Ship of Fools: is retribution a dirty word or not?

Thread: is retribution a dirty word or not? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

In a news story today the UK Prime Minister David Cameron is quoted as saying

quote:
"Retribution is not a dirty word; it is important to society that revulsion against crime and is properly recognised,"

Now checking the Dictionary definitions to see if my immediate reaction was based on a normal use of the word retribution gives:

quote:
the act of punishing or taking vengeance for wrongdoing, sin, or injury
punishment or vengeance

Are we really living in a post-Christian society?

Is it better if we pay heed to:

quote:
19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:

quote:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12: 19-12 NIV

Even if we don't consider the Biblical injunctions to leave vengeance and retribution to God, should we be making an attitude of acceptance of vengeance acceptable?

Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :

Well, there is no such thing as a Christian legal system. That's for one.

Second, this is entirely dependent on what you see as the point of justice. If you're labouring under the impression that the point is to punish wrongdoers and set them up as an example for other potential wrongdoers, then retribution is not a dirty word but perfectly rational.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

The dictionary definition (and while I'm no fan of debate by dictionary, it isn't a bad starting point in this instance) mentions punishment or vengeance, and I take vengeance and revenge to be of the same kind, but I'll concentrate on punishment which isn't out of the question.

I would have expected that a simple loss of liberty entailing separation from ones friends and family, loss of any wage or any benefits one might be receiving and removal from your social circles would be punishment enough for anybody. I could probably handle a week of it, provided that I were certain that it would be for no longer and my life were to resume unaltered. I've been in hospital and that was bad enough.

Most prisoners aren't in that situation. Sentences are usually for months or in many case years. They know that when they are released their lives will not resume unaltered. The possibility of restarting a career is unlikely and friends may be scarce; often the friends one is left with are not those that help rehabilition and resettlement into lawful society.

It's little more than grandstanding by an increasingly desperate Prime Minister.

Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :

I tend to think that retribution is a personal emotional response to inflicted pain, and that one of the roles of government is to mitigate and control the natural urges to personally attack offenders. So we codify and control a 'state' form of retribution and punishment.

At the same time, I believe that logic suggests that the best thing for society is reform of offenders. And so political philosophy is constantly struggling between an understanding of justice as punishment/retribution and as reform of the offender.

The problem with a philosophy based around punishment is that aggrieved victims are rarely satisfied with the state's punishments. So the fact that the ordinary freedom of movement is deprived of a thief is not enough - because he has access to a TV (or whatever).

So I think the Tories are (yet again) seeking to dig deep into the psychology of their core supporters by speaking a language they can relate to. Being 'tough on crime' actually doesn't really mean anything, but speaks to the instincts of people who want to draw lines between people, catch the 'bad guys' and throw away the keys.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Hmmm, without wanting to toss Bible verses back and forth, we also need to factor in the idea that God doesn't just leave vengeance and retribution to the day of judgment:

quote:
Romans 13:1-7
New International Version (NIV)
Submission to Governing Authorities

13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

It's what really worries me about this sort of announcement; there are going to be some people who feel as if they have been wronged and they will now feel as if they are entitled to retribution.

And as Sioni says, what punishment or vengeance is enough?

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Well, Mudfrog, that asks a completely different question. Should the church be back the Government and helping them exact retribution? Or should the churches be doing their best to help with rehabilitation and support?

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Hmmm, without wanting to toss Bible verses back and forth, we also need to factor in the idea that God doesn't just leave vengeance and retribution to the day of judgment:

quote:
Romans 13:1-7
New International Version (NIV)
Submission to Governing Authorities

13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

What do you think Mudfrog? Or are you entirely willing to leave it to St Paul and the translators.

Isn't it worth asking if this government, like any elected by man, is truly "God's servant for your good"?

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

Revulsion against crime doesn't necessarily imply vengeance or retribution. There is plenty of revulsion at Jimmy Savile although retribution is out of the question.

I think that expressing our revulsion against crime is probably one of the good things that law achieves. Laws against discrimination encode a widely held objection to, say, racism, and fix it. This is something that we won't tolerate, the law says. The law backs this up with a range of sentences, and there will be occasional convictions that we may or may not hear about, but the collective and public statement is what counts most of all. It affirms and supports those who have been discriminated against, and it shifts behaviour.

Vengeance, retribution and punishment are different things, though vengeance and retribution are close in meaning. I agree, though, that this discussion usually happens at a gut level and avoids careful analysis. I'm sure Cameron was merely grandstanding.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I've always thought that the law provides a safe place where feelings of vengeance can be expressed. That is, we tend to frown on private vengeance being taken by vigilantes, but hopefully the punishments enforced by law satisfy these feelings adequately. Of course, those punishments vary enormously through different historical periods and from culture to culture.

