Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged [Update: Convicted and sentenced]

[salm]

and to make a statement that society does not condone their actions.

What´s the difference between that and simple vengeance?

[The Romulan Republic]

and to make a statement that society does not condone their actions.

What´s the difference between that and simple vengeance?

Not much in practice. But then, there's not much difference in practice between imprisoning someone for life for vengeance and doing it to keep them from hurting others. Either way, they're still locked up (though the prisoner in the latter case might be treated better). The difference is in the intent, the motivation. The one is about sending a message, making a statement of principle. The other is about inflicting pain for the sake of inflicting pain on someone we feel is deserving.

[salm]

and to make a statement that society does not condone their actions.

What´s the difference between that and simple vengeance?

Not much in practice. But then, there's not much difference in practice between imprisoning someone for life for vengeance and doing it to keep them from hurting others. Either way, they're still locked up (though the prisoner in the latter case might be treated better). The difference is in the intent, the motivation. The one is about sending a message, making a statement of principle. The other is about inflicting pain for the sake of inflicting pain on someone we feel is deserving.

Eh? There is a severe difference if you suddenly acquire a technique that allows you to "cure" people from crime as proposed by Jub.
If you you have such a techique locking people up to prevent them from repeating their crime becomes irrelevant.
Imprisoning them out of vengeance stays relevant. And imprisoning them in order to deter others stays relevant as well.
If you throw out vengenace like modern systems tend to do you still have deterreance.
If deterrance works which to my knowledge it does it makes sense to lock people up even if you are 100% sure that they won´t reoffend.

[Metahive]

Deterrence actually depends more on how probable it is that the perpetrator is caught rather than the severity of the punishment and there's no deterrence for crimes of passion anyway.

[salm]

How is that relevant?

[Metahive]

If deterrance works which to my knowledge it does it makes sense to lock people up even if you are 100% sure that they won´t reoffend.

Your knowledge is wrong, punishment has little influence on deterrence.

Did I really have to spell that out?

[salm]

You said that deterrence depends on how likely it is that somebody is caught. Therefore you are saying that deterrence works.
Mentioning crimes of passion makes no sense at all because there are crimes that are not of passion.
Just because crimes of passion exists doesn´t have any relevance to deterrence being useful or not.

<edit>Is it possible that you read the following line on Wikipedia and didn´t bother to read the rest:

Some research has shown that increasing the severity of a punishment does not have much effect on crime, while increasing the certainty of punishment does have a deterrent effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_%28legal%29

</edit>

[Flagg]

I wasn't talking about the sentence handed down to the SS guy.

I was talking about a hypothetical situation where a 20 year old commits a horrible series of crimes, stops for whatever reason, and is then caught using new forensic tech 70 years later and how due to human nature we tend to delude ourselves (some more than others) into thinking that because they've led a "clean" life for 70 years they either couldn't have possibly done the crimes in their youth, or that they should be absolved or that they should have a drastically reduced sentence.

Which wasn't the case, here. This particular man was always upfront about his past, never hid from the authorities, and actively faught against neonazi and holocaust denial. He didn't evade justice or was only caught 70 years later. He, as an accountant, just wasn't guilty of anything according to the law. This law (or better, the interpretation of it) changed, and he was charged. He never tried to fight the charges or denied his guilt. Your hypotetical couldn't have been any further from what we were discussing.

My hypothetical had to do with how we perceive people who are now elderly and couldn't hurt anyone if they wanted to as opposed to when they were in their youth and committing horrible crimes, of which cases exist, and how people will rally to the defense of said criminal who eluded justice for decades and are now being arrested and prosecuted for those crimes as an example to show how human nature tends to make us delude ourselves into thinking that the person they are (or pretend to be) now could never have done such things. And how those delusions inherent (IMO) in human nature lead people to argue that either they shouldn't be charged with those crimes at all or should receive a drastically reduced sentence because they were "clean" during the time they eluded justice. I never claimed that was the case with the person the thread is about.

So do you often take issue with hypothetical situations that don't involve the main discussion at hand, but rather are more of a tangent within the sphere of said discussion, or do you just take issue with it this once, in this thread, that you haven't even been a participant in since one post on page 1 made months ago in a discussion you are not even a participant in? Just curious, because it's awfully odd.

[Flagg]

and to make a statement that society does not condone their actions.

What´s the difference between that and simple vengeance?

Well, simple vengeance is "Woman tells her brother that her husband molested her son, so he then gets a hatchet, finds the father of the alleged molested child and splits his skull in half."

Modern society doesn't (or shouldn't) allow for such things. That's why we have a justice and penal system. But vengeance is one reason we take people who have committed crimes and put them in prison. You do a bad thing to someone, society does a bad thing to you.

