Different forms of punishment and their pros and cons

last edited 2024-11-05

Different forms of punishment are not equally good, in either moral or pragmatic terms. I'm defining "punishment" as any response to evil behavior, regardless of what you consider its goal. I'm also going to use the word "offense" instead of "crime" to avoid making the topic sound narrower than it is. Punishment generally has the following goals:

Prevent or deter future offenses.

Make restitution to the victim.

Reform. The best outcome is an offender who will refrain from committing future offenses without having to be constantly prevented.

Imprisonment (without labor)

Is effective at prevention and deterrent, but not at all at restitution. In fact, in the context of politics, imprisonment makes *negative* restitution because prisoners require sustenance which has to come at the expense of innocents (taxpayers)! It also involve huge amounts of collateral damage, as removing the offender from society harms their loved ones, anyone financially dependent on them, or anyone they did business with.

What about reform? Agency is not like other things that provide happiness; it's very important to mental health and has a fundamental moral significance. The first mission of a penitent offender is restitution, which imprisonment prevents. Thus, as a prisoner, *the more you repent, the more you suffer*. Imprisonment discourages reform and denies all other opportunities for personal growth.

In conclusion, imprisonment is a terrible form of punishment and should never be used outside of some contrived hypothetical.

And it's important to reiterate that this isn't just about politics. There are other forms of this, like the "time out" often inflicted on children, and while sustenance cost doesn't apply there, everything else I said about imprisonment does.

Pain/torture

Doesn't *prevent* further offenses, but does effectively deter them. It doesn't make restitution, but at least it doesn't cause any further harm to innocents and doesn't actively discourage reform.

Taking property or fines

This is the best way to restitute a victim. It doesn't prevent future offenses, but can deter them effectively. It has a risk of collateral damage, but only in some cases (for example, if the offender has anyone financially dependent on them, a fine could hurt those people; if the offender is a child, their parents may replace a belonging taken from them).

Forced labor

Although forcing labor out of an offender can require imprisoning them, this is crucially different from imprisonment without labor, since the value produced from penal labor can be given to the victim as restitution, or to their next of kin if the victim is dead, or to the punisher to cover the costs of catching the offender. If the offender's going to be trapped somewhere, it'd be nice if at least some innocent person got some benefit out of it.

Overall this is similar to taking property or fines, but less practical in most cases.

Death

Death is perfect at prevention and effective at deterrent, but provides no restitution. Like imprisonment, it causes massive collateral damage (but doesn't have the sustenance cost problem). It also prevents any possibility of reform, at least unless there's an afterlife. This makes it very bad. The main use case of death is in non-dominant situations, where you don't have the power to enforce a punishment but do have the option to do something that can be done in an instant and never reversed (for example, assassinating a tyrant).

Exile

Exile doesn't necessarily prevent further offenses, isn't a particularly effective deterrent, and is very difficult to enforce in most situations. It also has collateral damage similar to imprisonment.

Ostracism

The only one that isn't a form of violence as it's just an exercise of one's own freedom of association. But it's still useful to compare to violent forms of punishment.

Ostracism doesn't prevent further offenses, and isn't generally a strong deterrent. Ostracism is less likely to be counter-punished since it's seen as legitimate, but on the other hand, it's usually its own counter-punishment as association is mutual.

Ostracism can also, rather than a punishment itself, be used as a threat to enforce a punishment (for example, no one in town will associate with you until you restitute your victim). This is what I've seen in some depictions of hypothetical anarchist societies, and it's great when it works, but only works if the offender is sufficiently dependent on the ostracizers.