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

I don't like the way that the law, or rather the passing of sentence, legitimises vengeance. I don't think vengeance is a good thing.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

It is important to distinguish questions such as the motivation of an individual like Cameron in calling for retribution (and calls for retribution of some kind are common right across the ideological spectrum) and what is appropriate retribution in any particular case, from considerations of retribution as such.

Retribution as a legal concept in the context of a society or nation is unavoidable, and must be distinguished from mere private revenge.

This is in fact what the Bible does, hence the absence of any inconsistency between the verses cited by Curiosity killed and Mudfrog.

A Christian might forgive someone for murdering their child, but a society cannot and must not, and it is absurd to confuse the two.

Punishment is conceptually completely different from deterrence or rehabilitation or prevention of further offending, all of which are possible byproducts of retribution, but not the same thing.

In other words, justice demands retribution whether it accomplishes any of these three incidental benefits or not.

The execution of the Nuremberg war criminals was right in itself, even though it did not deter future atrocities from China to Rwanda to Srebrenica, and was approved by millions who had never suffered directly or indirectly from Nazism and were therefore not motivated by consideration of personal vengeance.

Retribution, so long as it is carried out by some sort of reasonably open and consistent legal system, is far preferable to a utopian, putatively humanitarian system which dispenses with the concept of punishment in favour of labeling criminals as sick or disordered, firstly because it dehumanizes offenders by turning them into zombies or robots without agency, and secondly because it delivers terrifyingly open-ended powers to authorities in “treating” criminals (see C.S. Lewis’s essay The Humanitarian Theory Of Punishment).

[ 22. October 2012, 12:33: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I don't like the way that the law, or rather the passing of sentence, legitimises vengeance. I don't think vengeance is a good thing.

I suppose it's not, but if the law does not contain an element of retribution, it tends to get privatized, which is much worse. Some societies and cultures still seem to sanction feuds between families, or tribes, or clans, which tend to go on for generations, and cause terrible damage and grief. Better that people are satisfied that the bastard is going down for 20 years.

[ 22. October 2012, 12:37: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I don't like the way that the law, or rather the passing of sentence, legitimises vengeance. I don't think vengeance is a good thing.

I don't see it as vengeance or retribution. It is simply consequences.

The words "vengeance" and "retribution" imply anger and hatred on the part of those responsible for it. But a judge or police officer restraining an offender don't necessarily have these feelings at all. They are protecting innocent victims, both past and future.

Without the ability to make this separation between negative consequences and the evil of revenge we couldn't even justify the actions of our hosts on this Ship. If reprimands and banning were not part of how the Ship works we would all be in trouble.

Beyond that, consequences are an inherent part of how the universe works. If failing to find food did not result in the unpleasant sensation of hunger, and if falling from great heights did not result in painful wounds, the world would not work.

But we don't need to think that hunger is the angry punishment of the food god, or that painful impacts are the vengeance of the gravity god. They are simply the consequences of the system.

So don't call it retribution. It's just a consequence. Whether a different consequence might better serve the goal of a peaceful society is another question.

But there needs to be some rational response to negative behavior to prevent it from becoming a successful evolutionary strategy. [Biased]

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

Yes, there are many necessary and useful things that our laws and justice system do for us. People are detained, investigated, treated, rehabilitated and punished. I have no complaint about that. I even think retribution may have it's place, but vengeance I disapprove of.

By vengeance I mean penalties designed to satisfy the anger of those offended, including society as a whole. It might also be seen as making the offender suffer in order to balance in some way the wrong they have done.

The unusually severe sentences which many magistrates in the UK imposed after the riots in the UK last summer would be an example. I think laws and sentences should be more dispassionate and strive for consistency.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

So you agree that retribution and vengeance are not the same thing, hatless? Vengeance sounds more open-ended to me.

Retribution = punishment more or less proportionate to the crime; 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'.

Vengeance = punishment that goes on and on until the aggrieved party is satisfied and may involve visiting retribution on innocent victims. You killed my child? I'll kill yours. And the rest of your family. And your gerbils.

If the quotation in the OP is accurate, Cameron seems to be conflating the two. Certainly sounds like grandstanding to me.

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

I think vengeance is personal. It could come under the heading of retribution, but retribution needn't be personal. A fine or damages designed to make sure someone doesn't profit from a wrongdoing could be a sort of retribution, and could be done without any vindictiveness. If you like, retribution is hitting back and might be no more than a calculated response such as a fine, but vengeance is hurting someone, making them 'pay' by making them suffer.

Punishment, though we tend to use it to mean whatever the law does to offenders, also means action designed to correct behaviour, typically in a child or an animal, but perhaps in an adult, too. Again, it doesn't necessarily spring from personal anger. You could call it 'negative reinforcement' in a behaviourist sense.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

You also have to distinguish between feelings and actions. The law permits us to have personal feelings of revenge against someone, but not to take action over it, except for non-violent action, such as writing something.

