Incarceration: Rehabiliate and Protect? Or Punish?

[CORed]

I think a prison (if you are going to have prisons) should fulfill all three functions. One would hope that the prospect of prison will deter at least some potential criminals from committing crimes in the first place. Imprisoning criminals does separate the criminals from society, thereby providing some measure of protection. I also think that, if the criminal is to be released (and putting all of them in prison for life is not practical) it's foolish not to attempt to rehabilitate him.

[Borodog]

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By excluding uncivillized individuals from society, the average level of civility necessarily increases. Besides, who said anything about homelessness? It's litteraly impossible to be homeless in a libertarian society, since all property is owned. Homelessness = trespass.

[/ QUOTE ] I don't get this. Wouldn't this just mean that those criminals excluded from society would start living at the expense of those who are too poor or too stupid to get proper security?

Also, what would you do with those serial trespassers? Exclude them even more from society?

I only have a very vague idea about libertarianism and similar ideas, so these question are probably quite stupid, but please enlighten me.

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Such anti-social individuals would simply have a tremendous incentive to just clean up their act, since it would be the least costly and least unpleasant option.

Barring that, they would probably be transported beyond the frontiers of civilized society. Perhaps there would be charitable organizations to do it, or it might be handled by insurance companies. It's impossible to say.

[rubberloon]

A friend and devout moslem, Sultan Achmed Khan, who made the pilgrimage to Meeca claimed nobody stole from pilgrims in Mecca, because the authorities cut off thieves' hands - that is punishment works. Although this is hearsay, Sultan was truthful to a fault.

[Borodog]

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The ideal situation, then, puts the criminal frankly into a state of enslavement to his victim, the criminal continuing in that condition of just slavery until he has redressed the grievance of the man he has wronged

Sort of like, there's a guy who causes an auto accident, has no insurance, so the judge sentences him to be the other guy's butler. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

edit: Sorry, had to do that. This is actually a very interesting thread, but the suggestion of Seinfeld the anarcho-capitalist was too hard to resist.

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i am somewhat confused as how putting someone into forced labor is different from prison. assuming the person doesnt want to do this he would:
a)probably do a bad job
b)make attempts to avoid work or run away

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I agree completelly. That was Rothbard, not me. I don't really think this solution would survive in the free market. Luckily, you don't need it to. Economic ostracism is a sufficiently devastating deterent.

The idea that you are not made whole if your aggressor does not have the capacity to make you whole is an aggravating one, but frankly, [censored] happens. People break [censored] they can't pay for. The idea is to make the victim as whole as possible, and let the market take care of the economic consequences to the aggressor.

Besides, insurance companies would actual indemnify the victims; it is the insurance company who has the incentive to recover the losses from the aggressor, or suffer those losses should the cost of recovery be uneconomically high.

[MrBlah]

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Such anti-social individuals would simply have a tremendous incentive to just clean up their act, since it would be the least costly and least unpleasant option.

[/ QUOTE ] Simply getting a gun and living at the expense of those who cannot afford one seems like a much cheaper solution. In most cases this is probably also much more pleasant than working hard to get your credit rating back.

[Borodog]

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Such anti-social individuals would simply have a tremendous incentive to just clean up their act, since it would be the least costly and least unpleasant option.

[/ QUOTE ] Simply getting a gun and living at the expense of those who cannot afford one seems like a much cheaper solution.

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It might, if you don't think about it for very long. In a free market, a perfectly servicable gun would cost perhaps $20.

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In most cases this is probably also much more pleasant than working hard to get your credit rating back.

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No, actually, it wouldn't be, because in a free society, you would wind up dead post haste attempting such.

The only reason criminals can continue to live at the expense of others in our society is because governments have outlawed most of their means of defending themselves, or effectively outlawed them by monopolizing them and making them practically inaccessible and largely ineffective.

[MrBlah]

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No, actually, it wouldn't be, because in a free society, you would wind up dead post haste attempting such.

The only reason criminals can continue to live at the expense of others in our society is because governments have outlawed most of their means of defending themselves, or effectively outlawed them by monopolizing them and making them practically inaccessible and largely ineffective.

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As long as guns are controlled, only a certain number of people who shouldn't have them ("bad people") and the police possess them. Now, without gun control, the number of "bad people" who also have a gun would certainly increase. This would indicate that violent crimes would also increase.

One could argue that the fact that good people now carry a gun as well would make up for that and would lead to a decrease in violent crimes. However, a robber for example would not only threat a good person, he or she would exercise violence immediately, as he/she has to assume that the good person will carry a gun as well. Coupled with the fact that people who have been bad before have no means of taking part in the market by legal means, one has to assume that violent crimes would increase, no?

[Borodog]

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No, actually, it wouldn't be, because in a free society, you would wind up dead post haste attempting such.

The only reason criminals can continue to live at the expense of others in our society is because governments have outlawed most of their means of defending themselves, or effectively outlawed them by monopolizing them and making them practically inaccessible and largely ineffective.

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As long as guns are controlled, only a certain number of people who shouldn't have them ("bad people") and the police possess them. Now, without gun control, the number of "bad people" who also have a gun would certainly increase. This would indicate that violent crimes would also increase.

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No, it wouldn't. It would decrease.

How many gun crimes are committed at gun shows, gun stores, and police stations? How many gun crimes are committed in places where would-be victims are very likely if not guaranteed to be disarmed and defenseless?

How this is not elementary to understand is beyond my ken.

[MrBlah]

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No, it wouldn't. It would decrease.

How many gun crimes are committed at gun shows, gun stores, and police stations? How many gun crimes are committed in places where would-be victims are very likely if not guaranteed to be disarmed and defenseless?

How this is not elementary to understand is beyond my ken.

[/ QUOTE ] All the examples you gave were at locations with a lot of people. I agree that these crimes would probably decrease, but there are not that many to begin with compared to crimes where the victim is alone (I cannot back this up, but I doubt that this assumption is wrong...).

And in the instances where the victim is alone, it is just much much more likely to be dead after the crime if the criminal has to assume that the victim is armed. Maybe there would be less robberies (because most robbers aren't ruthless enough to actually kill people), but I'm fairly certain that without gun control, more victims of robberies would be dead.

[tolbiny]

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No, the punishment regime is set in advance so anyone consider committing a crime should be deterred by the punishment they will get for that crime if they get caught for that crime.

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This principle of justice, historically, has been about the fact that a person has been the victim and another the cause of the suffering. Justice is about remedying that situation in the best way possible. When you are sentencing someone they have already
1. committed the crime
2. been found guilty.
You cannot claim deterrence for that person sine they have already committed the crime. Any punishment based on deterrence must be to effect a non involved third party's actions. You are, in effect punishing person A because you expect person B will commit a crime otherwise.