Criminal Justice

I think that the criminal justice system in this country is outrageous and morally wrong. To put people into prisons in which they are stripped of their humanity, are constantly in danger of assault and even rape, are under complete control of unaccountable guards and wardens with vast powers to abuse and humiliate them, and have nobody to listen to them about these problems is tantamount to torture and is a crime against humanity. I honestly do not see how society can turn a blind eye on the vicious circumstances we are putting our own citizens in, in the name of "justice."

But me ranting about prisons isn't the assignment. I have a few thoughts about how we should treat certain types of criminals that differ from the way we treat them now. First of all, drug use shouldn't be a crime. Drug use is a medical problem, not a criminal problem. There is nothing about using drugs that harms others such that drug users should be put in jail. Portugal has had all drugs decriminalized for over a decade now, with pretty good results, and almost as importantly, much cheaper results. Because they treat addiction with medically accepted treatments instead of just throwing someone into a building with a bunch of other addicts and criminals, they have seen a reduction in drug addiction, and reduced costs in drug prosecution. In addition, I think marijuana should be completely legal and regulated, like alcohol and tobacco, because it is less dangerous than alcohol, and less addictive and unhealthy than either alcohol or tobacco.

The next type of criminal that I think should be treated differently is really anyone who commits any other non-violent crime. These people should not be put in jail. They are not a danger to anyone. Someone who commits fraud should have an easily accessible record that states that they are a known fraudster, and that should appear on their credit report, for a certain period of time. They should have to pay economically for that crime, through fines and damages and such. There is no reason they should be put in pens and walled off as if they might shoot somebody at any moment. Any white-collar crime or financial-related crime should be handled this way. There is no reason Bernie Madoff should be in jail, except that a lot of people are really mad at him, and they want him to be in jail to make themselves feel better. Non-violent offenders should really be put on probation, made to repay any damages they caused to whatever party they hurt (if there is one), and provided with court-mandated counseling to get at the real problems behind why they committed whatever crime they did. In addition, I think that instead of taking these people away from society and a job, they should be given opportunities to do some sort of work if they don't already have it. They should be shown what opportunities are out there for them so they can do something that isn't whatever crime they were doing before.

Now, violent criminals. Some of them are minor criminals, and I think minor assault charges are generally handled well. They are made to take anger management classes or go to a therapist and sent on their way. But as for major violent criminals, these people really should be separated from society, because they are scary. This does not mean lock them up and stop caring about what happens to them after that. They should be monitored heavily, and rehabilitated. That means giving them psychological treatment for anger issues or whatever problems have led them to become violent. There should be measures taken to prevent prison gangs. They should be protected, and feel as safe as they can be made to feel. In any and all prisons and jails there should be a way for inmates to report mistreatment or crimes against them to figures outside the jail in a way that will actually lead to action. People in jail are still citizens, and they deserve rights too. The fact that they aren't afforded any rights is cruel and unusual, making it unconstitutional in my opinion.

Experimental Ethics

The Stanford Prison Experiment is a tough one to hash out the ethics of. On the one hand, who would have expected these normal, average students to take on such intense roles and abuse each other to the point of significant psychological harm? Certainly nobody before the experiment, which is why it caused such a splash, and continues to be important to this day. But on the other hand, why would you allow people to do things like that to each other in the first place, and when they were doing these things, why did Zimbardo, supposedly an expert and authority figure who should have had the health and safety of the participants in mind at all times, need someone else to tell him to stop it? What he did during the experiment is almost as significant and telling as the experiment itself was. Now, obviously the experiment itself is extremely unethical by today's standards, now that we know what happens, but I think that for the time, you can give them a pass for pure naivete. Now personally, I think Zimbardo is kind of a bad person for not stopping, and to a certain extent encouraging, the obvious torture of the participants in the experiment, but I guess he was doing it in the name of science, which only slightly lessens the disdain I have for him. And I do give him some credit for stopping it once someone snapped him out of his experimenter's blindness.

What makes up for Zimbardo's ethical failures back in the day is that nowadays he has decided to spread the word about the dangers of overempowered authority figures. I think it's good that he is pointing out that when you put someone in a position to maltreat someone else as a part of their job, that is exactly what they will do. They will take on the role of the inhumane torturer, and not think twice about it. Personally, I think that this extends to every single law enforcement officer out there. They are given way too much authority, and then people are surprised when they constantly abuse it. At the same time, people are unwilling to take it away, as if limiting the egregious actions of law enforcement will somehow create a tide of criminals out of nowhere who will terrorize the country. But I digress. This experiment was a teaching moment for the world, and we should all learn from it, because an experiment like this will never be allowed to happen again.

Nature v. Nurture

Nature and nurture are the fundamental bases of how people become who they are. Certain traits of people that are endemic to virtually the entire human race are more likely to be nature-based, because differences in cultures have failed to create and difference in those traits. Many of these heavily nature-based traits are physical, like the primary and secondary sex traits and various racial traits. Some nurture-based traits are also physical, like the way you walk, and the way you make yourself look (from the things you can control, like hair, plastic surgery stuff, and to a certain extent weight and muscularity).
I tend to be on the side of nurture for most anything that isn't physical. While there are different hormones running through the bodies of men and women, I generally think that the differences caused by these hormonal distinctions are generally not big enough to cause the type of disparity that most people would say are "the differences between men and women." I think that this has been shown time and time again by different people who have bucked stereotypes and acted outside the range of what they were supposed to. People used to think that African Americans were naturally less smart than European Americans (more specifically those from northwestern Europe), until the "science" that backed it up was proven wrong.
I think that many more examples of things like this exist, but people don't bother to prove them wrong because they aren't considered harmful to our society the way that blatant racism is. Anytime someone draws a distinction that they claim is "the way people naturally are" I am generally skeptical, because it could just be that that is what it seems like based on the limited data we have available (which, granted, is all we ever have to go on for anything). I mostly believe that people are generally the same, with some physical traits (like how your brain is set up or how much of hormone x you have) causing some differences, but that nurture has a much larger effect on who you are and what you do.