Teen gets 21 years in prison for killing gay classmate

[Bucky]

30. Interesting distinction

I would argue that punishment isn't vengeance. There are people who are only looking for revenge, who are thus only operating out of emotional reaction to the horrors of any particular crime. I can't agree with them ever. Justice needs to be dispassionate. But neither do I think that the only purpose of prison can be reformation. It's a nice idea and it absolutely needs to be in the mix of what happens to an individual while they are incarcerated--and to far more of an extent than what happens now. But the main purpose should be to mete out impartial punishment, to physically restrain the freedom they've abused by victimizing others.

Drug offenders, of course, are better suited for the reform end of the spectrum. They need to be sobered up and most don't need to be incarcerated at all. But then, this thread isn't about the idiocy of the War on Drugs. From what I get from my friends who've actually worked in the prison system, inmates in for violent and property crimes aren't a good population for trying to actualize the "perfectibility of man" on. There's a kind of sociopathy that goes on in the head when someone decides they can shoot or rob someone else and that kind of thinking takes time to be unprogrammed. But the harm to society outside of the actual loss of life, limb, or property also demands a punishment. People who make society less civilized should lose some of the benefits of society.

This is what we mean by paying a debt to society. I don't think this is at odds with the view that criminals should be reformed, but it is a separate consideration. I can see how it seems arbitrary, of course, but a 13 year old who murders a 14 year old shouldn't be allowed to walk on the streets until he's in his 30s. In that mean time, he probably ought to go through a whole lot of re-education.