Justice or mercy?

[Guv]

No institution can be perfect.

If you had your choice which would you prefer?

• Courts which did a perfect job on dispensing justice, but sometimes failed to be merciful.
• Courts which always showed mercy, but sometimes failed to provide justice.

[dimava]

it really depends on what level of crime

passing through a red light? merci

serial killer? justice!

[Mark Sreeves]

Justice but a short, sharp, shock treatment.

I watched TV program about prisions once and the inamates generally agreed that the first four months of the first spell inside was the worse- after that they get used to it and the deterent is therefore lost.

Prisons overflow and sentences get longer.
What's the point in that?

I reckon 3 months of extreme discomfort should do the trick!

and the money they save by having shorter sentences could be redirected to better use.

[simonm]

I disagree with your definitions:

Courts which did a perfect job on dispensing justice, but sometimes failed to be merciful.

Implies a contradiction as if they failed to be merciful in a particular instance, you must assume (in that case) that justice was not done as they were wrongly convicted.

But (seriously though), I believe what you mean is should the justice system err on the side of the accused or the accuser.

I would say that as the accused has more to lose if the system is wrong (and he's innocent) than the accuser then justice systems should err on the side of the accused (i.e. be merciful).

I actually voted for the other option by mistake as I acted impulsively on the heading and voting options without reading on.

Even better though, I would add a third state of conviction: suspected but unproven. The scottish justice system recoginises this verdict and prevents those accused who get off with a 'technicality' from being totally in the clear.

[Guv]

When I created this thread, I expected an overwhelming vote in favor of mercy. It seemed to me that there were mostly "bleeding heart" liberals here.

To me, it is obvious that the innocent benefit from perfect justice and have no need of mercy, while the guilty need mercy, and would prefer less than perfect justice.

I would have voted for justice, but did not want to skew results in favor of my strong opinion.

3 cheers for those who voted for justice, and a curse on those who voted for mercy.

[HarryW]

Well I voted for justice, but I agree with simonm.

[simonm]

Guv, You attack 'bleeding heard' liberals with an accusiation that they want more mercy in the criminal justice system but that is not the case.

Liberals seek rehabilitation as apposed to revenge, not mercy as opposed to justice. Afterall, what is the purpose of this sytem? To return suffering to the convicted criminal or to prevent that criminal from reoffending when they get out (and let's face it, most criminals will be back on the streets again eventually)?

[barrk]

Guv...in your opinion is there any other kind of liberal besides "Bleeding Heart Liberals"? Is liberal a dirty word?

[Guv]

Barrk: Liberal is no dirtier a word than conservative. To a disciple of Ayn Rand, liberal is a synonym for communist and conservative is a synonym for fascist. One is as bad as the other.

BTW: For years I was practically an outcast for being anticommunist when the academic community and most of my peers viewed communism as a wonderful idea and the Russians were considered our friends. Then to my horror, I began being referred to as "a good guy like Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon." I preferred being an outcast. Did you know that Churchill and Montgomery constantly anguished over our naive American belief that "having a common enemy made the Russians our friends."?

Simonm: Due to the narrow scope of this context, you misunderstand my attitude toward liberals and the criminal justice system. Yes, I do think liberals are basically evil, but not merely for their attitude toward the criminal justice system. No, I do not opt for punishment or revenge as the goal of the criminal justice system.

I believe the goal of the criminal justice system should be protection of potential victims and the protection of the innocent.

If punishment/revenge served that purpose well, I would be in favor of it and would not care if any criminal ever got rehabilitated. I do not think history provides much evidence for the effectiveness of our current system, and it is alleged to be a punishment or revenge system (Frankly, what I think it does best is support many bureaucratic institutions and a lot of lawyers).

If rehabilitation served that purpose well, I would be all for it and would not care if no criminal ever got punished. Unfortunately, we do not know enough to do a good job of rehabilitating criminals. Perhaps we do know enough about brainwashing and other extreme forms of behavior modification, but I would not bet on it.

I do not think I have an answer, but I wish our society could think seriously about changing the system we have. For starters, I would decriminalize all victimless crimes like gambling, prostitution, drug usage/sale, et cetera. We are fighting a losing battle here with no useful purpose being served by a victory. Use the resources and money wasted on those issues to try to learn how to run programs in 1st thru 12th grades which are directed toward making people more ethical and responsible. As an atheist, I would even be willing to let them teach religion in school if it would help, which I doubt. BTW: I am opposed to any religion in the public school system, but would not object to vouchers being used to pay tuition at a religious school.

