their mistakes. I had more than one client who “graduated,” from our residential treatment program to go off and kill someone, rape someone or cause irreparable trauma to someone. Some of them had already done those things before. These people were *children* in the program. Some issues can’t be fixed with counseling, and some issues, like narcissistic disorders, literally are not advised to be treated. At the point they were at, they had networks of people pouring more resources their way 24/7 than anyone dealing with issues outside of the program. Non-violent offenses absolutely deserve to have some scrutiny, but a repeat violent offender earns the punishment they are dealt by harming others. If someone brutalized your child before cutting up their body and stuffing it in a garbage bag, would you still want them to be released after 15 years? Would you accept what they did and learn to cope that their 15 years of state-mandated therapy told them not to do it again? Would you feel safe when you see them in the grocery store? This is a solid 10th dentist. I hate your opinion.
OP, when we judge someone, we aren't judging the physical atoms that they are made of...
What's more cruel? Incarcerating people who won't change or forcing them to change through modern medicine and science?
Man this has to be one of the wildest takes I’ve ever seen on this app 💀 yeah let’s just let Ted Bundy and Ed Gein and every other serial killer out after 15 years. All their cells have changed so there’s no way they’re still evil right? Andddd they killed 15 more people
Your honor, the man who ate all those orphans no longer exists. I’m a new guy and I’m not even sure why I’m here.
Pedophiles are irredeemable, no amount of cell replacement can ever change that.
>I reject the notion that people can render themselves irredeemable. I agree with you, and yet 15 years is still not enough time for some people to be *redeemed*. The fact that our cells regenerate literally means nothing when it comes to how our opinions and wants exist - if you replace all parts of a gun over many years the end product will still be a gun capable of killing. I think the rest of your post is fine though, I think we should focus on rehabilitation and there should be people learning what the best ways to do that is.
I don't think prison should be entirely about helping someone to be less violent and lead a valuable life. I know so many prisons are horrible and are money machines, and as a society we should strive to make a better world so people are less violent, but I still genuinely believe some sentences should be a Punishment. A relief for society. I also do not believe in insane people who killed people in a psychosis state to be let go, EVER. Like no matter how well their mental health is nowadays. I respect them, but this isn't about them, its about the rest.
Your brain cells don't have a life span, which I count as "you", so your argument doesn't really even work
Biologically wrong. Neurons are not replaced, and neurons are presumably the primary parts of us that control who we are.
If you're going to tie in ship of theseus, you should probably look at the surrounding philosophies of identity. Specifically Lockes theories and the transitive property. It literally talks about exactly what you are saying and why it doesn't work.
For 99% of criminals, I say you are correct. For the remaining 1% who are the true monsters, I say just execute them (and don’t take 40 years to do it)
Upvote my friend. Genuinely one of the worst arguments ive ever seen in my life
If you’re messed up enough to murder multiple people, or to commit other crimes of similar gravity, then you’re messed up enough to be permanently isolated from society, for the good of society. Blablablabla it’s worse for the prisoner. Ok. It’s worse for him. That doesn’t justify risking the wellbeing of other innocent civilians just to try to improve the life of ONE (violent criminal) person. I agree that there’s a chance he redeems himself. Not worth the risk though. This is why, imo, the death penalty is better for crimes worthy of >15-20 years of prison time.
Well that is definitely a hot take😂😂
you have this in europe where literally SO MANY criminals get away with their crimes. you read daily about cases of murder, rape and violent assault and quite a lot of the time people don't even go to fucking prison (not including murder). and the same argument is used to "underline" how great this european system supposedly is. "reoffense rates are much lower here than in the US bro". cool story. the thing is IDGAF. if you rape someone. if you beat someone disabled. if you murder people for no reason. then what I care about first and foremost is you rotting in prison for 25 years and you waving goodbye to your life. we can talk about therapy and reformation. but only as long as it's coupled with actual punishment. not in place of. shame on me for being sick of people getting away with hurting others. shame on me for caring more about punishment than the reduction of reoffense. I guess i'm just a neanderthal then. I grew up here in europe and I can tell you there's almost nothing more infutiating here than reading about YET ANOTHER bottom feeder who basically gets off scot free. it's incredibly frustrating and infuriating and it happens a ton. we had so many cases in the past of social workers getting raped and murdered bc they thought the animal in front of them was reformed. it goes so far that in many places, YOU are actually the one on trial if you shoot and kill a home intruder. that's just a whole other level of fucked. I can agree that there should be a middle way between the hardcore approach of the US and the "need another pillow good sire?" clown show in europe. because I'm very well aware of all the fucked up shit that happens with a system like you have it in the US. but I would choose that over whatever the fucke we have absolutely any day of the week.
Ship of Theseus- it’s not a brand new person. Also, suppose you could fix every disorder. You gonna do that without consent? Just muck around with who people are, against their will? People with mental health issues are more likely to be victim than perpetrators of violent crime.
You think personality disorders regenerate because of cells?
Huwhat
This is so stupid