Punishment

Modern Psychology suggests very strongly that punishment is next to useless at altering behaviour.

Personally I am against punishment per se (but it may be a consequence of other measures - eg a child molester must be removed from society so the incarceration would be viewed as punishment)

What is your take on "Punishment" and what philosophical/spiritual stand point do you take? Does your god (or lack of) affect your thinking?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Modern Psychology suggests very strongly that punishment is next to useless at altering behaviour.

Personally I am against punishment per se (but it may be a consequence of other measures - eg a child molester must be removed from society so the incarceration would be viewed as punishment)

What is your take on "Punishment" and what philosophical/spiritual stand point do you take? Does your god (or lack of) affect your thinking?

I would like to see your source and would like to know your context.

I can think of examples of situations where punishment (or fear thereof) does alter behaviour.

If you go specific and look at something like capital punishment deterring murder (it doesn't)
then I would agree, but the idea that punishment (or the fear of it) doesn't have any (significant)
effect at all in any circumstance seems to me to be slightly absurd.


I would say that fear of punishment is generally a bad way of enforcing 'good' behaviour, as if/when
that fear is removed the reason for not behaving badly disappears.

Whereas if you have a good reason for the good behaviour (or not-the bad behaviour) then you are
more likely to behave well whether you will be punished for behaving badly or not.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Modern Psychology suggests very strongly that punishment is next to useless at altering behaviour.

Personally I am against punishment per se (but it may be a consequence of other measures - eg a child molester must be removed from society so the incarceration would be viewed as punishment)

What is your take on "Punishment" and what philosophical/spiritual stand point do you take? Does your god (or lack of) affect your thinking?

It depends on ones love of his God or of his fellow man. If he loves them then he would be afraid of disappointing or hurting them. If that is the case then that in itself would stop one from sinning against their God or their fellow man. That would be the punishment of living with ones conscience.
But if one does not love their God or fellowman then your probably right as the punishment may not work on them especially with the lack of serious punishment that most countries do not employ. In some murder cases such as in the US, many times they get away with just a few years in prison.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Modern Psychology suggests very strongly that punishment is next to useless at altering behaviour.

Personally I am against punishment per se (but it may be a consequence of other measures - eg a child molester must be removed from society so the incarceration would be viewed as punishment)

What is your take on "Punishment" and what philosophical/spiritual stand point do you take? Does your god (or lack of) affect your thinking?

Ever heard of the Wild Wild West? Or boom towns that develop way out in the outback eg in Australia or in the Amazon Forest in Brazil. The common element in these areas is a lack of law enforcement; that means no punishment ; that means lawlessness.

Can you figure out the rest or do you need some 'expert' to do a survey and tell you what your common sense should tell you.. Ops .. youre an atheist. Lack of God in your thinking is your problem. Now if you were God fearing you wont have to ask such a question because the Bible is plain as daylight on that topic... "spare the rod and ... " you know. It applies to all people.

No punishment means lawlessness. I live in one such country. Just this evening Im looking at the news here and Im seeing a story of a woman raped and when she reported it to the police they told her to leave the precinct and go get on some clothes before they arrest her for indecency. See? Police are hopeless in enforcing the law here therefore criminals know there is nothing to fear and do as they please.

Swift and effective punishment reduces lawlessness, therefore it most definitely alters human behaviour.

If you need more proof ask any teacher who taught in a school in say 1960 and one who is a teacher now. The difference is that in the 60s there was an entirely different kind of system of punishment in schools for bad-behaviour.

Originally posted by Rajk999
Ever heard of the Wild Wild West? Or boom towns that develop way out in the outback eg in Australia or in the Amazon Forest in Brazil. The common element in these areas is a lack of law enforcement; that means no punishment ; that means lawlessness.

Can you figure out the rest or do you need some 'expert' to do a survey and tell you what your common s ...[text shortened]... s there was an entirely different kind of system of punishment in schools for bad-behaviour.

So that must be why states with death penalties have lower murder rates.....
Except they don't.

post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

Google it, it describes your argument perfectly.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Modern Psychology suggests very strongly that punishment is next to useless at altering behaviour.

Personally I am against punishment per se (but it may be a consequence of other measures - eg a child molester must be removed from society so the incarceration would be viewed as punishment)

What is your take on "Punishment" and what philosophical/spiritual stand point do you take? Does your god (or lack of) affect your thinking?

The most common ways attempted to alter behavior is reward and
punishment. Both can work to some degree, depending on the individual.
Love and hate can also alter behavior, but is usually not intentionally
used to do so. Jesus said to love your enemy, but this is very difficult to
do in real situations. I personally believe bad behavior should always be
punished in some way, but not necessarily by the "rod". Although good
behavior should be expected. It should be rewarded occassionally,
especially when the behavior is much better than usual.

If you are referring to hardened criminals, nothing really works for long,
so they should be put out of their misery, as the Holy Bible says, to
protect society.

Originally posted by googlefudge
So that must be why states with death penalties have lower murder rates.....
Except they don't.

post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

Google it, it describes your argument perfectly.

I said "Swift and effective punishment reduces lawlessness, therefore it most definitely alters human behaviour. "

Maybe the death penalty is not an effective punishment.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The most common ways attempted to alter behavior is reward and
punishment. Both can work to some degree, depending on the individual.
Love and hate can also alter behavior, but is usually not intentionally
used to do so. Jesus said to love your enemy, but this is very difficult to
do in real situations. I personally believe bad behavior should always ...[text shortened]... long,
so they should be put out of their misery, as the Holy Bible says, to
protect society.

