[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist social deconstruction

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Dan Lusthaus schreef:

>
>If you've never had a conversation with someone that you quickly realize is
>willing and able to kill you right there on the spot should the merest shift
>in wind or mood strike him, a realization that makes you tremble to your
>depths, then you are not in a position to fully appreciate what is at stake.
>
>The necessity of prisons is not to be conflated with:
>1. issues of false imprisonment,
>2. substandard prison conditions,
>3. overly harsh sentencing (or the obverse)
>4. police brutality and corruption
>and the plethora of other issues that clear thinking people would wish to
>curtail and reform.
>
>It is about those people who have done horrible, unimaginable things, and
>will do them again, next time perhaps to someone you know.
>
>  
>
I don't think one example proves a lot and I hate conversasiotns where only examples and counter examples are exchanged. An important question one has to answere is: what's the objective of punishment?Is it:

    * revenge
    * honouring the public feeling of justice, or
    * prevention?

The Old Testament prescribes revenge, most judges nowadays appeal to a 
feeling of justice expressed in the law and jurisprudence. Liberals may 
want the last option, me too. This is a tough one because it's not easy 
to find out how you can make people not to commit crimes again. One 
thing is certain however: the prison today is a crime university. (Read 
Michel Foucalt's 'Discipline and punishment'). Most inmates are prone to 
go back where to came from, even better prepared. Making them more 
uncomfortable has never helped. The sharia even doesn't help to lower 
the crime rate. It seems that prisons need to be more like social 
schools or places of education. Not because we want to be nice to 
criminals, but because we want to punish the crime and not the criminal. 
If I'm not mistaken I smell a bit of old fashioned anattaa here!

Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
weblog http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950