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Buddhism and punishment.
hermitwin
Veteran
What kinds of punishment is appropriate in accordance with buddhist
principles? I am refferring to rapists, murderers. etc.
If you think that all forms of punishments are unbuddhist,
then pl ignore this thread. Pragmatic buddhism, imagine you are a
judge & you have the power to mete out punishment.
IMO, its more humane to chop off a man's hand than to
put him behind bars for 20 years.
principles? I am refferring to rapists, murderers. etc.
If you think that all forms of punishments are unbuddhist,
then pl ignore this thread. Pragmatic buddhism, imagine you are a
judge & you have the power to mete out punishment.
IMO, its more humane to chop off a man's hand than to
put him behind bars for 20 years.
0
Comments
It is my fervent hope that as Buddhists we've moved beyond the "eye for an eye" mentality that is the source of SO much strife in the world today. What you're talking about is essentially sharia law. That makes me shudder. Prison certainly isn't the ideal way to punish someone for a crime (at least not the way most prisons are run), but shouldn't we at least have enough compassion to believe that rehabilitation is possible? Cutting off body parts is pretty extreme if you ask me.
I am only in favor of chopping the hand if the only
other alternative is life imprisonment.
Because I believe long prison sentences are more cruel
than death.
You say prison isn't ideal, what do you think would be ideal?
Just curious.
Jason
I want to know what you think.
Blaming people and putting them in jail for ever, does not really help much.
The Buddhist way to go is something like this:
http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/
We need to put energy and time in finding truth and reconciliation.
We need to look at causes and find solutions to underlying problems.
(But a parking ticket does not require a Truth and Reconciliation Committee, I suppose.)
Why are we talking about chopping off hands? I didn't quite follow that one.
Native Americans don't incarcerate their offenders. Tribal courts impose "sentences" aimed at rehabilitating the offender, and their strategies seem to work. But what the federal government has defined as "major crimes" (murder, attempted murder, rape, attempted rape, + 3 others I don't recall) have been taken out of their hands, so we don't know how their justice system would work in such cases in modern times. In the old days, if a murder occurred, the offender would make reparations, by providing something of value, such as several head of cattle, or whatever the aggrieved demanded. In the late 1800's, the dominant society panicked at the thought of murderers walking free, and pressured Congress to pass the Seven Major Crimes Act. Thus began the incarceration of Native Americans.
with monks who are not cooperative?
I mean someone who refuse to comply
with an order and refuse to leave.
is unacceptable in most countries.
usually its reserved for political prisoners.
For example a person who robs a bank can get 20 years imprisonment in the UK, but a murderer can get 5 years and be released in 3 years. Again this does not seem right to me :-/
Problem # 1 is recidivism. Just for quick stats you can find on Wikipedia: "As reported on BBC Radio...the recidivism rates for released prisoners in the United States...is 60% compared with 50% in the United Kingdom but cross-country statistical comparisons are often questionable. The report attributed the lower recidivism rate in the UK to a focus on rehabilitation and education of prisoners compared with the US focus on punishment, deterrence and keeping potentially dangerous individuals away from society...The United States...tracked the rearrest, re-conviction, and re-incarceration of former inmates for 3 years after their release from prisons in 15 states in 1994. Key findings include: Released prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were robbers (70.2%), burglars (74.0%), larcenists (74.6%), motor vehicle thieves (78.8%), those in prison for possessing or selling stolen property (77.4%), and those in prison for possessing, using, or selling illegal weapons (70.2%). Within 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for homicide. These are the lowest rates of re-arrest for the same category of crime. The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 had accumulated 4.1 million arrest charges before their most recent imprisonment and another 744,000 charges within 3 years of release." REREAD THAT LAST SENTENCE.
The other thing I have to ask is, have any of you ever been through the legal justice system for anything serious? I have...not for myself, but for my son. He ended up being convicted, but because of an exemplary life before that, he got 3 months for his crime, instead of 15 years. But for three months, every Saturday morning at 5 a.m. I made a 3 hour trip to see him. His visiting time was 8 a.m. on Saturday mornings at a somewhat low-security prison, for 45 minutes. So where am I leading with this? Some of the prisoners that I also saw coming into the visiting area each Saturday were, in my view, that very dangerous looking, like my son. But ladies, some of those who came in the visitor area those mornings would have made you wet your panties if you were walking along the street and you saw them walking toward you. And again, I remind you, this was a relatively low security prison. The really bad guys were sent to places like Red Onion is far SW Virginia.
