Crime and Punishment / Rehabilitation / Revenge / etc.

In a recent interview writer Steve Gerber (perhaps best known for creating Howard the Duck, but don't blame him for the horrid movie) talked about the idea behind his new series Hard Time. It's part of a new line of books from DC Comics, about people who find themselves with super powers, but don't respond by putting on a costume and either committing or fighting crimes. The central characer of the book is a 15-year-old sentenced to 50 years in prison, because Gerber wanted to shine a light on the inhumanity of applying that kind of sentence to someone so young.

A debate about America's approach to crime and punishment promptly ensued on the discussion board attached to the interview. Rather than take up space there, I thought I'd expound a bit about it here.

The biggest problem with how we handle criminal activity is that we can't come to a consensus about it. We have heated debates about the death penalty, minimum sentencing laws, sex offender registries, etc. and can't come to any common ground on them because people have several mutually incompatible views of what the criminal justice system is there for.

One is model is punishment. It's a lot like how parents deal with young children: You did something wrong, so we're going to do something unpleasant to you to teach you how wrong it is. This is basic negative reinforcement, and probably the most fundamental kind of "learning" we do. Heck, even plants can respond to this approach: trim the top off enough times, and it'll give up and just grow outward instead.

Another model is rehabilitation. This is a bit like punishment, but a more optimistic. It shares the belief that the person who's done something wrong can be conditioned to not do it again, but combines positive reinforcement as well as negative. So not only do you get put in solitary confinement when you attack a guard, but you get additional privileges when you behave more like a model citizen. This is where the concept of "time off for good behavior" comes in, as the biggest carrot that can be offered, and the parole denial being the biggest stick.

This pisses off people who think in terms of revenge. They start at the same place as the Punishers, but go in the opposite direction. Rather than looking at the punishment as a way to condition people against doing bad things, they simply want to hurt the perpetrator, for their own satisfaction. This is an inherently irrational approach, and the sky's the limit when it comes to sentencing. You needn't be limited to a proportionate response; you can execute someone for doing things that didn't actually involve killing someone. The whole concept of "victim's rights" comes out of this, based on the idea that the victim of a crime has to be satisfied with the sentence or it's inadequate.

A slightly milder version of that thinking is the justice approach. This is the philosophy that actually invented the death penalty, based on the Biblical principle (which actually goes back even further than that) of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". He killed someone, so we're going to kill him. Unlike the Revengers, they tend to stop when they get to the point of matching the original crime. It's more of a dispassionate, rational version of revenge. It's very likely to give ex-cons a "second chance", figuring he's paid his debt to society, and now deserves to be treated like anyone else.

Coming at it from a different angle is the deterrent objective. Rather than simply reacting to crimes like the previous models, this seeks to prevent them, with the threat of punishment. The death penalty finds lots of advocates with this mindset, although evidence that it works that way is shaky. There's stronger evidence that it works better with lesser crimes and lesser criminals. For example, the threat of getting a big fine does a fairly good job of reducing the number of mostly-law-abiding citizens who drive at 100mph on the highway.

I suspect the largest school of thought about prison sentences is public safety. If someone is dangerous, you lock them up, to keep the rest of us safe. Combine this with the assumption that rehabilitation isn't possible, and you have life sentences. Or death sentences... not based on bloodlust, but just cool mathematics: why pay to feed and house someone when your only goal is to keep him away from the public? This is also where the justification behind published sex-offender registries comes from: whether the person has "served his time" is beside the point, and whether he appears to be rehabilitated - or even just deterred from repeat-offending - is too iffy. All that matters is giving people whatever tools they need to feel safe.

So... what's my take on the question? Like most people, I tend to see some merit here and there in several of these. The punishment approach is just to simplistic and juvenile to satisfy me. I find the whole revenge mindset seriously troubling due to the dangers of its passion, and the public-safety angle disturbing for its lack of compassion. Deterrence is a valid concept, but it leaves gaping holes through which the worst criminals will stride. Rehabilitation is what I'd strive for first and foremost, but there needs to be a Plan B for the many cases in which it isn't possible.