[barrk]

Originally posted by Guv
BTW: I am opposed to any religion in the public school system, but would not object to vouchers being used to pay tuition at a religious school. [/B]

Pardon me if I sound like a liberal but.......
The voucher system is so destined to leave people behind it's frightening to even think about. The average cost of tuition at private schools, religious or otherwise, is much higher than the proposed $1500 per student. Only those students whose parents could afford to pitch in the rest will be able to attend them...thus leaving the underprivileged students in the public schools....the parents (the voters) who can afford the help with tuition have been statistically proven most likely to vote so... the next time funds to upgrade the public schools in their district comes around they will vote it down...the public schools will fall into delapidated states and become like the ghettos that these kids already live in.....no teachers will want to work in these schools...therefore, the rich students get an education and the poor get what they usually get....nothing....and they become another generation of kids for all of us to complain about and fear.....vouchers are not a good idea at all in my opinion!!

[Guv]

Barrk: You are talking about a partial voucher system. How about a voucher for the full amount that the school district spends on each student? I do not like a partial voucher system. It is likely to fail and give the concept a bad name.

A full voucher system would amount to $5,000 to $9,000 per student, depending on the school district. There are a lot of private schools who do not charge more than that.

Furthermore, the initial effect would not be dramatic. There is not enough space in the private school system for more than a small percentage of the public school students who might want to switch.

Over time, private schools would expand their facilities and new schools would be started. Either the public school system would improve or it would die. The effects would be evolutionary, not a rapid demise or dislocation of the existing system.

A voucher system for veterans of the 2nd World War did a great job. Many got college degrees and others went to technical & trade schools.

If public schools were doing a good job, why do a majority of public school teachers send their kids to private schools? Why do almost all legislators send their kids to private schools?

The public school system is a hideous bureaucracy. The main lobbyists against even partial vouchers are the school teacher unions. They would scream bloody murder if a full voucher system were proposed.

One of the unintended consequences of our public school system is the death of the apprentice system, which worked pretty well for a long time. Until about 1920, you could become almost any type of professional by being an apprentice to an established practitioner. It was common in engineering, and there were many doctors and lawyers who did not attend college.

Another unintended consequence is the requirement for a high school diploma for even fairly menial jobs and a college degree for jobs not requiring that much education. Before the almost universal public school system, large companies expected to do a lot of on the job training, and hired promising young people. Now, they rely on the school system, leaving the poor student out of luck when he might have done well learning on the job.

Our current system is difficult for those who learn better by doing than by reading and exposure to a conventional school environment. Human beings are individuals. One educational system does not fit all. By its nature a system run by the government becomes standardized. The round pegs who do not fit the square holes get left out. . The attitude of most companies today is that there must be something wrong with a person who does not have a diploma. Due to compulsory education, it is true enough that they do no bother to consider the exceptions.


It was much easier 70-100 years or more ago for a person to make it from a poor background. It is getting tougher all the time. Aside from educational requirements, the licensing requirements are getting fiercer as time goes by.

One of my pet peeves about the public school system is its compulsory nature. For all practical purposes, if you are not somewhat affluent, your children must attend a public school. Furthermore, in practice (not in theory) you have no control over the curriculum. As an atheist, I do not want to see a government run institution teaching religion. Meanwhile, I consider it outrageous that religious people must send their children to a school which teaches values contrary to their beliefs. Not only must they send them, they must pay for it if they pay taxes.

[simonm]

Guv, You (rightly in my opinion) are abhorant to the notion of religous education in schools. Until recently, in this country (UK), it was not only compulsory to have religous education in schools, a religous assembly was also required once a week.

[HarryW]

That was compulsory was it? I thought it was just my school, I never realised. I remember at least one kid would never go though because his parents didn't want him to. They were Jehova's Witnesses or something like that. So it wasn't compulsory for everyone to attend.

I take it you mean primary schools also? I don't remember having a religious assembly in secondary school.

[simonm]

In practice, many secondary schools never 'got round' to implementing this but it was the law for a while.

You could get out of it if your parents spoke the the school and objected on religous grounds but the kids themselves could not opt out of it.


Incidentally, we had a voucher system in the UK for nursery education but it didn't last long and was dropped for some reason (although I can't remember why).

[HarryW]

How recently is recently then? When was the assembly thing dropped?

[simonm]

They brought it in when I was nearing the end of my time at secondary school (which must have been about 1989-1990). I'm not sure exactly when it was dropped.

[HarryW]

Oh, well I arrived at secondary school in '92. We had the same kind of assembly in primary school for as long as I remember though.

[barrk]

GUV, I agree with the full voucher concept in part...however, I do see the potential for the religous schools to make a mint tax free and us tax payers to foot the bill. I do not believe that the voucher system Bush is proposing is a full voucher system though...just $1500 per student.

[parksie]

We still have to have religious education and assemblies, and we can't get out of them...although many people do.

[HarryW]

I don't see anything wrong with teaching RE, although it was incredibly dull at the time. Makes for good general knowledge, especially in the increasingly multi-cultural world we live in. So long as they don't teach one religion exclusively, or try to tell you what's the right religion (or if there's a right religion).

