So, haven't read the article yet, but I have a question. Why would you ever put a non-violent criminal behind bars?
You and I may not agree with them, but there are arguments to be made for isolation as a form of punishment. If you go through my comment history you'll see some of my opinions on Jail and, more importantly, what I think of how society treats ex-convicts. As I implied, I don't agree with it, but that doesn't make it necessarily less valid. Many of these broad issues don't really have "Right" answers, they just have people on both sides who think they're right.
I completely understand that bit. I definitely think that we need some form of confinement for those animals that happen to have human shape. But we have all kinds of punishments to use, and the only good argument I can see for putting someone in a cage is if they pose direct physical harm to others. there are arguments to be made for isolation as a form of punishment.
Me too. However we have to remember that there are other people who don't feel that way, and that their arguments are not necessarily less valid than ours. That doesn't mean we shouldn't challenge those ideas and arguments, but we also need to be willing to be proven wrong too.the only good argument I can see
Oh of course, The backlog in New York courts is currently appalling. However, I was talking to OftenBen about the broader arguments of punishment, which they alluded to with their question.
I think that is was supposed to be more humane than chopping off hands and branding faces with marks of punishment (although twitter seems to have solved our desire to instill fear of permanent shame). The idea of the panopticon is not just for oblique references to hipster philosophers cum intellectuals deriding the Man, man.