>From: "john grigg" <starman125@hotmail.com>>Subject: rehabilitation versus
>punishment in a future society....
>Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 15:39:37 PST
>
>
>Should all criminals be seen as "ill" and be treated and not punished? I
>am
>not that enlightened yet and may never be, especially for crimes like
>murder
>and rape. Perhaps treatment and punishment can be fused together.
>sincerely,
>John Grigg
Talk about your ultimate false dichotomy... Who CAREs what the inner
motivations, torments, etc. of the Bundy's of the world are? Psychologists
and social workers and prison guards, for sure, as their income is derived
from such. Otherwise, such information may be useful in a predictive sense,
as in assessing risk, personal or fiduciary, as in an insurance company
whose profits rest upon accurately beating the market in risk assessment.
It might certainly be useful personally in assessing a person's character,
but do we want to be in the business of trying to change character -
especially via punishment or reward? This has demonstrably not worked very
often if at all.
"Punishment" is for dogs, not conceptual beings. It simply doesn't work,
except as a possible deterent, for people. All crimes are crimes against
someone, constituting an injustice, and thereby creating a debt. Criminal
law is criminal. It doesn't correct the injustice, the debt still exists,
but is artificially expunged by state fiat in most cases, often leaving the
victims worse off for the process. Criminal or "positive" law is the law of
the conqueror, without signigicant historical exception, to my knowledge.
The Northern Europpean peoples used variations of the "common law" to settle
disputes, until the Romans and their philosophical/societal progeny, such as
the Normans, imposed the conqueror's law. The common law did not have a
criminal division. All cases were civil. Justice, in the purest sense of
restoring what had been taken from the proper owner, was the goal. There was
no "punishment," and "rehabilitation" occurred as someone - friend, priest
or family member, typically - saw it in their interest to try to councel
some sense into the malefactor. This system worked brilliantly and avoided
the endless feuds that criminal law always brings with it.
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