Why don't we parade criminals in shackles and chains to serve as warning to others?

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piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
17,168
60
91
Romans would make you row ships or send you to the mines as slave laborers. I see nothing wrong with treating our convicts a little worse. America is too soft and we need to use capital punishment a lot more. Need to make convicts cut the weeds along the highway and such with a cyclye or whatever.

Nowadays if some prisoner works you have to pay them. It should be more like, if you dont work, you dont eat.
 

Ausm

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
25,215
14
81
I don't think we need to go that far, but it would probably be helpful to bring the concept of shame back.

It doesn't work on Politicians,Big Bank CEO's or Wall Street so I doubt it would work on the run of the mill criminal. ;)
 

momeNt

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2011
9,297
352
126
Prison industrial complex is only a marvel of the past 150 years or so. The aim was to give them a sense of structure for reformation as opposed to banishing, public pillory, or different corporal punishments.

Long story short is the "prison culture" was quite unanticipated and prison has been an enormous failure but I don't see any states volunteering large swathes of land for a convict colony any time soon.
 

FerrelGeek

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2009
4,670
271
126
Good thing our justice system is entirely incapable of sending innocent people to prison.


o_O

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Then let's just drop the whole thing. Don't try anyone cuz there's a chance we might screw up. Screw consequences for your actions. Doesn't do any good so why bother? No murder, rape, robbery, assault... It'll be great!

/sarcasm
 

AyashiKaibutsu

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2004
9,306
3
81
Then let's just drop the whole thing. Don't try anyone cuz there's a chance we might screw up. Screw consequences for your actions. Doesn't do any good so why bother? No murder, rape, robbery, assault... It'll be great!

/sarcasm

You can deal with criminals while doing the least harm to those wrongfully imprisoned. Also, the vast majority of criminals don't think the consequences will apply to them either out of emotion in the moment or assuming they won't get caught. People still steal in countries where the penalty for it is amputation.

Prison sentences are the least severe thing that keeps criminals away and doubles as a benefit of giving courts extra time to realize mistakes.
 

dabuddha

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
19,579
17
81
Romans would make you row ships or send you to the mines as slave laborers. I see nothing wrong with treating our convicts a little worse. America is too soft and we need to use capital punishment a lot more. Need to make convicts cut the weeds along the highway and such with a cyclye or whatever.

Nowadays if some prisoner works you have to pay them. It should be more like, if you dont work, you dont eat.

In all seriousness, this!
 

raildogg

Lifer
Aug 24, 2004
12,849
561
126
I don't think people care about anything except themselves. Their desire to possess somethings tends to outweigh anything else. We all have that inside us though some manage to conceal it better than others. We get outraged when something bad happens though we are to blame for it happening in the first place.

Mankind has become very educated, very advanced in technology and the rest of the things associated with it, yet we are still the same. We still carry our character traits from old times and that will not change, even with technology and education.

In fact, technology is making the criminals worse. It is making the lazy even lazier.

We use foul language on internet forums against strangers over topics we don't have a clue on yet we're worried about other people being criminal.