But instead of taking an allegation at face value or even when there is no doubt, society has set up a system whereby it makes sure the one punished is the guilty party (poorly, I'm the first to admit that and say it needs major fixing), and if the crime is serious enough (or this is the umpteenth time they've been arrested, tried, and convicted of a crime), society takes it's vengeance by taking away that person's freedom for a set number of years if not permanently. Or if you live in one of the more barbaric countries in the world society will take your life, which I find abhorrent.

Now I happen to believe that when you take someone's freedom away and lock them in prison, there should be every opportunity made to rehabilitate them. Because while revenge is a factor in imprisoning someone, it shouldn't be the only one, or even the primary one. I believe that rehabilitation and reintegration to society should be the number one priority for the vast majority of those sentenced to prison.

[salm]

Well sure. I wanted to know what "make a statement that society does not condone their actions" is actually supposed to mean as it is rather vague.
Punishment is usually done through one or several of the following: retribution (vegeance), deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation.

If we assume that there is a "cure" (rehabilitation that works every time or at least nearly every time) for crime incapacitation is not useful. Retribution is useful if society wants this but is not considered desirable in a lot of modern societies. That leaves deterrence which is something the "cure" does not solve.
So if you assume that deterrence is useful it is logical to keep some sort of punishment like prison.
If, of course you assume, like Metahive, that prison does not deter people from commiting crime then it would be logical to get rid of punishment like prison and rely solely on rehabilitation.

[Flagg]

Well sure. I wanted to know what "make a statement that society does not condone their actions" is actually supposed to mean as it is rather vague.
Punishment is usually done through one or several of the following: retribution (vegeance), deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation.

If we assume that there is a "cure" (rehabilitation that works every time or at least nearly every time) for crime incapacitation is not useful. Retribution is useful if society wants this but is not considered desirable in a lot of modern societies. That leaves deterrence which is something the "cure" does not solve.
So if you assume that deterrence is useful it is logical to keep some sort of punishment like prison.
If, of course you assume, like Metahive, that prison does not deter people from commiting crime then it would be logical to get rid of punishment like prison and rely solely on rehabilitation.

Yeah, but what about the victims?

Having been a victim of crime (house was burglarized and they took pretty much everything) who sat in court and watched as the criminal with a history of violence against police officers, burglary of all shapes and sizes, and of course selling stolen goods, get less than a slap on the wrist, promise to go directly from jail to report for probation (Florida! Where if you're white and plead guilty to over 2 dozen counts of burglary and have a rap sheet thicker than Donald Trumps skull you get out on the honor system and if you're black you get shot for being in the wrong neighborhood! ), and instead showed up in front of my house at midnight doing donuts in his truck (after never reporting to probation, see above ) to intimidate us, there does need to be some measure of punishment in my opinion. Or why shouldn't the victims just take hatchets and split skulls (aside from the obvious)? I mean I do think a balance has to be struck, and unfortunately that means neither victim nor criminal will be entirely happy with the sentence handed down.

By the way, they put out a warrant for his arrest because of not showing up for probation (and he was also supposed to pay restitution of $1500 which we never saw) yet they never actually just went to his house and arrested him because that, apparently, requires work.

[Simon_Jester]

and to make a statement that society does not condone their actions.

What´s the difference between that and simple vengeance?

That depends on whether there a difference between saying:

"You hurt me, so I'm hurting you"

and

"This person's behavior is at odds with the values of the state, to such an extent that they cannot exist within the state. So if you want to know what 'criminal' looks like, here is an illustrative example like the picture placed beside the entry of a word in a dictionary."

The former is vengeance. The latter is something different, in my opinion. It's partly a matter of deterrence, but it's also partly a matter of the state making a declarative, affirmative statement of its laws and values, and its willingness to use force to uphold those laws and values.

Thing is, the main reason people agree (implicitly or explicitly) to be members of a state is for protection and enforcement. We want to know there are laws and services that come to us as citizens. We want to know that there's a reason to entrust the state with its monopoly on organized violence and legal power.

So from the point of view of someone who is at least partly a collectivist when it comes to social theory (me), I think there is something to be said for imprisoning heinous criminals as a statement of social values, to say "once you've done this, you can't go back to being an acceptable person, because this is just totally opposite to everything our civilization stands for."

This purpose used to be served by executions, which serve the same purpose of removing you from the civilization in question, but more... violently. Personally I think it's a matter of opinion which approach you favor.

[salm]

Well sure. I wanted to know what "make a statement that society does not condone their actions" is actually supposed to mean as it is rather vague.
Punishment is usually done through one or several of the following: retribution (vegeance), deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation.

