And I agree with your points. I do believe Prof. Lloyd is out of touch but agree his ideologies are the stronger drivers. They do seem to come from a place of unreality, which is why it seemed to me he lacked certain life experience.
Yes, he most probably lacks certain experiences, but one does not need these experiences to realize that killing someone is a very serious crime and telling a killer "return to your community, do some community work and try to become a better person" is not only extremely utopian, but also shockingly unjust to the victim and the victim's loved ones.
And of course the belief in the healing power of the community is dangerous in itself. Even if a community happens to be close-knit, it can be very lenient towards popular people and harsh or even cruel towards people with a low status. People - especially family members and friends - can be very influenced by their emotions and can perceive even dangerous individuals in a distorted way. It is often very difficult to accept that one's grandson, cousin or neigbour may be a deeply damaged and ruthless person.
And what about crimes such as rape or sexual abuse? How many victims would be ready to inform their own community about what happened to them? And how many people would try to defend the perpetrator or even claim that the victim must be lying?
All excellent points. Forty years ago, in law school, we considered the subject of deterrence. Keeping it short, do you know who is most deterred by penalties? Law abiding people. Prosocial, we might say.
This came to mind often, later on, when watching how "community court" actually functioned. Do you know for whom community court yielded a positive outcome? It was with the people who were already prosocial and honestly were sorry for the low level harm they caused. They actually wanted to fix what they broke or defaced. (Of course, no violence was allowed in.)
These people are not the ones you and many others are describing here in comments. You're referring to serious crime. And yet Prof. Lloyd, who I think we might all be thinking of as representative of the ideologies you identified, seems to suggest any system which leads to incarceration should be replaced with smaller, community models. Putting it mildly, that's batshit. For the reasons you state and more besides.
And yet, it remains true that a significant amount of antisocial behavior can stem from the perception that the game we all must play is not a fair game. That's a sociological phenomenon I mention dispassionately. It's a thing to contend with.
Rape, sexual abuse and on to domestic violence are different matters and belong in a whole separate conversation. They certainly do not belong in community tribunals.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the various distorting relationships you identify are among the most basic ones which disqualify perspective jurors to hear a case. And for all the very clear reasons you suggest.
I fully agree with you. As you say, community-level solutions can work for people who are already prosocial. One simply can't have the same solutions for a shoplifter and a murderer, someone who stole a car and someone who brutally raped a woman.
One should also reject the naive illusion that everyone is a decent and caring human being - some people are very seriously emotionally damaged. A man has recently cruelly murdered a woman in London; allegedly his first memory of his father was when he was trying to drown his mother in a bathtub. The murderer is probably a severely traumatized person, but he was capable of beating an innocent stranger to death.
And I agree with your points. I do believe Prof. Lloyd is out of touch but agree his ideologies are the stronger drivers. They do seem to come from a place of unreality, which is why it seemed to me he lacked certain life experience.
Yes, he most probably lacks certain experiences, but one does not need these experiences to realize that killing someone is a very serious crime and telling a killer "return to your community, do some community work and try to become a better person" is not only extremely utopian, but also shockingly unjust to the victim and the victim's loved ones.
And of course the belief in the healing power of the community is dangerous in itself. Even if a community happens to be close-knit, it can be very lenient towards popular people and harsh or even cruel towards people with a low status. People - especially family members and friends - can be very influenced by their emotions and can perceive even dangerous individuals in a distorted way. It is often very difficult to accept that one's grandson, cousin or neigbour may be a deeply damaged and ruthless person.
And what about crimes such as rape or sexual abuse? How many victims would be ready to inform their own community about what happened to them? And how many people would try to defend the perpetrator or even claim that the victim must be lying?
All excellent points. Forty years ago, in law school, we considered the subject of deterrence. Keeping it short, do you know who is most deterred by penalties? Law abiding people. Prosocial, we might say.
This came to mind often, later on, when watching how "community court" actually functioned. Do you know for whom community court yielded a positive outcome? It was with the people who were already prosocial and honestly were sorry for the low level harm they caused. They actually wanted to fix what they broke or defaced. (Of course, no violence was allowed in.)
These people are not the ones you and many others are describing here in comments. You're referring to serious crime. And yet Prof. Lloyd, who I think we might all be thinking of as representative of the ideologies you identified, seems to suggest any system which leads to incarceration should be replaced with smaller, community models. Putting it mildly, that's batshit. For the reasons you state and more besides.
And yet, it remains true that a significant amount of antisocial behavior can stem from the perception that the game we all must play is not a fair game. That's a sociological phenomenon I mention dispassionately. It's a thing to contend with.
Rape, sexual abuse and on to domestic violence are different matters and belong in a whole separate conversation. They certainly do not belong in community tribunals.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the various distorting relationships you identify are among the most basic ones which disqualify perspective jurors to hear a case. And for all the very clear reasons you suggest.
I fully agree with you. As you say, community-level solutions can work for people who are already prosocial. One simply can't have the same solutions for a shoplifter and a murderer, someone who stole a car and someone who brutally raped a woman.
One should also reject the naive illusion that everyone is a decent and caring human being - some people are very seriously emotionally damaged. A man has recently cruelly murdered a woman in London; allegedly his first memory of his father was when he was trying to drown his mother in a bathtub. The murderer is probably a severely traumatized person, but he was capable of beating an innocent stranger to death.