fandomhigh | Nation Building and the Origin of Government, Period 5, Class 4, Thursday, 1-27

"Welcome back," Alex said. "Last week, we deal with some very specific offenders and their very specific offenses. This week, we're going to take a step back and look at the larger picture. We're going to try to use those experiences to form some general laws and make decisions about punishments, for those laws."

She gestured to the blackboard. "I've written out last week's list again, to refresh your memory."

• Two men engaged in a barfight; both were injured, one seriously.
• An alleged would-be burglar entered the home of a resident. The resident fired a gun at the presumed burglar. The presumed burglar is in critical condition.
• A homeless man stole several food items, at gunpoint, from a grocery store.
• A woman discovered her husband in bed with another woman, and stabbed him.
• A CEO hired an assassin to kill the CEO of the company's chief competitor; the hitman succeeded.
• Two adult siblings engaged in what both claim was consensual sex.
• A woman has been printing and mailing out a newsletter which insults you and spreads lies about your regime.
• A man gave a prostitute money in exchange for sexual favors.

Alex waited for anyone who wanted to scribble that down before continuing. "If we wanted to, we could put these into rough categories. Physical attacks would cover the barfight, the resident shooting the burglar, the wife stabbing her husband, and the CEO's assassination. We can call the newsletter treason, or free speech, depending on your permission of it. Theft would cover the burglar himself as well as the homeless man's hold-up of the grocery store, and that leaves the incest, prostitution, and adultery as what we might loosely call non-normative sex. By doing this, we lose a lot of the nuances, so I hope you can appreciate last week's specifics all the more, now.

"In going forward, we have to remember that making rules about physical attacks could cover any of the above, unless we craft the rules specifically to exempt them. However, exemptions are, themselves, a tricky gray area. Let's say you decide the homeless man was justified in robbing the grocery store, and make a rule that anyone who steals while hungry is immune to punishment. What happens when an international jewel thief fasts for three days before breaking into a bank vault? Or, back to our specific example, what would have happened if the homeless man had shot and killed the grocery store clerk? Would your answer change?"

Alex leaned back against the edge of her desk. "That's the first half of our discussion. Here's the second. Once we have laws in place, what punishments do we apply for breaking them? Someone raised an excellent point last week, that in this interim phase, it felt as though the only choices were execution or letting someone go with a stern warning. There are many alternatives that we can institute in this country, moving forward. Execution is one. Exile is another. We can assign monetary fines, for minor infractions. We can strip our citizens of some of their ranks, status, or privileges -- for example, someone who drives while intoxicated could lose their license to pilot a vehicle, or lose their vehicle itself. We could even use disfigurement, such as branding the person with their offense -- a T on the thumb, to show that the person had had one warning in case they were caught again -- or removing a hand. Those are generally considered less civilized. Or we build prisons and keep the person away from their normal life for a set period of time. At which point we need to decide how long imprisonments should be, for varying crimes."

She smiled quickly at her students. "We have a lot to talk about this week. So let's get to it."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Now that we have some rules, how do we punish those people who break them? What punishments would you like to use in your country, and which wouldn't you? (Are there other punishments besides the ones already mentioned that you would like to institute? If so, please share.) Do special circumstances allow for reduced punishments -- i.e., theft by a homeless man, or assault by an enraged wife? How do we decide what's fair?

(Messy is what we aim for! Feel free to ping in overlapping ways, zomg.)

Edited 2011-01-27 17:51 (UTC)

"If one wants a just law, I believe it would be impossible to not show mercy but even if a poor man steals food, his actions are wrong," Faramir mused. "If he cannot repay his debt, then perhaps it is up to the state to do it in his stead and take him into their service until he has repayed his debts. I think it would be near impossible to decide any such cases beforehand and you would not want to risk being too lenient and encouraging others to follow the same path."

"I believe I agree with Faramir on this point," Alexander said, relieved to have someone thinking along the same lines as himself, and not at all surprised that it was Faramir who did so. "There are so many things to consider that it seems such things are best handled case-by-case, with all the specifications of that particular situation being examined."

Edited 2011-01-27 19:46 (UTC)

Faramir nodded in agreement. "Having someone to speak justice in the districts of the country would become inevitable rather sooner than later."

"So it would become imperative to ensure that there were many good and trusted men and women on hand to carry out such tasks," Alexander added.

Sov nodded. "Perhaps there should be another law saying that it's illegal to let someone starve, so that if a poor person needs to steal it is because someone else has failed to offer them food."

Faramir nodded slowly. "Yes, but I would fear this would prove taxing on certain citizens. It would be farmers or perhaps other people who are not that rich themselves who would be the ones to have to provide. That is a burden I would rather lay with the government than with other citizens."

"Th responsibility should be on the government," Sov agreed. "So if a poor person steals from a farmer, the farmer should be compensated, and the thief should perhaps get some kind of punishment for not having asked for help instead of stealing, but they would still get to keep the food."

"It seems like you'd want to institute preventive measures," Alex suggested. "Alternatives for the poor man so that he doesn't need to turn to stealing food. Then you could punish for theft and discourage that while promoting the other avenues to take."

"I would hope that I have already taken such actions," Faramir said with a trace of a smile. "Or perhaps my advisers are not as informed as they should be, but I agree. It is up to the government to make certain that all its citizens are taken care of."

She returned the smile. "Let's say you have," she said. "That means our thief either fell through the cracks of our system, or turned his back on your help. What happens if it's the latter?"

"One cannot help those who do not want to be helped," Faramir pointed out. "He would serve the punishment. Let him repay the one he stole from, or work until he has made up their debt. If not for his victim themselves, then for the city."

"As a deterrent to others, and in the interests of justice," Alex nodded. "And in the other case? Slipping through the cracks?"

"Make certain that it does not repeat itself," Faramir said grimly. "Though it would be impossible to be everywhere, he could help perhaps to let us understand what did go wrong."

Alex nodded. "And perhaps given leniency in light of the system's own failings. I wish I could say people never slip through those cracks, but they do."

"Once we can spare the resources for a prison, that's probably the best thing to do. And once the monetary system is set up, fines are good, too. Permanent things like execution or branding aren't good long-term solutions, because you don't want to accidentally do them to someone who's innocent."

"So nothing that can't be reversed," Alex nodded. "Although if you imprison someone for twenty years before discovering their innocence, you can't give them that time back, either. And fines run the risk of being meaningless, if applied to the very wealthy. Some people might budget for the fines they're violating -- which makes it an ineffective deterrent."

"So make the fine a percentage of their net worth, instead of a fixed amount," Squall answered. "Rich people should be treated the same as everyone else."

"That gets into interesting areas of taxation and corporations," Alex said. "We'll come up on money shortly, syllabus-wise. The rich would say you're punishing them for being rich, mind."

"No, I'm not," Squall countered. "They'd only say that if they're used to buying their way out of problems instead of actually dealing with them."

Nation Building and the Origin of Government, Period 5, Class 4, Thursday, 1-27

Discussion #2 - Punishment - NAT04

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