If we assume that there is a "cure" (rehabilitation that works every time or at least nearly every time) for crime incapacitation is not useful. Retribution is useful if society wants this but is not considered desirable in a lot of modern societies. That leaves deterrence which is something the "cure" does not solve.
So if you assume that deterrence is useful it is logical to keep some sort of punishment like prison.
If, of course you assume, like Metahive, that prison does not deter people from commiting crime then it would be logical to get rid of punishment like prison and rely solely on rehabilitation.

Yeah, but what about the victims?

Having been a victim of crime (house was burglarized and they took pretty much everything) who sat in court and watched as the criminal with a history of violence against police officers, burglary of all shapes and sizes, and of course selling stolen goods, get less than a slap on the wrist, promise to go directly from jail to report for probation (Florida! Where if you're white and plead guilty to over 2 dozen counts of burglary and have a rap sheet thicker than Donald Trumps skull you get out on the honor system and if you're black you get shot for being in the wrong neighborhood! ), and instead showed up in front of my house at midnight doing donuts in his truck (after never reporting to probation, see above ) to intimidate us, there does need to be some measure of punishment in my opinion. Or why shouldn't the victims just take hatchets and split skulls (aside from the obvious)? I mean I do think a balance has to be struck, and unfortunately that means neither victim nor criminal will be entirely happy with the sentence handed down.

By the way, they put out a warrant for his arrest because of not showing up for probation (and he was also supposed to pay restitution of $1500 which we never saw) yet they never actually just went to his house and arrested him because that, apparently, requires work.

Sorry, I don´t understand what you are trying to say.
Are you critisizing the fact that racism leads to different treatement of people based on skin color?

[LaCroix]

My hypothetical had to do with how we perceive people who are now elderly and couldn't hurt anyone if they wanted to as opposed to when they were in their youth and committing horrible crimes, of which cases exist, and how people will rally to the defense of said criminal who eluded justice for decades and are now being arrested and prosecuted for those crimes as an example to show how human nature tends to make us delude ourselves into thinking that the person they are (or pretend to be) now could never have done such things. And how those delusions inherent (IMO) in human nature lead people to argue that either they shouldn't be charged with those crimes at all or should receive a drastically reduced sentence because they were "clean" during the time they eluded justice. I never claimed that was the case with the person the thread is about.

So do you often take issue with hypothetical situations that don't involve the main discussion at hand, but rather are more of a tangent within the sphere of said discussion, or do you just take issue with it this once, in this thread, that you haven't even been a participant in since one post on page 1 made months ago in a discussion you are not even a participant in? Just curious, because it's awfully odd.

I refrained from posting since it already had become a huge dogpile mess, and I don't wanted to contribute to that.

I commented on that particular post as I realized you used your hypothetical to strawman even yourself in the discussion, perhaps not even noticing what you did.

Everyone was commenting on that in this very case of this certain person, we had someone who had been sucessfully reformed and actively faught to make those things never happen again, and had earned some leniency because of that, while you were accusing everybody of acting just like you again pointed out in the start of your post, without allowing that we are very much aware of it, but simultaniously well aware that this particular case was completely unrelated to your hypotetical, so we can't understand why you are condemning us for saying that this particular sentence was harsh.

[Flagg]

Well sure. I wanted to know what "make a statement that society does not condone their actions" is actually supposed to mean as it is rather vague.
Punishment is usually done through one or several of the following: retribution (vegeance), deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation.

If we assume that there is a "cure" (rehabilitation that works every time or at least nearly every time) for crime incapacitation is not useful. Retribution is useful if society wants this but is not considered desirable in a lot of modern societies. That leaves deterrence which is something the "cure" does not solve.
So if you assume that deterrence is useful it is logical to keep some sort of punishment like prison.
If, of course you assume, like Metahive, that prison does not deter people from commiting crime then it would be logical to get rid of punishment like prison and rely solely on rehabilitation.

Yeah, but what about the victims?

Having been a victim of crime (house was burglarized and they took pretty much everything) who sat in court and watched as the criminal with a history of violence against police officers, burglary of all shapes and sizes, and of course selling stolen goods, get less than a slap on the wrist, promise to go directly from jail to report for probation (Florida! Where if you're white and plead guilty to over 2 dozen counts of burglary and have a rap sheet thicker than Donald Trumps skull you get out on the honor system and if you're black you get shot for being in the wrong neighborhood! ), and instead showed up in front of my house at midnight doing donuts in his truck (after never reporting to probation, see above ) to intimidate us, there does need to be some measure of punishment in my opinion. Or why shouldn't the victims just take hatchets and split skulls (aside from the obvious)? I mean I do think a balance has to be struck, and unfortunately that means neither victim nor criminal will be entirely happy with the sentence handed down.