So the law is a kind of container for revenge, and defuses it, I would say. Most people are able to contain their own wish for revenge (which seems almost universal), and not act it out, because they are satisfied that the state will carry out its own punishment.

In fact, if this starts to break down, it is probably a sign of a failed state.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I don't like the way that the law, or rather the passing of sentence, legitimises vengeance. I don't think vengeance is a good thing.

That's because you are looking at the sentence as punishment of the offender. But there is something else here: protection of the innocent. A custodial sentence prevents someone from re-offending for a time.

Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :

quote:
originally posted by Kaplan Corday

A Christian might forgive someone for murdering their child, but a society cannot and must not, and it is absurd to confuse the two.

Agreed

quote:

Punishment is conceptually completely different from deterrence or rehabilitation or prevention of further offending, all of which are possible byproducts of retribution, but not the same thing.

I agree that they are different things, but in my view only rehabilitation, the prevention of further offending, and the protection of the innocent are the legitimate concerns of government policy. I am agnostic as to whether deterrence actually works or not.

quote:

In other words, justice demands retribution whether it accomplishes any of these three incidental benefits or not.

Why should justice demand retribution? Surely the purpose of justice is the vindication of the victim, not the punishment of the offender. In what way does the state inflicting suffering on a person (and, more importantly, their totally innocent family) "pay" for the initial wrong. An eye for an eye makes all the world blind.

quote:

The execution of the Nuremberg war criminals was right in itself, even though it did not deter future atrocities from China to Rwanda to Srebrenica, and was approved by millions who had never suffered directly or indirectly from Nazism and were therefore not motivated by consideration of personal vengeance.

And opposed by many of those who had suffered. You state that the execution of the Nazi war criminals was an obvious "good thing". I would challenge that. I think it was an act that demeaned the victorious allies, and robbed them of of a considerable amount of moral authority.

quote:

Retribution, so long as it is carried out by some sort of reasonably open and consistent legal system, is far preferable to a utopian, putatively humanitarian system which dispenses with the concept of punishment in favour of labeling criminals as sick or disordered, firstly because it dehumanizes offenders by turning them into zombies or robots without agency, and secondly because it delivers terrifyingly open-ended powers to authorities in “treating” criminals (see C.S. Lewis’s essay The Humanitarian Theory Of Punishment).

I think both punishment and Lewis's theory are wrong, and it is an error to present them as the only alternatives and an example of an argument based on bolstering a weak position by setting it as the only defence against a caricature.

It is perfectly logically consistent to say, "this act is wrong, evil even, and we hold the perpetrator as wholly responsible for his or her actions" and "nevertheless, because we are a humane and compassionate society, we will restrict our actions to the protection of society and seeking to reform the perpetrator, and we will eschew punishment."

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

I think Cameron will have a fair bit of support on this issue from the public.

However - many criminals do have mental issues, and would be better off in a suitable hospital than in jail. They need curing (if possible) not punishing.

Secondly, due to unemployment and cuts in benefits some people will be driven to crime by desperation. This is something we have not known in modern times, until now. Were I a magistrate, I'd have more sympathy for such people now than I would have had 10 or 20 years ago when society saw it as its duty to provide a basic living to everyone.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
<snip>

So the law is a kind of container for revenge, and defuses it, I would say. Most people are able to contain their own wish for revenge (which seems almost universal), and not act it out, because they are satisfied that the state will carry out its own punishment.

In fact, if this starts to break down, it is probably a sign of a failed state.

I think my gut reaction against this phrasing in the news reports is because it feels as if David Cameron is suggesting the State should be more about revenge, which can easily become disproportionate, rather than controlled punishment. And that spiralling out of control could tip the balance between people containing their own feelings.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:

quote:
originally posted by Kaplan Corday

A Christian might forgive someone for murdering their child, but a society cannot and must not, and it is absurd to confuse the two.
Agreed

That's a good way of putting it. I still on occasion come across someone who has the view that even if a serial murderer says they have become a Christian, they should be let out of jail immediately - because they are forgiven.

Which seems completely screwy to me.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape
...in my view only rehabilitation, the prevention of further offending, and the protection of the innocent are the legitimate concerns of government policy.

The problem with rehabilitation is that it can take place only if the offender wants to change. If he is satisfied with himself as he is, he will make no effort to become different.

Actually, rehabilitation is a do-it-yourself project. Other people can make it easy or impossible, but the person to be rehabilitated has to do the work. This is true not only in terms of behavior, but also in terms of those who need physical rehabilitation.

Moo

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape
...in my view only rehabilitation, the prevention of further offending, and the protection of the innocent are the legitimate concerns of government policy.
The problem with rehabilitation is that it can take place only if the offender wants to change. If he is satisfied with himself as he is, he will make no effort to become different.