[Guv]

HarryW: It is tuff to teach religion without showing bias. That is my main reason for objecting to teaching it in a government run institution.

At least in a religious school, you know what the bias is.

Oddly enough, I went to a Quaker school for grades 9 thru 12, and took a comparative religion course run by a very devout Roman Catholic (Quaker schools are surprisingly liberal). He compared every religion with Catholicism. While he was not deliberately or obviously biased, there was more than a subtle suggestion that Catholic theology was a true standard by which other religions should be judged. I wonder what comparative religion would be like if taught by a Moslem.

Perhaps religion should be taught by atheists. If given the chance to teach a course, I might manage to unconvert a few people. I would not be biased in favor of any organized religion, although I might have a few good words to say about the Quakers (Society of Friends). I have not had anybody try to save me recently, or I might have said unbrainwash instead of unconvert.

[HarryW]

That's just another bias though, after all who are you to say atheism is right? I don't mean any offence by that you understand, just illustrating the point

It may well be difficult to teach it in an unbiased manner, but so is just about everything. I have a lecturer in natural language processing who has his own beliefs about things that are far from certain, and he tends to impress his own feeling about the issues on his students. I don't think that means he shouldn't be teaching it to us though. We can make up our own minds, so long as we are given the necessary information to do so in the first place.

Who is more likely to fall for some cultist group, one who has had some biased religious education or one who has had no religious education at all? I know what I would say.

[simonm]

Between teaching about the different religions and being forced to attend religous ceremenies against one's will.

You're never going to find anyone who's unbaised enough for everyone's liking to teach religion (accept perhaps an agnostic). Best thing for schools to do would be to steer clear of religion altogether.

But, does it stop there? What about other subjects. Should biology and geology teachers be forced to not talk about evolution simply because some religous groups think it is wrong (I know this already happens in many schools in the states)? If religion cannot be taught in schools then religous groups might object to anything in the curiculum that they considered to be contrary to their beliefs (arguing that it is therefore religous in nature).

[Guv]

Simonm: Your thoughts are good. Perhaps they indicate that we should somehow get rid of government run schools. This would solve the "one size fits all" problem inherent in government run institutions.

[simonm]

On the one side I am very opposed to the 'one size fits all' state education system as I know this to be failing many young people who don't fit into the 'molds'.

On the other hand, I am absolutely opposed to having to pay for education. If all state schools were of a suitable standard then private education would be unnessarsary.

What is the ideal here I don't know.

[Guv]

Education is too important to allow the govenment to run it.

Unfortunately they got into the game and it is probably impossible to get them out of it.

I just do not believe that the government can do a credible job of running schools. They just keep throwing more money at the system, which is just not the problem.

[Guv]

Simonm: The old greed is bad concept. Big business is dirty because they make a profit.

Well Big business has done a good job of getting cars, computers, TV's, clothes, and all sorts of other goodies to us common folks. So they made a profit! Big deal?

Has any other system done as much for the average guy? The dirty, greedy, money grubbing capitalists have done a pretty good job as far as I am concerned.

Business is far more accountable than the government. When the government screws up, they just throw more money at the problem without fixing what went wrong. When Business screws up, they stop getting customers. That's accountability.

Do you think any private enterprise would survive if it did as bad a job as the public school system? In the private sector, only lawyers seem to get rich without doing anything productive. I suspect it has to do with the fact that most legislators are lawyers.

[HarryW]

*Cough* Windows *Cough*

[simonm]

I will have to take your word for it that the involvement of the private sector in education has been a success because it hasn't really been tested in the UK as it has been in the USA and I therefore have no experience of it.

I believe though that it is inevitable that commercial involvement in education will lead to some amount of advertising (be it explicit or implicit) 'mixed in' with the teaching.

I know it's not the same as school, but the Microsoft courses that I have done seem to contain a substantial amount of self-advertising in the curriculum. Whilst this doesn't detract from the fact that the courses are still educational and informative, we being adults are more capable of 'sifting' the wheat from the chaf and recognising advertising for what it is. I do not think children can so easily make this distinction.

At the end of the day, my socialist tendancies leave me with an inherant distrust of commercial enterprise. You have made clear that you do not share this distrust so we must inneviably agree to differ.

I wonder if a 'third way' will emerge as a respectable alternative to state or commercial controlled education?

[Guv]

Is all education in the UK run by the government?

Somebody once said

A person who is not a socialist when he/she is young has no heart. A person who is a socialist when he is older, has no mind.

I have always had a mind, and when I was young, I had no heart.

[aknisely]

If you had your choice which would you prefer?

• Courts which did a perfect job on dispensing justice, but sometimes failed to be merciful.
• Courts which always showed mercy, but sometimes failed to provide justice.

We have a poster at the front of the office at which I work (a law firm).

A superior judge is he who leans on the side of compassion, rather than the side of severity.