Are all crimes eliminated in the Federation?

[Cyke101]

This probably isn't intentional at all, but I really like that TNG/DS9/VOY doesn't mention some sort of mass incarceration system for the Federation, though other nations have it (and tend to use mass prisons as labor camps). Yeah, I'm sure there are penal colonies because there'll always be some sort of crime, but nothing that incarcerates a large population of Federation citizens. A system of justice and accountability yes, but not giant prison behemoths that keep people in perpetual state of capture rather than habilitate; except for the most heinous of crimes, lawbreakers eventually earn a chance to contribute to society, like Tom Paris.

 

[eyeresist]

You can test someone for psychopathy with a multiple-choice quiz (just googling brings up a lot of results).

Which are all false. That's just an urban legend.

That's a weird response. There are plenty of psychological tests, developed by reputable bodies, for all kinds of conditions including psychopathy.

Just quickly googling for "psychopathy test", I have found the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (in various iterations, most recently the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)), and the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale. There are admittedly a few magazine-types quizzes in the mix as well.

 

[tharpdevenport]

It has been stated before that crime doesn't exist in the Federation, but are we talking about economic based crimes or all crimes?

There are a lot of crimes are based on economics: organized crime, theft, etc.

But not all crimes have an economic motive: sex crimes, crimes of passion, serial killers, etc are not motivated by money. Do these crimes not exist in the Federation? Are there no dangerous psychopaths in the Federation?

I recall nowhere it was stated no crimes exist in the Federation. In fact, it would be impossible. Too many people, too many races from other worlds, too many situational circumstances.

Let's look at just TNG alone:

"Eye of the Beholder"[/b]
The dead body of a murdered ship worker onboard, killed by another worker.

"The Most Toys"
Data almost committed murder. If you cant' stop somebody who has no emotions and is programed to perserve life from killing...

"Too Short a Season"
The admiral's actions.

And that's just the Enterprise. Not any other ship, starbase, colonies, etc.



And for good meassure, we all remember Sisko's lines about what he did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YyL7X4CWw

 

[T'Girl]

There are plenty of psychological tests, developed by reputable bodies, for all kinds of conditions including psychopathy.

But if a person is intelligent, and understands that they're being tested for psychopathy, they will simply load their responses with the "correct" answers to get the desired results,

Not a psychopath.

And it would be truly scary if a society were universally being tested like this. You will conform, or you will be altered.

In what other ways is the Federation forcing conformity upon masses of people?

(maybe this is why there's no gays)

 

[Timo]

It seems like sometimes Starfleet doesn't realize there's a problem until one of their most respected Captains or Admirals suddenly snaps and does something crazy. See Ron Tracey and Nora Satie.

But contrary to the old joke, you have to be crazy to work there. Quite possibly what happens when the tender youth of the UFP is tested for criminal tendencies is that those who test positive are sent to Starfleet...

Mind you, Picard's one-off remark is the only suggestion that crime in the UFP is being prevented. The brainwashing scheme that worked so well on Yates, Garak, Garth and Mudd prevents recurrence, but not first occurrence. We never hear of a system in place for discouraging crime as such: criminals have literally nothing to fear.

Yet crime prevention may be built into the UFP society quite literally. The physical components of that society, its buildings and networks and vehicles, may discourage crime very actively and very efficiently. We witness time and again that even the doors of a starship are smarter than an average person; it takes quite a master criminal to conduct a crime such as assault or theft without the system exposing the criminal at once.

For all we know, Big Brother keeps crime from happening, for the most part. It's just that Big Brother is neither a person nor an anonymous group of people: it's the sum total of AI systems that merely work to keep crime at bay, without any ambitions towards manipulating the human(oid) race(s) further, pacifying them or enslaving them or anything like that. Justice really is blind in the UFP in that scenario, or at least has no desire to look forward or back.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

I imagine that most forms of crime which result from structural inequalities in the economic system have been eliminated by the Federation's seemingly democratic socialist system. So on the core Federation worlds, you're not going to find any native organized crime syndicates, for instance, nor street gangs--the social pressures that produce these organizations simply don't exist in the Federation. Though you may, I imagine, see foreign organized crime syndicates, such as the Orion Syndicate, planting agents or finding the occasional person to bribe on a Federation core world--foreign anomalies rather than domestic standards.

Given the Federation's advanced medical care, I think it's likely that they are able to screen and treat the vast majority of people who suffer from mental illnesses, including those that prompt patients to engage in criminal behavior. People whose mental deficiencies prevent them from feeling empathy, guild, or shame, for instance, are likely given treatment akin to what happened to Iko from VOY's "Repentance." This isn't brainwashing -- this is restoring the brain to its proper functioning.

I imagine that the Federation's prison system far more closely resembles those of Scandinavia than the for-profit racist mass incarceration system of torture and neo-slavery currently used in the United States. There is, indeed, likely a high reliance on therapy and rehabilitation. I for one do not buy the "they brainwash people" notion. Especially since neither Kassidy Yates nor Elim Garak ever gave any indication that they repented of their choices or would behave differently if made to do it all over again.

 

[Timo]

Given the Federation's advanced medical care, I think it's likely that they are able to screen and treat the vast majority of people who suffer from mental illnesses, including those that prompt patients to engage in criminal behavior. People whose mental deficiencies prevent them from feeling empathy, guild, or shame, for instance, are likely given treatment akin to what happened to Iko from VOY's "Repentance." This isn't brainwashing -- this is restoring the brain to its proper functioning.

But this isn't what happens to our affable Trek villains. They don't return changed or reformed - they simply return with (evidently) drastically decreased odds of repeating the original crime. They weren't mentally ill by any reasonable standard to start with, and didn't change as far as we can tell.

