Quote:
Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
Every violent criminal I ever dealt with had little ability to self regulate and most of them had no ability to really make decisions in any normal sense, that's why they were criminals.
The idea there is some 'normal' state' that makes you 'responsible' is just asinine, we lock people up to protect ourselves, not because they deserve it, most of them dont when you look at the life they have gone through
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I think this is a good angle; how is the public best protected.
Now we just need to include the people who might or might not be convicted within the sphere of the public.
Which is more likely here;
- People who engage in risky behavior with drugs/medication/alcohol end up going free more than they used to, resulting in more damage to other people than before...
(This seems marginal enough that I don't think it will make the general public at large more likely to engage in risky behavior due to lessened fear of legal repercussions.)
or
- People who are not significantly more of a risk to their surroundings than average but did something stupid/bad basically this one time are a bit better protected from pointless prison sentences (or other legal punishments).
We should also add into the calculation that the #1 risk factor for a person to commit crimes is previous jailtime, so it's possible that in some situations
NOT putting someone in jail can actually be more helpful in preventing future crime than putting them in jail.
(Of course it's debatable whether this is more correlation (criminals have often been in jail already), or causation (people who end up in jail tend to become more criminal than they were before).)
This to me is the real calculation; how is the public good best served. Individual cases are somewhat irrelevant.