I agree that the purpose should be rehabilitation. The issue is that rehabilitation, as Moo points out, is not something easily foisted on an unwilling participant. The result is that there is disagreement about what is actually effective. It is also expensive.

Then there is the question of priorities. Is rehabilitation so important that funds should be diverted from perhaps more worthy and effective programs? I'm glad I don't have to figure this out.

Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on :

I've been watching this piece about the invention of Solitary Confinement, which appears to have originated from an unlikely source.

Mindblowing.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I agree that the purpose should be rehabilitation. The issue is that rehabilitation, as Moo points out, is not something easily foisted on an unwilling participant. The result is that there is disagreement about what is actually effective. It is also expensive.

Then there is the question of priorities. Is rehabilitation so important that funds should be diverted from perhaps more worthy and effective programs? I'm glad I don't have to figure this out.

Of course, there's also the problem that you can't rehabilitate someone who wasn't 'habilitated' in the first place. I do think it would be worth the time and money to attempt to fix the school to prison pipeline.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
And opposed by many of those who had suffered.

Can you name examples of the Nazis' victims who did not think that any Nazis should have been punished?

quote:
It is perfectly logically consistent to say, "this act is wrong, evil even, and we hold the perpetrator as wholly responsible for his or her actions" and "nevertheless, because we are a humane and compassionate society, we will restrict our actions to the protection of society and seeking to reform the perpetrator, and we will eschew punishment."

How, in your opinion, should the Allies have dealt with leading Nazi functionaries such as Himmler after the war?

What form should the policy of "reform the perpetrator" have taken, and what, if anything, should have been done had a perp declined to be rehabilitated?

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Punishment =/= Execution

Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :

quote:
originally posted by Kaplan Corday

How, in your opinion, should the Allies have dealt with leading Nazi functionaries such as Himmler after the war?

What form should the policy of "reform the perpetrator" have taken, and what, if anything, should have been done had a perp declined to be rehabilitated?

Let's just examine what you mean by "leading Nazi functionaries". Do you mean just the 20-odd indicted defendants. Well, if we think of 60m or so Germans, it is clear that there was a substantial minority of those people who supported the aims of the NP. Of these, at least a small proportion would have actively supported or committed war crimes, whether through battlefield atrocities or through denouncing Jewish neighbours to their death. So we can assume that there were probably a few thousand Germans who might have been convicted had they been arraigned.

Most of those are probably now dead, but at least some of them would have gone on to become model citizens of the BRD or DDR, which suggests that reform is possible given the right context.

Why do you think, necessarily, that Himmler might not have reformed, had he had the opportunity. The only thing we can say for certain is that he was never given the change.

Of course, part of that context for reform might well be the serving of a very long prison sentence.

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

There's no easy answer is there?

While it's in the nature of Christian hope for reconciliation with God and transformation of the offender, even one guilty of the most sickening offence, this idea of retribution, of a consequential punishment justly meted out according in severity to the crime, is demanded by people time and again. Is it a human need? I can't think of it as a sin in itself, as it plays to a sense of fairness. When it translates into cruelty rather than kindness to the offender however, as the op suggests, it seems to go against the teachings of Jesus, and the commandment to love others as ourselves.

Does vengeance belong to God?

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Let's just examine what you mean by "leading Nazi functionaries". Do you mean just the 20-odd indicted defendants. Well, if we think of 60m or so Germans, it is clear that there was a substantial minority of those people who supported the aims of the NP. Of these, at least a small proportion would have actively supported or committed war crimes, whether through battlefield atrocities or through denouncing Jewish neighbours to their death. So we can assume that there were probably a few thousand Germans who might have been convicted had they been arraigned.

Only the top Nazis were tried at Nuremberg, but others who had committed war crimes were tried in other courts. I don't know whether any were sentenced to death, but many received long prison sentences. People were still being tried for war crimes many years after the war.

Moo

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:

Why do you think, necessarily, that Himmler might not have reformed, had he had the opportunity. The only thing we can say for certain is that he was never given the change.

Of course, part of that context for reform might well be the serving of a very long prison sentence.

In an earlier post you claimed to "eschew punishment" per se, and here you are contemplating with every appearance of equanimity the imposition of a "very long prison sentence" on a war criminal.

A "very long prison sentence" sounds suspiciously like retribution.

Or would it have been intended therapeutically, merely as an opportunity for reflection, along the lines of "go to your room and think about what you have done"?

And what if he, or other Nazis, had decided after their "very long" opportunity for reflection, that given the chance they would have done it all over again?

Incidentally, you still have not produced the name of one of the allegedly many victims of the Nazis who objected to the punishment of Nazis after the war, or even just to their punishment by execution.

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