I don’t think that punishment - for any crime - is a good idea. I don’t believe in retributive justice, it does not help anyone. We should hold people to account for what they do, but with a focus on restoration and prevention, not on punishment or retribution.
Since we learned above that punishment does not provide that disincentive, why are you confused?
I feel like this is a good time to point out that I never used the word “punishment” to describe what I thought should happen to this gentleman. You are the one that brought that term into the conversation.
What disincentives would you suggest if you think that community service would be inappropriate in this case?
Don’t fuck with ice cream
It’s like the one good thing left, and I will The Road you motherfuckers that mess with it
Also, criminal mischief. And the people who stated that they were sick and then licked the ice cream. Pretty sure there’s a few assault/battery charges for purposefully contaminating food others will consume; and most laws also cover “pretending to be sick” as the same assault/battery, don’t they? And if he did this to be a social media influence, then let’s look at the monetization of the crime(s). Seems he already got a slap on the wrist; considering the stand-your-ground shoot and ask questions later mentality of some customers.
IMO giving the impression on a shared media that he contaminated the ice cream is the same as yelling fire in a crowded theater when there’ s no fire; or yelling “Bomb!” in a crowded airport. This guy DID NOT say “but I bought the ice cream” in the video he shared. He made people think he contaminated it—and that was his intention.
True, you used the word deterrent. Can you explain in what way you’d consider community service a deterrent that does not involve punishment? Because I can’t imagine one right now.
I don’t think community service is inappropriate per se, but it should not be a punishment. And I would not suggest any disincentive, I have not clue what would meet people’s needs in this case.
What I would do is would facilitate a dialogue between victim and offender, and in the course of that dialogue, it might emerge that the offender does some community service. Or something else entirely.
This article has some context: Restorative justice - Wikipedia
Look up “Popehat” and “fire in a crowded theater” and you’ll get a lot of interesting background on the century-old phrase coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Popehat is the nickname of an attorney who handles a lot of First Amendment and civil liberties issues, and the phrase has a pretty messy history. It was coined in the context of an ugly crackdown on free speech in the wake of WWI, it has not stood up over time, and it has gotten trotted out a lot in defense of restrictions which clearly violate the First Amendment.
I’d be stunned if there are any grounds for prosecuting someone solely on the grounds that they looked like they were encouraging people to violate the law.
You can write about the joys of snorting coke, you can make videos of yourself snorting white substances and handing it to ten year olds. You may be giving the police grounds to investigate you on drug charges, but the book or the video themselves would be extremely hard to control under the First Amendment. This may be gross, but making a video of yourself faking something gross would be really hard to prosecute solely for making the video.
thanks. i honestly appreciate the correction. i had to look it up.
intentionally or recklessly property of another person, intentionally participates in the property of another person, or participates in the damage or destruction of property
in this case the store destroyed the property because of their own freak out over a gross but not particularly harmful act. ( no more harmful - in a factual sense - than the many examples of everyday shopper behavior i listed. eta: and keep in mind, he didn’t expose anyone to any actual danger or harm. he bought the ice cream he sullied. )
i don’t really blame the store for that overreaction. insurance exists to pay for things like theft and cooler breakdowns - it’s annoying to file, but they’ll be made whole on that front.
i do blame them for pursing jail time. it’s walmart. they don’t even pay for their workers healthcare, and keep hours so low some of their workers rely on food stamps (ebt) which they use at their own store.
what they’re really punishing him for is the meme that walmart’s freezer foods isn’t safe, and the dollar impact that might cause. ( hello streisand. )
americans don’t generally like to see pig heads or recongizable animal body parts in stores, they wouldn’t want to know about the road dirt on their vegetables when it comes into the store, all produce has to be picture perfect to be sold, and nobody wants to know the legal bug part limits for their processed foods.
i get it. americans are squeamish.
it’s still no reason to throw someone in jail. and as other people’s examples show - skin color here doubtless played a roll in walmart’s and the cop’s reactions.
give me a break. i never said anything remotely like that.
No matter what his intention may have been, it is not his property to do with what he likes until after it is paid for.
Fears of infectious diseases were at an all-time high last August?
This is, essentially, an admission he was not jailed for the crime he supposedly committed – consuming the ice cream before paying for it – but for a bunch of random authoritarian bullshit that isn’t actually illegal.
In his jurisdiction, “unlawfully destroys, defaces, damages or removes without the intent to steal any property, real or personal, not his own, or breaks down, destroys, defaces, damages or removes without the intent to steal”
A (legal) distinction without a (moral) difference, in context.
This is true. He wasn’t charged with the worst crime he committed. Instead he was treated leniently by trying him on a misdemeanor (for which he also qualified) for which he received minimal jail time and no punitive fines to the state.
Had he paid for it at that point?
Meh, some people just can’t handle their licker.
Hepatitis A and Herpes are more common and more likely to spread the oral route. Of course “scare” is the key word in your statement, and it’s not supposed to be a factor in a jury but it can be a factor in how prosecution goes.
I wonder how he would have been charged had he purchased it first, taken it back into the store and then staged his licking stunt?
Not wonder the US have so much of its population in jail if you are sentenced for such trivial things.
Here’s an interesting paper on the topic:
