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Crime: Is rehabilitation possible?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Statement: If you believe that those who commit crimes can be rehabilitated, all efforts to rehabilitate should be made. Punishment does not rehabilitate, and should be discarded. Conversly, if you believe that criminals cannot be rehabilitated, there should also be no time wasted in punishment, as re-offending is inevitable.
Therefore: All criminals should either be rehabilitated with the maximum possible resource from the state. OR. All criminals should be executed on conviction.
Discuss.
Therefore: All criminals should either be rehabilitated with the maximum possible resource from the state. OR. All criminals should be executed on conviction.
Discuss.
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But I think there are always going to be certain crimes e.g. the murder of a child where people are going to see the perpetuator as beyond rehabiltation.
Like I said above, prison isn't part of someone's rehab, punishment and rehab is separate. So to me, I understand the OP saying that we should either have rehab or death etc, but I dont think that would be anymore effective. If anything it wouldnt make a change to the criminals who dont get caught.
I don't accept the premise: punishment and rehabilitation aren't mutually exclusive.
This
I guess it depends on how narrow a view you take on punishment. Though I'd say even the most base, crude punishments, such as fifty lashes, could be viewed as rehabilitative in concept: an attempt to alter a person's behaviour in order that they don't repeat past transgressions. And who's to say fifty lashes have never worked? It'd be a big shout to make.
But anything that you're forcibly required to do is punitive - whether that be hard time, talking therapy, removing graffiti or meeting the victims of your crimes.
Why use a combination of a poor but functioning method and a good method, when it would be more effective to use the good method alone.
How do you use the analytic knife to separate punitive and rehabilitative efforts? Are they always distinct entities? What about my point that anything you're forcibly required to do is punitive to a degree?
How can you use rehabilitation to help someone unless they have done something? How is "carrot" a preventative method in the first place, carrot may help prevent re offending, but can only do very little unless its dealing with something that has already happened. I'm not necessarily saying punishment should be strict and harsh, perhaps harsh punishment needs to be recognised to not be a good form of rehab in anyway. How does rehabilitation work in cases where there isnt someone that needs to be rehabilitated and there just needs to be an incentive to not do something, such as speeding in a car?
Going back to your first post fiend, you will find that executing criminals on conviction is still a form of "stick" or punishment, it just happens to be a little more severe than prison is. As I have talked through this thread, there is the incentive there for people to not commit crime, and that isn't just prison. It ranges from fines, to points on your licence, to community service, to prison, to execution in some places.
So what Fiend suggests is just taking out the lighter forms of the "incentive" not to offend in the first place. Which if anything is likely in my mind to make rehabilitation harder to undertake. As I have said, punishment shouldn't be within rehabilitation as the whole point of the punishment is to dissuade people from crime in the first place. Except when they do commit crime, we have to follow through with the punishment (however light or severe) otherwise people will just start to do whatever the hell we want. If law and order breaks down completely, no point in rehabilitating someone into society as its society itself that would need to be put in rehab. However it is important to note that I think punishment should not be used as a form of rehab, but have rehab within the punishment if needed, such as rehab whilst person is in prison, or after it. NOT that locking someone up for 5 years is the rehab.
So, for perfect rehab, we would need a complete and total understanding of human psychology.
Assuming that this is possible, can we move to a place in our justice system, where offense is always countered with a psychological reprogramming. Addressing the causes of behaviour and bringing a person into line with the rest of socital morality (Assuming also, for the sake of arguement, that all laws are morally correct)
Sounds like North Korea.
All great until the government starts making things illegal that shouldn't be, so how do you "cure" somebody for something when there isn't actually anything wrong with them?
So a bit more Brave New World?
That still stops people from doing it again, rather than dissuading them from doing it in the first place.
I think the most important thing is that the punishment shouldn't hinder rehabilitation when it is necessary. One of the main problems with the American system is that criminal records are permanent, for example, which make it very difficult to move on from a spell in prison, because it becomes hard to get a job for years afterwards, meaning that someone who already lived in an environment where they turned to crime for profit is actually returning to an environment where it's even more difficult to make money legitimately.
And of course there are someone people who can't be rehabilitated, but the problem with that is that you don't know that until you try. These are often people who aren't fully responsible for their own actions either.
Prison senteces are certainly punishment in that the convict is being deprived of their freedom (they also have the added benefit of keeping offenders out of the general population). However, prison sentences could also be considered a form of rehabilitation in-of themselves because they demonstrate to the convict that there are tangible consiquences for breaking laws (not just abstract threats). And that's not to mention the various attempts at counseling in prison.
Truth of the matter is that counseling and more obvious forms of rehabilitation aren't used nearly as often as they ought to be, but even if these rehabilitation methods are stressed they will never form a miracle cure for criminal behavior.
But the good thing about psychological rehabilitation is that it also breaks the chain of negative experiences and environments that may lead someone to offend in the first place. Eventually, you end up with a society with no crime, and psychologically based prevention.
i agree with this totally, but its also unrealistic.
The majority of people in prison have learning disabilities or psychological/mental health conditions or neuro-atypical that potentially could have been worked with in childhood to lessen the impact on behaviour, but with limited resources and the fact that people are often disinclined (probably because of their own issues) to believe it.
Some people will never make functioning safe productive members of society. Tehyre too damaged. Theyre beyond rehabilitation. They need long term incarcerating for safetys sake. Its so hard. Theyre still people, but theyre dangerous. Some people can be well rehabilitated