1. a system intended to encourage specific desired behaviors, and
2. a system in which people receive the punishments (or, presumably, rewards) that they deserve.
and then you suggest that the first idea only happens if the system is seen to satisfy the second.
If effectiveness is the key, an implicit question is - just how perfect must the system be to be effective? And, similarly, in an imperfect world, if we cannot attain perfection, how must we prioritize? Here I am coming from an engineering perspective: I don't expect perfection, but have to decide how to optimize the system.
Consider a number of kind of failings:
1. only certain types of wrongs are punished,
2. only certain types of people are punished,
3. only some percentage of people who do wrong are punished at all,
4. some percentage of people who do wrong are punished, but not exactly according to the law.
Case (1) is clearly the worst of these. If certain people are rarely if ever punished, the whole idea that the system can be called just is a joke. And in fact, that is called out as an issue in Leviticus 19:15
"You shall commit no injustice in judgment; you shall not favor a poor person or respect a great man; you shall judge your fellow with righteousness."
Case (2) is pretty simple: if certain offenses are not punished, it means that either society has ceased to see them as problematic, or the violations are so common, that punishing them is not accomplishing the goal of changing behavior. See, for example, Niven's Known Space series, in which we learn that the authorities have determined that it is impossible to enforce laws against pickpocketing, so citizens carry wallets than can be mailed back to them.
Cases (3) and (4) generally arise from insufficient resources, but where society feels that punishing the crimes are still essential. There, the choice is how to utilize the resources that do exist. Option (4) is the plea-bargaining choice: we accept some imperfection in punishment in order to mete out some punishment to offenders. In Option (3) we do jury trial after jury trial, building up an enormous backup and holding people in jail for years or else letting them free on bail to re-offend.
Under the principal of not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good, we therefore choose option 4. It is not perfect, but it mostly communicates that crimes are punished. In such a case, then, we need to minimize the damages of plea bargaining, including innocent people being pressured to accept time in prison, and of course the 'But Billy' problem, where some people get prosecutors who offer more generous terms than others. That requires having some kinds of standards for plea bargains, rather than leaving them entirely up to prosecutorial discretion.
Choosing option 3 does not lead to justice at all.
>>and then you suggest that the first idea only happens if the system is seen to satisfy the second.
Ummm, no. In fact quite the opposite. In pretty much every way.
What I say is that when we look at a justice system, however much we might be pushing for 'punishing what I don't like' we are always forced to mask it in the pretence of 'actual right and wrong'.
And you seem to have totally missed my point in 'It's not a game'. Everyone realises that a justice system must have flaws, given that it is administered by evil human beings over evil human beings. What I am arguing against is *confusion*. We must never confuse what justice is with how we are forced to administer our system. We must always realise, even if we cannot fix, the idea that innocent people are punished, guilty people are let off, certain people get more punishment than they deserve and others less...
IOW we need to constantly and in all cases recognise that this is not a game. It is not enough that we 'played by the rules', we have to be always looking at the rules and see to what extent they reflect reality. Which means we have to realise that their is a reality to reflect.
You've offered two major ideas of justice:
1. a system intended to encourage specific desired behaviors, and
2. a system in which people receive the punishments (or, presumably, rewards) that they deserve.
and then you suggest that the first idea only happens if the system is seen to satisfy the second.
If effectiveness is the key, an implicit question is - just how perfect must the system be to be effective? And, similarly, in an imperfect world, if we cannot attain perfection, how must we prioritize? Here I am coming from an engineering perspective: I don't expect perfection, but have to decide how to optimize the system.
Consider a number of kind of failings:
1. only certain types of wrongs are punished,
2. only certain types of people are punished,
3. only some percentage of people who do wrong are punished at all,
4. some percentage of people who do wrong are punished, but not exactly according to the law.
Case (1) is clearly the worst of these. If certain people are rarely if ever punished, the whole idea that the system can be called just is a joke. And in fact, that is called out as an issue in Leviticus 19:15
"You shall commit no injustice in judgment; you shall not favor a poor person or respect a great man; you shall judge your fellow with righteousness."
Case (2) is pretty simple: if certain offenses are not punished, it means that either society has ceased to see them as problematic, or the violations are so common, that punishing them is not accomplishing the goal of changing behavior. See, for example, Niven's Known Space series, in which we learn that the authorities have determined that it is impossible to enforce laws against pickpocketing, so citizens carry wallets than can be mailed back to them.
Cases (3) and (4) generally arise from insufficient resources, but where society feels that punishing the crimes are still essential. There, the choice is how to utilize the resources that do exist. Option (4) is the plea-bargaining choice: we accept some imperfection in punishment in order to mete out some punishment to offenders. In Option (3) we do jury trial after jury trial, building up an enormous backup and holding people in jail for years or else letting them free on bail to re-offend.
Under the principal of not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good, we therefore choose option 4. It is not perfect, but it mostly communicates that crimes are punished. In such a case, then, we need to minimize the damages of plea bargaining, including innocent people being pressured to accept time in prison, and of course the 'But Billy' problem, where some people get prosecutors who offer more generous terms than others. That requires having some kinds of standards for plea bargains, rather than leaving them entirely up to prosecutorial discretion.
Choosing option 3 does not lead to justice at all.
>>and then you suggest that the first idea only happens if the system is seen to satisfy the second.
Ummm, no. In fact quite the opposite. In pretty much every way.
What I say is that when we look at a justice system, however much we might be pushing for 'punishing what I don't like' we are always forced to mask it in the pretence of 'actual right and wrong'.
And you seem to have totally missed my point in 'It's not a game'. Everyone realises that a justice system must have flaws, given that it is administered by evil human beings over evil human beings. What I am arguing against is *confusion*. We must never confuse what justice is with how we are forced to administer our system. We must always realise, even if we cannot fix, the idea that innocent people are punished, guilty people are let off, certain people get more punishment than they deserve and others less...
IOW we need to constantly and in all cases recognise that this is not a game. It is not enough that we 'played by the rules', we have to be always looking at the rules and see to what extent they reflect reality. Which means we have to realise that their is a reality to reflect.
I think you need to check your numbering. You seem to have mixed up case 1 and 2 at the very least.