By the way, they put out a warrant for his arrest because of not showing up for probation (and he was also supposed to pay restitution of $1500 which we never saw) yet they never actually just went to his house and arrested him because that, apparently, requires work.

Sorry, I don´t understand what you are trying to say.
Are you critisizing the fact that racism leads to different treatement of people based on skin color?

No, what I was trying to say is that part of the reason I believe there should be some punishment/ vengeance factor in how we treat convicted criminals (I try to look at it as society punishing rather than society handling the victims revenge, but it is a bit of both, I think) is because there are victims that have been harmed by their actions. Yes, shoplifting from Wal-Mart and saying "Think about the victim!" makes one want to roll their eyes, but like I said, when our house was burglarized the person who was caught and plead guilty just ignored what they were supposed to do and instead came to our home to intimidate us in retribution for showing up in court (not that we were allowed to make any type of victim impact statement, in fact it turned out we were sitting one row back and maybe 6 feet to the left of his wife who the ADA, the person supposedly representing the state was too busy talking to her about how best to contact him once the criminal entered rehab, a condition of his plea deal, which he of course did not do). The mentioning of racial injustice had no place, I'm just loopy lately and am having a hard time getting my point across, and the tangents my mind wanders off on don't help, so I apologize for the confusion, it's my unintentional doing.

[Flagg]

My hypothetical had to do with how we perceive people who are now elderly and couldn't hurt anyone if they wanted to as opposed to when they were in their youth and committing horrible crimes, of which cases exist, and how people will rally to the defense of said criminal who eluded justice for decades and are now being arrested and prosecuted for those crimes as an example to show how human nature tends to make us delude ourselves into thinking that the person they are (or pretend to be) now could never have done such things. And how those delusions inherent (IMO) in human nature lead people to argue that either they shouldn't be charged with those crimes at all or should receive a drastically reduced sentence because they were "clean" during the time they eluded justice. I never claimed that was the case with the person the thread is about.

So do you often take issue with hypothetical situations that don't involve the main discussion at hand, but rather are more of a tangent within the sphere of said discussion, or do you just take issue with it this once, in this thread, that you haven't even been a participant in since one post on page 1 made months ago in a discussion you are not even a participant in? Just curious, because it's awfully odd.

I refrained from posting since it already had become a huge dogpile mess, and I don't wanted to contribute to that.

I commented on that particular post as I realized you used your hypothetical to strawman even yourself in the discussion, perhaps not even noticing what you did.

Everyone was commenting on that in this very case of this certain person, we had someone who had been sucessfully reformed and actively faught to make those things never happen again, and had earned some leniency because of that, while you were accusing everybody of acting just like you again pointed out in the start of your post, without allowing that we are very much aware of it, but simultaniously well aware that this particular case was completely unrelated to your hypotetical, so we can't understand why you are condemning us for saying that this particular sentence was harsh.

Yes, and I was talking about a hypothetical where all of the good stuff was never done and it was simply a guy getting away with horrible crimes for decades only to be finally captured when they are elderly and infirm and how even in those cases there are people both close to the person and who don't know them at all but have heard the story on the news or what have you, and only see the infirm old man who couldn't hurt someone if he wanted to and come rushing to his defense pointing out the spotless clean record they have. My point, and I'll admit I made it poorly, is in how I believe we all delude ourselves a bit, or more, (I've been guilty of this on more than one occasion) for at least a small amount of time (could just be a few minutes) into only seeing the old man playing with grandkids. I was trying to clear up a statement I had made in which someone I respect I think felt insulted when it was not my intent. TBH, I wouldn't have even contributed anything else to the conversation if I'd known I was about to go through weeks of what I'm going through, which is making it very hard to communicate in a coherent manner.

[LaCroix]

Yes, and I was talking about a hypothetical where all of the good stuff was never done and it was simply a guy getting away with horrible crimes for decades only to be finally captured when they are elderly and infirm and how even in those cases there are people both close to the person and who don't know them at all but have heard the story on the news or what have you, and only see the infirm old man who couldn't hurt someone if he wanted to and come rushing to his defense pointing out the spotless clean record they have. My point, and I'll admit I made it poorly, is in how I believe we all delude ourselves a bit, or more, (I've been guilty of this on more than one occasion) for at least a small amount of time (could just be a few minutes) into only seeing the old man playing with grandkids. I was trying to clear up a statement I had made in which someone I respect I think felt insulted when it was not my intent. TBH, I wouldn't have even contributed anything else to the conversation if I'd known I was about to go through weeks of what I'm going through, which is making it very hard to communicate in a coherent manner.

In that particular case, I'd fully agree with you. I just found it was just hard to discern if you were talking about the actual case, or your hypothetical when you made responses. But then, I'm not the most eloquent debater, neither...

So, no bad feelings, here's hoping things get better for you.