Extended Life Sentences

I've seen a few articles recently about the ethics of extended life sentences. Here are a few of them:

Aeon Magazine
Daily Mail
Practical Ethics

Various issues are discussed (for example - would it be ethical to condemn someone to 1000 years of imprisonment?) but the one that interests me most is - would it be ethical to artificially extend someone's life for the purpose of punishment? The Aeon article asks the question like this:

"What about life expansion that meddles with a person’s perception of time? Take someone convicted of a heinous crime, like the torture and murder of a child. Would it be unethical to tinker with the brain so that this person experiences a 1,000-year jail sentence in his or her mind?"

Given that one day in the future I'm sure this kind of thing will be possible, what do you think?

Talking about non-corrective imprisonment, like the life/death sentences... as it stands I think its 'natural life', so life extension would probably bring about a change in the penalty for actualizing consecutive life sentences.

Perception of time is interesting. I think the brain is an engine of relativity, so if all they are used to is plain, then they might normalize to the new conditions and experience a 'normal' range but against that plain (to us) environment. It might even stop being a punishment for the person if it gets too dislocated from normal perception - an altered reality could promote delusion and psychosis into some strange 'view'. I guess it would take a couple of generations to test it, to see where those safe boundaries are, but yea the only difference sometimes between insane and sane is ones capacity to 'fit in' and operate normally in society - prison is not normal society. Sounds complex!!!!

A very interesting concept, indeed. If we could fit a year inside of an hour, based on bending the perception of time, would that person not take on a completely different persona than they had before they entered imprisonment? There is a lot to think about and we wouldn't know anything without first testing it and finding acceptable limits. I, for one, would love to have my own time chamber that could turn an hour into a year, or even more. I'm sure lots of people would, though.

IF your doing something that sends you to Jail for life. It should be the persons natural life. If a cancer is going to kill an inmate, let them die if they want to die. There is no need to use tax dollars to keep some alive for a sentencing.

As for augmenting there reality to make it seem like they are living 1000 year.... well that's dumb..... why are people trying to reinvent the wheel?

Both ways are a cruel and unusual punishment

It's a cool concept.. vary futuristic. Is it a good idea, well maybe yeah..... But is it logical....

I honestly believe that everything you do to others comes back to you, whether you feel that person deserves it or not. So... yeah... I don't think I'd want to meddle with karma that way.

This only seems to be a problem in the US. Other countries [strike]aren't stupid enough to impose[/strike] don't impose 1000 year or 200 year consecutive prison sentences.

There needs to be a shift from thinking that they are wrong or immoral to thinking that they are ill or unwell. Those terms shouldn't be looked at too literally, the idea is that we shouldn't 'punish' so much as we 'help' and we shouldn't 'imprison' so much as we 'rehabilitate'.

Take suspending children from school. We addressing the action they do (we suspend them for swearing and being disruptive or whatever), but we don't try to deal with the underlying cause. I remember a case where a new headteacher decided he wouldn't suspend children and it worked excellently.

Why? The children that suffered at home misbehaved at school and got into trouble, so they were suspended at sent... back home to suffer more? :huh: So they suffered and came to school and misbehaved... see where it goes?

Are people born criminals? Some perhaps, but I bet you most become them from circumstance.

If people do something wrong then they should learn how to do right. Don't go slippery-slope argument and think brainwashing here, I am literally just talking about maybe how they don't have to be so angry, they are calm and don't hit people or whatever etc. We shouldn't just lock them away and then when the time is right they leave and haven't changed at all... so they re-offend (very commonplace).

You need to address the source rather than the symptom.

When it is common knowledge that one cannot change unless they themselves want to change, what other can or will you do than lock them away?

You cannot make a person change against there will, but you can stop them from doing what they are doing.

Keep in mind that where you see nothing moral or ethical in judgement, they themselves do not often find that they are even unwell.

There are countless rehabilitation programs in prison system of the US. Many better themselves inside. However it is as always, the individuals choice.

Punishment may seem like a poor choice to you, but repercussions, consequences for ones actions, and being held accountable hardly seems like a poor idea to me.

As always, some learn, and some do not, however, this is also a choice left up to the individual.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink.

punishment is a form of retaliation: you hurt me therefore I hurt you. And while that may be "just", it is not "right": the purpose should be to prevent the original injustice from occurring again.

If as a society we like to prevent killing our own (we make humans killing other humans illegal), then there can be no death penalty. The whole penal/justice/enforcement system, should, as Akkarin says, be based on preventing (in this instance) killing humans. Death sentences obviously do not prevent that. No matter what reasons the state may have for killing someone, those reasons are not better than "i hate this individual and therefore killed him" or "I am mentally mega-disturbed and somewhat cannot prevent myself from being a serial killer".

Some people may never be "safe" in the free world, and we may have to incarcerate them forever, for lack of a better solution. But what if they can make themselves useful while being effectively prevented from killing again?

The current systems in place seem to be "you're a horrible person and we don't like you therefore":
- we kill you, or
- we let you rot in a hole as far away from us as possible for ever, or
- we let you rot in a hole with everyone else we don't like, cross our fingers and hope you won't start again when we let you out.

The only thing the current system offers is fear of the system in the hope people don't break the rules. Not only does this not work (people break the rules all the time), but apparently it encourages the people who ever "taste" it to further engage in bad behaviour (high rates of re-offenders).

No wonder "kill everyone we don't like" seems so attractive to some people/states. One thing's for sure: it's the rule of the strongest, and the strongest really can't be bothered with "deviants".

It seems, as always, there is not shortage of people that are ready to point out problems, and yet, I see no one so motivated as to put themselves in positions to where they could fix the problems.

Its really not all that hard to be the negative voice when your removed from the situation pointing your finger at it.

For those working with said individuals and in such institutions everyday its a bit different.

Be the change you want to see in the world, but if your not going to, complaining about it, pointing fingers, etc, is hardly any better a solution. It helps and changes nothing.

As for preventing the original injustices from happening...How do you plan to do this? I cant imagine you are that psychic, or know someone so psychic that you can start arresting people before they commit atrocious acts,and unless your willing to live in a very, very, strict police state, then what is your solution?

Certainly, you could be alluding to nurture, preventing them from becoming the people committing those acts to begin with, but it is seldom ever that simple Many do not have so obvious triggers.

Seriously, get yourself into positions that cause positive change in the areas you find fault in, or your complaining is only a louder form of the apathy and complacency that you detest.

So save the righteous indignation. There are no high horses here.

It seems, as always, there is not shortage of people that are ready to point out problems, and yet, I see no one so motivated as to put themselves in positions to where they could fix the problems.

I'd like to tell people how to be a profitable criminal and finance more schools, hospitals, and food for the poor through money laundering than any cop or judge ever will, but it's against totjo policy. :whistle: