Well, we’re all human and a desire for punitive justice is a pretty fundamental element of our psychology. That’s why we build societies of laws, though- so that we are greater than the sum of our parts. We don’t always succeed at it, but much of the time we do. The system does better than any of us would individually. It allows us to feel our guilty pleasure feefees without letting us all act on them.
Prison is far from perfect (especially in America) but we’ve been trying for a couple thousand years to figure out of how to deal with crime and it’s the best we’ve got so far. Harm reduction first, then figure out the rest later.
I think America leans much more heavily into the punishment aspect than other democracies do. It’s likely the religious influences that are so prevalent in America, and the heavy blanket of conservatism that covers everything. Always keep in mind that the entire political system in America is right of everywhere else. Like, Canada’s conservatives are left of Obama for the most part, on most issues. So everything you see through an American lens is distorted by that baseline conservatism. America is a conservative place, even California and New York.
I don’t know… we should perhaps interrogate any statements that says something is “fundamental” to human psychology… We do have to disentangle what is “fundamental” and what is culturally and historical constructed, I think. I don’t think there are easy answers to that, but we should not assume that something is “fundamental” without looking historically and seeing where ideas about what is right and wrong diverge and converge across time (and across space, today).
I think that can be true, but for much of history, those societies (and our own) were often just as often about means of concentrating power. It’s based on the core assumption that Hobbes was correct… But I don’t know that he was, nor was Rousseau probably. I think probably what is true is that all forms of society (including those around prior to written history) need to be understood within their own contexts, and how they shaped our understanding of the world around us.
I agree that’s the best we’ve seemed to come up with, but the US prison system is very, very far from that. I know much less about Canada’s (so feel free to enlightenment me about it), but I suspect that you guys are also further from the ideal that you’d probably like. I think the key argument from abolitionists, is that crime stems from the structures society itself builds, people making decisions about what is “right” and “wrong” and then criminalizing that behavior. In the current example in the US, that is generally being poor, and often being Black…
We do, absolutely.
But it’s also white, male supremacy that built this country.
I don’t. Sorry but I have other things I care about more and they will have a lot of people to look after them. They have one sad thing to deal with… if they can’t cope despite the plentiful resources at hand for them well then that’s too bad… but I really don’t feel that bad for them because I know how survivable it is even with infinitely less going fo you. So… I’ll save my tears for some one else if it’s ok by you. Family problems aren’t rare.
“I didn’t get your second sentence here…”
I mean it sucks for women either way, but people will take more rage out on women in general if they have a sense the women are getting away with manipulating them. Almost all women have been treated like frauds at some point in their career at the bare minimum. Letting that responsibility rest publicly and making it damage her goals is the deterrent but ultimately it lessens the burden in my eyes. People are vengeful and suspicious and our whole culture distrusts women inherently to begin with.
All that said, I may not be the target demographic you want to question though. I’ve moved “left” of my youth and I generally believe in decriminalizing many things to reduce the prison population because I think a lot of the system ends up being predatory, but I’m more interested in what would reduce the population by the largest percentages which would largely be things affecting the poor, minority races, minority genders, prostitutes, gamblers, and addicts etc. Whatever she is, she is in one of the most legally advantaged and protected categories of humans that exist in this country and she had a lot else going for her but she chose to be an asshole instead.
Right or wrong because of the kind of life I’ve experienced, I probably still don’t, and won’t ever quite have, the type of worldview you tend to see in people who believe in total abolishment of prisions or something like that.
I sleep better because some people sleep in prison and I know it very well.
Arguing that if some crimes still happen, punishing people for them must not serve as any deterrent to them, is really disingenuous. I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish by being that reflexively contrarian but it’s not impressive.
Yeah. America is a nice study of what happens when religion runs into white, male supremacy – it gets twisted into a white, male supremacist religion.
She lied about engineering tests and knowingly sold those fake products to facilities with real patients. Those devices in turn gave them false medical results on life impacting diagnosis.
I feel like a lot about her crimes gets elided in “fraud.” I feel like a lot gets elided when people say “well she stole from rich people so i guess that’s the problem.”
We all feel cynical sometimes so I try to be patient but it does seem to be ignoring her actual crimes which are supposedly the subject.
Fake it til you make it may be typical, but knowingly manufacturing false medical equipment and then lying to make it appear to work is on another level.
I guess the point they’re trying to make is to say that it’s crossing the rich that get her in trouble, and not the thing that’s actually the worst aspect of this whole thing…
I agree it sucks that the focus is on the rich fraud victims, but honestly if it wasn’t for them, I doubt she would have gone to prison.
Just look at Enron- they financially ruined thousands of people and did untold damage to the electrical infrastructure of an entire state. Nobody* went to prison for that. Why? Because the victims were the general public. Middle class utility customers and the pensions of working people are who got hurt.
Or look at the Sacklers for a medical example. They’ve gotten thousands (hundreds of thousands? Millions?) of people killed worldwide, ruined countless lives and families. Not a single one of them is in prison. They paid a few fines to a victims’ fund. Why? Because the victims are poor people and POC for the most part.
It would be nice if Holmes would have gotten 11 years for building fake medical equipment, but I doubt it. She got eleven years because her rich investors got mad.
*Technically one middle manager at Enron went to prison. One. Middle. Manager. A pointless scapegoat.
