Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
I keep on hearing the same refrain from people on the left and the right: deport criminals! Send them back here they came from! The motive is clearly to protect law-abiding citizens from further crimes, and that is not a silly idea. Some are even extending this policy to “homegrown” criminals. But it is a terrible idea. Being repatriated or exiled is no punishment at all in cases of serious crime, such as murder. You just get to go back to your old criminal life, with no life sentence or death penalty. There is zero deterrent power in that threat. Moreover, the criminal is then free to re-enter (illegally) the country in which he was found guilty of a crime, possibly to re-commit. You might say that we could send them to a prison in another country, but there are several problems with this. First, why would another country take such people into their prisons? Second, they may have different laws and penal policies. Third, they would need to be paid handsomely. This is an unworkable policy. The only viable form of such a policy would be to set up a penal colony in a remote location—a prison abroad. That would keep the criminals away from us without involving another country. I never hear this mentioned, possibly because there is nowhere to build such a colony (Greenland anyone?). No, realistically, you have to put criminals in prison in and run by the country in which the crime was committed. Deportation is not the solution to crime. Not letting criminals in to begin with is another matter, but we have plenty of laws on the books to prevent that. So, I wish pundits would stop saying we all agree that criminals should be deported, whether foreign or homegrown.
The ancient Atehians deported or ostracized citezens posing a dire threat to the state- some have advocated that in liue of impeachment
I myself dwell in a state of virtual exile. I am even exiled from the department in which I was so prominent a member, not to speak of American philosophy as a whole
Though less radical than in my youth, and this point is of the moment of not this particular post, why does conservatism deteriorate into authoritarianism? Because it has no ideals but power and the community, though that’s not quite the right word- it is all about power and it descends into worship of power in the name of the Volk- this is so obvious to me, yet I can’t begin to prove my point lest I go back to college. And I’m not even saying it just right, and to connect with your reply, there is no place for exiles in the American Volk. It stands for nothing but tradition and that mutates into the mutant Trump and even Bush the Dumber of “I am the great decider.”