For the Good of All of Us

Disclaimer: I know little to nothing about the criminal justice system beyond common knowledge type things. If there are any gross inaccuracies or oversimplifications or whatnot, I can try to address them in comments, but otherwise, I'm just gonna go at it with my very limited knowledge base.

Anyway, the way that I see it, this topic really comes down to one string of questions that gets at a single relevant point: what's the purpose of the criminal justice system, and by extension, government as a whole?

This is a philosophical question that has plagued those in charge of public policy forever, and I don't think we have anything remotely resembling a universally agreed upon answer. However, this is an opinion based blog, so I can use my own opinion as a basis for discussion, so here it is: the purpose of the criminal justice system is to prevent crime. This seems pretty simplistic as a definition, but it really pulls attention to the key point in the struggle between the goals of rehabilitation and punishment, which is really, as Kathleen said, that it just depends on the case.

If someone gets a DUI or steals a million dollars from the government, then they might not actually be a horrible person, just a stupid person that made a stupid choice. Punishing these people is kind of useless. That won't prevent crimes, it'll just make them pissed off at the government. The proper response is to take measures to ensure that they won't commit crimes again, and that requires more than just throwing them in jail or taking away their license for a few years. Basically, in most cases, I believe that rehabilitation should be the primary goal.

However, and I'm going to make a rather huge assumption here that not everyone will agree with, there's still the problem of the fact that Evil (a term that I use specifically in reference to the DnD alignment) does exist in the world. Some people exist that are not going to be rehabilitated, and they're going to continue to cause death and destruction and what-have-you. This is not okay for the rights of the law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, for these people, I think the only currently plausible option is punishment. It's a sad idea, but the truth of the matter is really that sometimes it's the only option.

Well, that felt a little psychotic toward the end. I'm not sure that I actually made a clear point, so here's one now. Rehabilitation should be the primary goal, and if that doesn't work, then the government needs to do whatever is necessary to protect the rest of its citizens. John'll weigh in tomorrow. Until next week, make good choices, and don't embezzle tax money.