this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024
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I see many down-votes. I assume these are the positions people are having (please correct me if I'm wrong or mischaracterizing):
While looking for the middle ground or a compromise can be seen as absurd, the evidence seems to support parts of both of these stances. For example, moderate punishment has been shown to reduce crime much more than harsh crime.
A simple example is how many countries around the world no longer execute people in public as a form of punishment. For the vast majority of those countries, violent crime has been reduced drastically. In the light of these two facts (less executions and less violent crime), is it really tenable to argue that "harsher punishments result in less crime"? So, what is actually causing crime to be deterred?
Some people have thought long and hard about this problem, and we now have the evidence to understand what drives crime down. Here's one such person and their summary of their findings: "An effective rule of law, based on legitimate law enforcement, victim protection, swift and fair adjudication, moderate punishment, and humane prisons is critical to sustainable reductions in lethal violence" (https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Homicide-Dispatch_1_EN.pdf)
I know lethal violence is different to non-violent crime, such as wage theft. However, imagine a CEO making the decision to steal wages. Where is he located? Who, if anyone, surrounds him? What is his demeanor? Now imagine a society with "an effective rule of law, based on legitimate law enforcement, victim protection, swift and fair adjudication, moderate punishment, and humane prisons". What kinds of institutions would this society have? How would you feel walking in the streets or laboring in this society? Now, think about the CEO and the society at the same time. Are those two compatible? Would that criminal CEO really go home free in a society with those characteristics?
I assume there is an impulse to say that capitalism leads to classes of people who are treated fundamentally differently. Indeed, there is clear evidence that capitalism can lead to persistent inequalities (e.g. Piketty, Shaikh), which can enable extractive political institutions. Money can buy political privileges. However, capitalism is not the only force that shapes the world. Democracy is also incredibly powerful. They are two different vectors, two different carts pulling societies around the world in different directions. Without democracy as a counterweight, we wouldn't have the kinds of protections, rights, and guarantees that so many of us have. Are we ready to deny the legacy of democracy by insisting that we cannot remotely bring justice to wealthy criminals? Are we ready to deny the democratic values that so many of us have today? Are we ready to deny the effect that collective action for democracy has had in our institutions?
This seems like a fair synopsis of the debate, well done for taking the time. You summarized my position accurately enough.
To be clear, I was making a very narrow point which should not really be controversial. Punishment, when understood as retribution, is an affront to human dignity and also just ineffective. It irritates me that so many people (the vast majority of us, let's be honest) seem stuck in this medieval mindset of "let's hurt the perpetrator".
But punishment does have other more positive aims, such as restoration (making amends to victims) or rehabilitation (of the perpetrator). Well: the evidence is pretty clear. Places with liberal (progressive) criminal-justice systems, countries like Norway with its ultra-light-touch sentencing and "holiday camp prisons", these places have far less crime than places like the USA where most people are still stuck in their conviction that things must be made miserable for the perpetrator. Ultimately, we have to decide what we want: do we want to feel good about ourselves for having got revenge on someone who did harm, or do we actually want a fairer society with less crime, including financial crime? If it's the latter, retribution is a dead end.
Back in the land of hard choices, of course wage thieves and tax evaders need to pay some kind of price for their misdeeds. Not least for the symbolic value, and for the shame (rather than suffering) that it inflicts on them. This is roughly what happened in Iceland after the financial crisis, BTW. A bunch of bankers did actually go to prison there. But the sentences were short and, IIRC, it was basically some form of house arrest. That seems to me like a decent solution.