pedro45 posted...
Can hardly wait for the day society realizes justice is better done through rehabilitation.
Even though rehab justice has been proven to produce safer communities, reduce recidivism, is cheaper and generally more humane than punitive justice, this is something that Americans will find difficult to swallow for a long time because it goes against our core ethos.
Americans reject the notion of basing our actions on a desired outcome, rather we focus on promoting the principles behind the action. This is, of course, through the lens of expecting all Americans to take personal accountability for their choices in respect to individual rights.
In the case of punishment prisons rather than rehab prisons, it is because we consider a crime to be an offense to the American people itself and that offense must be repaid. The benefits of rehab justice doesn't really matter when our populace wants revenge. "Why do people who choose to commit a crime deserve to get therapy? They deserve to suffer for their choice."
It's a similar reason as to why we spend more money preventing the so-called "undeserving" from getting government benefits than we would actually spend on government benefits if there weren't so many checks in place. Because the idea of the undeserving getting our tax dollars is offensive to us.
It's actually quite screwed up.
As an aside, the rejection of building systems to achieve a specific outcome lies in the background of most Americans' minds but if you ever talk to a libertarian, they will outwardly and vocally reject the notion of building systems to achieve a specific outcome. Instead they hold strong to a specific doctrine by which all power must be administered regardless of what the outcome of that system is. If they enforce the NAP and the result is exploitation, then that is simply what market mechanics do and interfering with that would violate the principles of the free market and the NAP.