Some of you who are so soft in your approach, wouldn't even dirty your hands working with the homeless, because you'd be too afraid. I suggest that you go find some volunteer work where you work with former convicts...and I mean REAL convicts...and then you come back and tell us your experiences.
Having said all that, I think far too many types of crimes end up with prison sentences (for example, Bernie Madoff...he hurt a lot of people, but I'm not sure white collar crimes belong in prison). I think the criminal justice system works poorly, and in some aspects incompetently. I think many prison sentences are too long. And the whole history of innocent people being put in prison or sentenced to death is a huge problem.
But, Mountains, you'd be perfectly content having that repeat child molester living in a house next to your children?
If so, I guess where I am coming from on this discussion is -- what kind of a discussion are we having. A conceptual discussion? Or a real world discussion? Or both? Or something in between?
Of curse, it could be all of the above.
But I am reminded of a local situation we had in northern Virginia about a prison that had been in our region for many years. Virtually everyone agreed a new prison was needed..."but not in my area!".
To add to this, I just wish those people who do fight for the criminals rights, would actually fight as hard for the victims rights.
I think the sex offender issue is complex. Note that in the data I gave above, 97.5% of rapists released did NOT rape again. I could agree with you more for sex offenders who had a repeat record...but at what point of recidivism?
:werr:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386809/Eye-eye-Woman-blinded-scorned-lover-given-permission-throw-acid-eyes-Iran-court.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10565103
on National geographic or any other documentary
on prisons, you will realise that it does not work.
The sad part is we are unable/unwilling to change
it to something more effective.
"In modern times, the Czech Republic practices surgically castrating convicted sex offenders. According to the reports compiled by Council of Europe, a human-rights forum, the central European country physically castrated at least 94 prisoners in the 10 years up to April 2008. The Czech Republic defends this procedure as voluntary and effective.[60] According to Dr. Martin Hollý, director of the Psychiatric Hospital Bohnice in Prague, none of the nearly 100 sex offenders who had been physically castrated had committed further offenses.[61] One serial offender stated that being castrated was the "best decision" he ever made: "On the one hand you have to protect the potential victims and on the other hand I wanted to be protected from myself, I wanted to live like a normal person."[62] Don Grubin, a professor at Newcastle University's Institute of Neuroscience who also runs a chemical castration program backed by the U.K.'s Ministry of Justice, was initially opposed to physical castration. After visiting the Czech Republic, however, he agreed that some form of castration might be of benefit to some sex offenders.[62][63]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castration
This suggests that physical castration does work
Are you advocating letting them rape and rape and rape some more?
I know you aren't.
But as an example, for child sex offenders, I would make this non-voluntary. For serial rapists I would make it non-voluntary.
There has to be a point in which, society has to be protected from people who wish to do these actions, and if prison sentencing is not working, then I see no harm in doing this.
As I have said for these types of offences I take the victims side and their rights before the offender. Because lets not forget, in these crimes the victims have to live with what happened for the rest of their life.
I think hermit asks a good question, about whether punishment is even compatible with Buddhist values. Of course the ideal would be to have social programs in place, good education for all, etc., to prevent some of the roots of crime from even developing. But I don't think that would eliminate all crime, and sadly, it may not be realistic to fund all those programs, plus effective rehabilitation in prisons.
Someone pointed out elsewhere that the Japanese are very loving with their kids, have a homogeneous society, and are very conformist. That deters crime. I recall hearing about the Swiss, too--very conformist, low crime. Do we want to live in a conformist society? I'm all for better childcare, better parenting skills, social workers who actually do their job and take kids out of abusive environments.
I think this is a question/problem that has faced humanity since the dawn of time. Criminals used to be ostracized. That's not realistic now. No easy answers.
I do think that "punishment" can serve the purpose of giving someone time to think about what they've done: the right or wrong of it, the consequences to self and others. Some people do need to be told there are boundaries that cannot be crossed. But we're probably all agreed that prison reform is desperately needed.
What do we need him in prison?
And be required to face all the people who lost money.
A reality program?
towards the end, AB talks about punishnment