Is Prison Truly Just?

I have been wondering what's the difference between justice and revenge. When pondering this I start to think about the court system.

Then this pop to my head, If someone were to kill my mom I would kill them and this revenge . But if I call the cops and sent him to prison, well first jail then trial then prison, it would be justice.

However, while in prison the killer would probably suffer and Iam aware of his suffering, isn't that really revenge? How can something be consider justice if all really doing is making him suffer and making him into a greater treat?

Well to this interesting reflection, I must respond two things:

On the one part, prisons were orginally created as to restrain dangerous individuals and separate them from the common folk, as in all others than Fakkuers :)
These individuals had to be imprisonned so that they could not perpetrate their crimes once again and cause more pain/grief to the general population.

Deriving from that, the sentence of prison is not meant to be a pleasant one, because it must be used to tell the perpetrator of a crime that what he did was contrary to the common good or dangerous or illegal or whatever justice (IE courts of his peers) deem bad.

Thus if he suffers while imprisonned, good, that is the purpose of it. Of course, originally (and by that I mean by the 1900) prisons were not places of torture or pain, but places of seclusion, loneliness and scarce ressources. The prisoners must be able to survive, but not thrive.

So liberty of movement is taken, pleasures of life, any sort of pleasant things from games to radios are removed so that the prisoner can focus on his current condition and what brought him there. That is the objective of prisons.

Of course, as everything in this world, prisons have changed from their orginal form. but the idea remains the same, greater crimes=greater sentence/number of years of penance.

So yes prison is just. Is it efficient?
I would tend to say no, and that directly derives from the judicial system, which isn't the subject here.

Cheerio lad/ladette, hope this helped your internal turmoil.

I don't think the courts are fair some crimes get too hefty of a punishment and others have sentences with vast differences between similar crimes like two people could commit the exact same crime and one of them could get a far worse punishment.

Not for people who kill. Those deserve to be killed inch by inch. Rapists, however, deserve to have their manhood sliced inch by inch and THEN killed. Just being sent to prison is not enough.

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Umm out of curiosity, what if that rapist was a female?

Theoretically, the same punishment, thought if it came to it, I'd support a more lenient charge (ranging from just death to whatever). The point is, I've never even heard of female rapists, so I have a hard time even thinking about it.

It's cause legally a women can't commit rape it would be considered aggressive assault.

Also there will be plenty of men in jail for a rape they didn't often like say their both drunk then in the morning the female regrets her actions and accuses the man of rape or another common thing that happens is their both into S&M they get caught in the act the women is humiliated and wants to pretend she didn't do it willingly.

Prison can also act as a deterrent.

Prison is for animals , rehabilitation is for humans . I don't believe prison has its reason to be anymore ...

Depends on the reason they are in prison in the first place, but those who took another life or rapist deserve to be in prison. I'm curious to know if the U.S. prison system works compared to a prison system like Sweden(I think that is the right country) that is the opposite of an American prison.

It can...but does it?


There's really no way to test whether it's a deterrent or not because it's not like we have states that don't have prison systems to compare the states that do to.

For now, I support a reformation of how prison is regulated. Exactly what? I have no clue. All I do know is that many people are imprisoned for little to no good reason, they're a bitch to pay for, and prisons end up being filled to the brim with people that don't even deserve to be there. People with jobs that can be supporting the community instead of doing nothing all day and sitting in a cell being bored out of their minds.

@ Maxiart Wow...so umm...I suppose you support the death penalty huh? >.>

I don't believe someone who has killed another person for selfish reasons should be allowed to go on living. What are a paltry number of prison years compared to a person's life? Even if they are convicted for life, there is still the possibility of parole after time has passed, and even if there is not, there is still hope. Though limited, they can find happiness.

But the person killed can only rot.

Let it stay and corrupt us even more.

Happy 200 posts!

Killing him for killing your mother is justice in my opinion. I think justice is when you take it into your own hands to do what is right. I believe in Vigilante justice.

But that is another problem with the notion of "justice" it is that it is versatile and subject to so many vectors that one can never grasp it.
Just like theodicy, it is something that is out of our hands, or at least I think so.
Theodicy

All we can do is approximations, which are sometimes sufficient, but most of the time not.
Vigilante justice for example, is a way of distributing justice with a "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" idea. Which sadly often leads to unwanted spirals of violence if flailed wildly around.

I don't think you've said anything on the other side of killers, what about poeple who have killed in self-defence? What about accidents (although I think there are very few 'accidents') like if someone where killed though surgery? would a doctor who could of saved a hundred others be put to death? Indirect killings? would poeple who have ordered a killing also be put to death? and what if they had put the killer up to it, without choice? would they too be killed?


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But about prisons/justice and revenge,

Prisons themselves could be in better use, other than killers, I believe someone should have a chance to redeem themselves, but of course, without all the same rights, and mabye only for a time, depending on the crime.

I think Justice and Revenge are just about who takes out the Revenge/Justice... someone with a piece of paper = Justice, Someone who takes it apon themselves to deem what is right, WITHOUT GOING OVERBOARD, could be justice,

Like if someone where to attack another, they should be punished above what they gave out. If someone where steal, they should return/payback and give some.

But that is pretty much what is happening with the justice system today, only with incorrect cops, judges, lawyers. and what have you. So i think its about who we are trusting with the power to do this that is the problem.

I did mention that death should be only for those who kill for selfish reasons i.e those who engaged their victims with the full intent of killing them. That would not apply to people who kill others on accident, so long as there is no negligence. (At least I think thats the term.)

As for ordering a killing against their will... any specific case you could put forth as an example? I've honestly never heard of that either. You mean someone who feels threated by someone else, and thus decides to preemptively take them out? I think that would very much depend on the specifics. Records of violence from the deceased to the one who ordered the killing, threats and such. Depending on the findings, the person might just be sent to jail for a period of time. The one who carried the 'contract' or whatever, supposing in this example he did it only for money, would of course be put to death.

What I want to say is, intent matters. Just like there is a distinction between accidental and premeditated murder. I think only the latter deserve to be put to death.

The difference between Justice and revenge is that Justice is socially accepted form of revenge.

Say the man who killed your mom is put to prison, everyone will nod and agree of the man's misfortune inside the cell. That way, you get your revenge morally right because it's acceptable by law and the society.

In revenge, however, you can find the Justice for your mom-but not for yourself. If you killed the man who killed your mom, what difference are you compared with the murderer?

There you go.

So thats it, for you? He kills your mother, he can get by with only some years in a cell? Can you truly call that justice? To me, killing is, by far, the worst thing a human can do. We all only get one chance at life. Someone who takes another's chance, doesn't deserve his own.

And what will you do? You'll Kill him?
I'm good with Imprisonment. If I make revenge on my own, it doesn't make me any different with the murderer.