They are not miserable.

Murder (execution) has a detrimental effect on those performing it, those watching it, and those ordering it.

Plus you suck massive monkey balls at actually making sure that the person being murdered (executed)
actually committed the crime.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Modern Psychology suggests very strongly that punishment is next to useless at altering behaviour.

Personally I am against punishment per se (but it may be a consequence of other measures - eg a child molester must be removed from society so the incarceration would be viewed as punishment)

What is your take on "Punishment" and what philosophical/spiritual stand point do you take? Does your god (or lack of) affect your thinking?

I think that (NEARLY) all criminals should be viewed as "sick" (psycologically), and they should be "treated" and reformed.

Spending time in jail only makes SOME people only hate society more, and spending ten years in jail for killing someone is not that bad. In a lot of cases these crims will be let out early only to reoffend. They have not been reformed,as that is what prison is supposed to do.

Child molesterers usually get attacked and killed or put into prison hospital pretty quickly.

But this is all symptomatic of a greater problem, ie the whole idea that people are bad, that we NEED jails,etc. It,s rotten to the core and rife with corruption. (There are plenty of movies made about these subjects, which are often based on real life accounts. 2 Australian prison movies spring to mind, both very good, and both very harrowing. "Chopper" and "Ghosts of the Civil Dead". Please dont watch the latter movie if you have a weak stomach. It is very disturbing.)

But once again,I am a firm advocate of treating criminals as mentally unsound, rather than inherintly bad, which is what most people think , IMO 🙂

Originally posted by Rajk999
Ever heard of the Wild Wild West? Or boom towns that develop way out in the outback eg in Australia or in the Amazon Forest in Brazil. The common element in these areas is a lack of law enforcement; that means no punishment ; that means lawlessness.

Can you figure out the rest or do you need some 'expert' to do a survey and tell you what your common s ...[text shortened]... s there was an entirely different kind of system of punishment in schools for bad-behaviour.

"If you need more proof ask any teacher who taught in a school in say 1960 and one who is a teacher now. The difference is that in the 60s there was an entirely different kind of system of punishment in schools for bad-behaviour."
well my background is Educational Psychology and I can tell you that carrot is far more effective than stick!

As for spare the rod and spoil the child that is quite frankly archaic!

Originally posted by googlefudge
[b]They are not miserable.

Murder (execution) has a detrimental effect on those performing it, those watching it, and those ordering it.

Plus you suck massive monkey balls at actually making sure that the person being murdered (executed)
actually committed the crime.[/b]

Well, we can be sure of one thing, He want do it again. HalleluYah !!!

Originally posted by karoly aczel
I think that (NEARLY) all criminals should be viewed as "sick" (psycologically), and they should be "treated" and reformed.

Spending time in jail only makes SOME people only hate society more, and spending ten years in jail for killing someone is not that bad. In a lot of cases these crims will be let out early only to reoffend. They have not been s mentally unsound, rather than inherintly bad, which is what most people think , IMO 🙂

I think thats pretty close to my position.

What I am interested in is people's idea of what the purpose of punishment is. I dont believe it deters (since criminals surely dont intend being caught) and it certainly doesnt reform (look at stats on re-offenders.)

Is it just revenge?

I think all the other posters here are way off the mark (ie the posters that have posted before me on this topic). If any of you want to know why I think that then just ask- I am not going to go nit picking through all your points, I'd rather attack the root of the problem.

I have actually spent time in jail, so I have an idea of what I'm talking about
(BTW, I was put in for 2weeks for a warrant on an account of possessing a minute(0.2grams) amount of canabis. I was let out only 5 days into my sentence as soon as the prison pcycologist reviewed me. )
It is a shame that people who smoke a bit of pot should be chucked into prison with other harder criminals. There is a total difference between a rapist and a weed smoker. "Society" (usually crap journalists) try to make a link between smoking weed and other crime, but it is simply not true. It is pure propaganda set up to defend prohibition laws-which clearly dont work.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
I think thats pretty close to my position.

What I am interested in is people's idea of what the [b]purpose of punishment is. I dont believe it deters (since criminals surely dont intend being caught) and it certainly doesnt reform (look at stats on re-offenders.)

Is it just revenge?[/b]

Prevention and protection are considerations.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
I think thats pretty close to my position. What I am interested in is people's idea of what the [b]purpose of punishment is. I dont believe it deters (since criminals surely dont intend being caught) and it certainly doesnt reform (look at stats on re-offenders.

Is it just revenge?[/b]

I think the purpose is to keep society divided. I truly think that the "powers that be", (the "secret government" who actually rule the world and put presidents and prime ministers of their own choosing into power, and make it seem like an actual act of democracy-ie voting 😛 ), want to keep people divided. They want people to hate each other.
After all how much money is spent on law enforcement and jails in the US alone?
Imagine if there were no need for this? all those billions$ would be freed up to perhaps feed and educate the rest of the world. But they dont want that. That would mean that people are actually regaining their power and the world will be a real democracy.
(I have a lot to say about this topic, but I'll try to keep it brief and make my points more general than I would like)