This is all complex stuff! I suspect hat one of the prime purposes of prisons in the western world is meant to be general deterrence - that is, stopping *other people* from committing crime. It certainly seems to make sense, rooted as the view is in Enlightenment concept if rational choice & free will. The difficulty comes in when we add positivist views of the *causes* of things - including human behaviour. If we believe (as psychologists like me can barely choose not to) that human behaviour has caused, it is difficult if not impossible to believe that we can freely choose it. A stone, after all, has no choice about falling when you let it go. It’s behaviour is caused by scientifically identifiable phenomena. If crime has caused, deterrence shouldn’t work.
In one of your articles / notes I read you speculate that our criminal justice system may be one thing our descendants look at incredulously. The more time I spend reading and thinking about such issues I find myself agreeing. Then again, as someone whose training is mostly in history -- I would not speculate on what reform should look like. At best, I (we) can best hint at the kinds of issues one may want to consider.
Unfortunately, that's because,...it is. It's just true. There are several criminal cases that are instructive to this very issue. Wealthy individuals have the money to hire bigshot lawyers and walk free daily. But an individual,such as Bryan Kohberger, that's been busting his ass to have and become something in this life, has to get a public pretender and pray they don't put him in front of a firing squad, or a needle in his arm just to protect a lucrative business in a small town. As well as protect all their dirty little secrets. Realistically it's just a sad truth that someone who is a murderous psychopath can have the money to hire good attorneys, who'll fight for them. Possibly even get them bail, maybe being released on house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor, until trial. Kohberger can't even get that much. And he is somebody who has never been in any trouble like that, so he qualifies as an excellent candidate for pretrial release. But STILL, a year and a half later he sits. No movement. That's likely to be HIS LIFE, for up to the next twenty five years or so. He is an INNOCENT MAN. Now we know that they don't even have the evidence that they had us thinking they did. He's got excellent parents and family and was raised with good Christian values. He is an overcomer like myself and I appreciate that about him. They made a great mistake going after this innocent young man who was doing absolutely nothing to nobody. He was working his ass off to EARN AN HONEST LIVING and was targeted himself. But here we are. He has already been convicted by mainstream media and the public in general. With nothing more than gossip and rumors. All of the little nuances that have been placed like seeds in everyone's ears is totally backfiring on them now. As the real truth is coming to the surface. Slowly but surely.The Goncalves family has done nothing but getting out here and staying busy cultivating hate towards him. Unfairly at that. They say they want the real truth but I think they are in denial. The real truth might be too much for them to accept. For anyone who doesn't agree, maybe you should look at the situation with the surviving roommates. Sure, they're very well protected and we certainly didn't get any truths out of them did we? Times are changing and so should we. It seems to me that our criminal justice system and our healthcare systems are extremely lucrative businesses. I repeat, BUSINESSES. Look at the JonBenet Ramsey case or the OJ Simpson trial. Unfortunately it seems there really is a price tag on our freedoms..
Thank you for raising important issues regarding wealth inequalities when people face criminal charges. We are not familiar with Bryan Kohberger's case.
You do point out some important issues, income inequality and its effect on people's ability to defend themselves; different crimes may require different punishments; the lack of context in addressing specific cases.
We are not criminologists, criminal psychologists, or psychiatrists. It is hard for us to be prescriptive while recognizing the limitations of our expertise.
I think criminal justice is one of those areas that our descendants will be shocked with. There are a series of problems. There is a substack dedicated to discussing some of these issues with a focus on lethal injection https://medicineandjustice.substack.com/
We know that eye witness accounts are quite unreliable... we know there are all kinds of biases which affect juries...
and prisons overall fail to deter, fail to rehabilitate...
We will continue to discuss the ways in which certain ideas and behaviors have been criminalized and how this has impacted different groups. We will continue to try and make sense of what's happened in the hope that by finding issues, trends, potential pitfalls, we can at least raise questions when new ways are proposed. So that we can also raise questions about current approaches.
Excellent information. Thank you. 😊
This is an interesting topic, and I'm surprised more people are not talking about it.
This is all complex stuff! I suspect hat one of the prime purposes of prisons in the western world is meant to be general deterrence - that is, stopping *other people* from committing crime. It certainly seems to make sense, rooted as the view is in Enlightenment concept if rational choice & free will. The difficulty comes in when we add positivist views of the *causes* of things - including human behaviour. If we believe (as psychologists like me can barely choose not to) that human behaviour has caused, it is difficult if not impossible to believe that we can freely choose it. A stone, after all, has no choice about falling when you let it go. It’s behaviour is caused by scientifically identifiable phenomena. If crime has caused, deterrence shouldn’t work.
In one of your articles / notes I read you speculate that our criminal justice system may be one thing our descendants look at incredulously. The more time I spend reading and thinking about such issues I find myself agreeing. Then again, as someone whose training is mostly in history -- I would not speculate on what reform should look like. At best, I (we) can best hint at the kinds of issues one may want to consider.
Not only reform of the jails, all the US criminal justice system should be changed. It looks against the poor.
Unfortunately, that's because,...it is. It's just true. There are several criminal cases that are instructive to this very issue. Wealthy individuals have the money to hire bigshot lawyers and walk free daily. But an individual,such as Bryan Kohberger, that's been busting his ass to have and become something in this life, has to get a public pretender and pray they don't put him in front of a firing squad, or a needle in his arm just to protect a lucrative business in a small town. As well as protect all their dirty little secrets. Realistically it's just a sad truth that someone who is a murderous psychopath can have the money to hire good attorneys, who'll fight for them. Possibly even get them bail, maybe being released on house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor, until trial. Kohberger can't even get that much. And he is somebody who has never been in any trouble like that, so he qualifies as an excellent candidate for pretrial release. But STILL, a year and a half later he sits. No movement. That's likely to be HIS LIFE, for up to the next twenty five years or so. He is an INNOCENT MAN. Now we know that they don't even have the evidence that they had us thinking they did. He's got excellent parents and family and was raised with good Christian values. He is an overcomer like myself and I appreciate that about him. They made a great mistake going after this innocent young man who was doing absolutely nothing to nobody. He was working his ass off to EARN AN HONEST LIVING and was targeted himself. But here we are. He has already been convicted by mainstream media and the public in general. With nothing more than gossip and rumors. All of the little nuances that have been placed like seeds in everyone's ears is totally backfiring on them now. As the real truth is coming to the surface. Slowly but surely.The Goncalves family has done nothing but getting out here and staying busy cultivating hate towards him. Unfairly at that. They say they want the real truth but I think they are in denial. The real truth might be too much for them to accept. For anyone who doesn't agree, maybe you should look at the situation with the surviving roommates. Sure, they're very well protected and we certainly didn't get any truths out of them did we? Times are changing and so should we. It seems to me that our criminal justice system and our healthcare systems are extremely lucrative businesses. I repeat, BUSINESSES. Look at the JonBenet Ramsey case or the OJ Simpson trial. Unfortunately it seems there really is a price tag on our freedoms..
Hi Sigma,
Thank you for raising important issues regarding wealth inequalities when people face criminal charges. We are not familiar with Bryan Kohberger's case.
You do point out some important issues, income inequality and its effect on people's ability to defend themselves; different crimes may require different punishments; the lack of context in addressing specific cases.
Hi Salvador.
We are not criminologists, criminal psychologists, or psychiatrists. It is hard for us to be prescriptive while recognizing the limitations of our expertise.
I think criminal justice is one of those areas that our descendants will be shocked with. There are a series of problems. There is a substack dedicated to discussing some of these issues with a focus on lethal injection https://medicineandjustice.substack.com/
We know that eye witness accounts are quite unreliable... we know there are all kinds of biases which affect juries...
and prisons overall fail to deter, fail to rehabilitate...
We will continue to discuss the ways in which certain ideas and behaviors have been criminalized and how this has impacted different groups. We will continue to try and make sense of what's happened in the hope that by finding issues, trends, potential pitfalls, we can at least raise questions when new ways are proposed. So that we can also raise questions about current approaches.
Thank you for commenting. We appreciate it!
Thanks a lot for your long response !!!