You must, of course, show that actions have consequences, but you also have to transform the criminal so that he or she no longer commits crimes. This would require a much heftier investment in serious prison system reform and a rethinking of the whole philosophy of crime control and justice.

I am, however, interested in procureing the blueprints.

I think restitution has to be emphasized in sentencing, as does rehabilitation. But there are some crimes where restitution is impossible, and rehabilitation untenable.

I don't think public humiliation serves anyone's interest, except masochists, and the truly sadistic.

Do you really thing such a thing would be used for 'white collar' crimes?

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would it not be true democracy in action though? punishment as decided by ones peers?

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There would always be at least a few people who'd come by to lay a beating, regardless of the crime. For that reason, it wouldn't really be democracy.

If, on the other hand, a community had to come to a consensus, by vote, as to what to do with the criminal in their stocks, then you might have the seed of democracy sprouting.

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at the same time some rapist/murderer would probably get beaten and eventually killed. also serves as a good public lesson and certainly disuades people from recommitting certain types of crime.

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then why can't the cops get in a few good shots when they're arresting the guy in the first place?

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at the same time some rapist/murderer would probably get beaten and eventually killed

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Originally posted by bakunin:
would it not be true democracy in action though? punishment as decided by ones peers? people could just as easily come and try to rehabilitate the criminal while they are in the stocks for a minor offence. i'm sure lots would. at the same time some rapist/murderer would probably get beaten and eventually killed. also serves as a good public lesson and certainly disuades people from recommitting certain types of crime.

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There are two requirements to make justice effective. First, the perpetrator of a crime must be caught and brought to trial. This may be the most important.

Second, the court must deal quickly and surely with the accused. If found guilty, the punishment must happen. It doesn't have to be harsh; but it has to happen. Even if it is just a term of "community service" it has to have teeth in it. There can be no way to weasel out of it.

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Originally posted by bakunin:
what do people think the effect(on violent crime rates) would be if violent offenders were put in
stocks like this and were placed in public places for varying amounts of time as sentences?

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The community may give the white collar pension fund embezzeller the beat down he deserves, but it could also find that the convicted wife killer is just a kind, polite and quiet man, who always helped the neighbors take out the garbage and could never, never have done those horrible things the newspapers say he did.

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Isn't this exactly what we allow juries to do if they wish? It even has a name: jury nullification. When a jury decides, against what would appear to be common sense, to acquit? Remember the case of the Stratford woman who kidnapped her 3 kids and smuggled them into Mexico in the trunk of her car? Her jury nullified and she walked.

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The rewards outweigh the risks.

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People calculate risk as the product of the probability of a bad thing happening and the magnitude of the bad thing. Make the magnitude worse, and the percieved risk goes up.

But I digress. I do not believe penalties will have any effect upon persons who are predisposed to crime or persons acting not of forethought.

For example, the penalty for aggravated assault in Canada is reasobably stiff if you are caught and punished. The chances of your being caught and punished increase proportionately with two variables: is the crime being committed in your own neighbour hood? Are you likely to be recognized?

Yet, we have seen two teengage males in two different neighbourhoods, different economically and socially, beaten. One to death and one left with permanent injuries.

In the latter case, the perpetrators were under the young offenders act and in the former, I believe, it recently went to trial.

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What is important is that had the perpetrators given any thought to capture and punishment in either case both victims would be alive and walking today. But they didn't. All that mattered was the slight, real, imagined or invented, of the moment.

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I'm guessing you might be referring to Jonathan Wamback? If so, the teens who stomped him into a coma, and permanent cognitive damage, got a year, which with the help of their parents was appealed down to 6 months, or roughly the same time it took Jonathan to learn to feed himself again.

So next time a gang of toughguys decides to beat the shit out of someone after school, why shouldn't they? After all, they know that they can render someone disabled for life and all they'll get is a few months in Juvenile Hall.

If the legal system could really assess guilt or innocence, then I'd say that releasing some offenders into the general prison population to fend for themselves would be fair. On the other hand, the arguments against this are the same as those against direct capital punishment, including the creation of a violent culture, and the emerging trend towards certain people being given death sentences over others.

If ones notion of justice requires punishment and using offenders as an example to deter others, then pretty much anything goes. But if restitution and rehabilitation are goals, then punishment isn't really an option, as it doesn't serve either goal.