From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Wed Mar 03 1999 - 21:02:12 MST
Delvieron@aol.com wrote:
> Thought it might be helpful in our discussion of the Alternatives to
> imprisonment if I listed some of the goals that I could think of as having
> been advanced as important in penalties for crime.
>
> Goals of Punishment
> - Justice/Fairness
> - Reparation
> - Revenge
> - Rehabilitation/Redemption
> - Inducing Regret
> - Preventing Future crime by Offender
> - Deterrent to Others
>
> If anyone can think of others, please let me know.
The primary purpose is that it separates the individual who has demonstrated a
disregard for others rights from the society which respects those rights. We can
no longer deport these people to prison colonies, and they cannot flee to the
fronteirs or be forced into the army to serve on the fronteir, so they get put
into 'storage'.
Piers Anthony's _Ring_ novel is a good depiction of an alternative to
imprisonment. Convicts get a ring installed on their fingers that is embedded to
the bone. It monitors the convicts thoughts, giving varying levels of pain for
various thoughts and immobilizing pain when 'illegal' actions are taken. The
conundrum in the novel is that the rings are programmed by someone with a very
puritanical and severe idea of right and wrong, so there tends to be a very
severe period of adjustment that a convict goes through, and sometimes does not
survive.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey, President
Lorrey Systems
------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:mike@lorrey.com
------------------------------------------------------------
"A society which trades freedom for some measure of security
shall wind up with neither." -----Benjamin Franklin
"The tree of Liberty should be watered from time to time
with the blood of tyrants and patriots."
-----Thomas Jefferson
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security
of a Free State, the Right of the People to keep and bear
arms shall not be infringed." -----US Constitution,
2nd Amendment
"You can have my gun when you pry it out of my cold, dead
hands..." -----Anonymous
"Once we got their guns away from them, taking their
money was REAL easy." -----Unknown North Korean
Commissar
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