Especially since neither Kassidy Yates nor Elim Garak ever gave any indication that they repented of their choices or would behave differently if made to do it all over again.

Absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence there. And Garak did let pass opportunities to eradicate the Founders after having been theraped into believing he should not.

Had the two started vocally preaching against the vices they once practiced, then I'd say the brainwashing techniques would leave a lot to be desired. If they turn people into caricatures of their former selves, then they aren't much better than the current frighten-with-torture techniques of crimefighting (still very much the only variant of the art practiced in Scandinavia, too).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CoveTom]

Given the Federation's advanced medical care, I think it's likely that they are able to screen and treat the vast majority of people who suffer from mental illnesses, including those that prompt patients to engage in criminal behavior.

But does all criminal behavior stem from some sort of mental illness? I wouldn't think so. People have many motivations for committing a crime. Spock committed several in "The Menagerie," for example, but he obviously wasn't mentally ill when he did it.

I don't think eliminating mental illness would eliminate crime.

 

[Sci]

Given the Federation's advanced medical care, I think it's likely that they are able to screen and treat the vast majority of people who suffer from mental illnesses, including those that prompt patients to engage in criminal behavior. People whose mental deficiencies prevent them from feeling empathy, guild, or shame, for instance, are likely given treatment akin to what happened to Iko from VOY's "Repentance." This isn't brainwashing -- this is restoring the brain to its proper functioning.

But this isn't what happens to our affable Trek villains. They don't return changed or reformed - they simply return with (evidently) drastically decreased odds of repeating the original crime. They weren't mentally ill by any reasonable standard to start with, and didn't change as far as we can tell.

Especially since neither Kassidy Yates nor Elim Garak ever gave any indication that they repented of their choices or would behave differently if made to do it all over again.

Absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence there. And Garak did let pass opportunities to eradicate the Founders after having been theraped into believing he should not.

There is no evidence that they were "therapied" or changed their opinions whatsoever. And I can't think of any opportunities Garak had to eradicate the Founders after the season four finale -- indeed, the Great Link never again appeared until "What You Leave Behind." And given Garak's actions in "In the Pale Moonlight," he certainly didn't have any objection to murder--which one would think he would have been "therapied" out of if he had been "therapied" in the first place.

Given the Federation's advanced medical care, I think it's likely that they are able to screen and treat the vast majority of people who suffer from mental illnesses, including those that prompt patients to engage in criminal behavior.

But does all criminal behavior stem from some sort of mental illness? I wouldn't think so. People have many motivations for committing a crime. Spock committed several in "The Menagerie," for example, but he obviously wasn't mentally ill when he did it.

I don't think eliminating mental illness would eliminate crime.

I never said that it would end all crime, or that all criminals were motivated by mental illness. I did, however, imply that a significant portion today are at least in part probably contributed to by mental illness, and that a society with effective large-scale treatments for mental illnesses would probably have significantly less crime than ours today.

That's not universal, of course--as the numerous criminals who have appeared throughout TOS and TNG indicate.

 

[Timo]

There is no evidence that they were "therapied" or changed their opinions whatsoever.

Nothing direct, granted. Just that everybody in the TNG era universe receives a sentence of 6 months regardless of the nature of the crime, which wouldn't work if the idea is to frighten people out of a life of crime with freedom-deprivation torture.

And given Garak's actions in "In the Pale Moonlight," he certainly didn't have any objection to murder--which one would think he would have been "therapied" out of if he had been "therapied" in the first place.

Umm, what? If murder is on the list of things to be automatically castrated from the minds of people, there could be no Starfleet, an organization based on its employees willing to murder others for sufficiently good cause. You can't take murder out of the heads of people and still have them work as able-minded members of the society, not today and not tomorrow.

We have seen what happens to people who explicitly receive therapy. Harry Mudd got it, and remained a rascal, but didn't repeat any of his specific crimes. Tom Paris got it, and remained a rascal, but didn't repeat any of his specific crimes. And people vectored into counter-crime therapy in TOS were expected to make full recovery, rather than simply be dulled down to harmlessness.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[eyeresist]

There are plenty of psychological tests, developed by reputable bodies, for all kinds of conditions including psychopathy.

But if a person is intelligent, and understands that they're being tested for psychopathy, they will simply load their responses with the "correct" answers to get the desired results,

Not a psychopath.

Obviously the people who create these tests think of these things. The tests can be quite long, and you test repeatedly looking for inconsistencies. Also, the notion that psychopaths are especially intelligent is inaccurate. Prisons are full of stupid psychopaths.

And it would be truly scary if a society were universally being tested like this. You will conform, or you will be altered.

That's a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. We're talking about conditions that make people's lives worse - addiction, depression, obsessive compulsive behaviour, uncontrollable anger, schizophrenia, etc. Not only the people with the condition but all those around them suffer. If you think that people should have the right to be fuck-ups who ruin the lives of family, friends and random strangers, well, you can enjoy life in modern-day America, but for the rest of us, there's Star Trek.

 

[Cyke101]

I imagine that most forms of crime which result from structural inequalities in the economic system have been eliminated by the Federation's seemingly democratic socialist system. So on the core Federation worlds, you're not going to find any native organized crime syndicates, for instance, nor street gangs--the social pressures that produce these organizations simply don't exist in the Federation. Though you may, I imagine, see foreign organized crime syndicates, such as the Orion Syndicate, planting agents or finding the occasional person to bribe on a Federation core world--foreign anomalies rather than domestic standards.

~snip~

I imagine that the Federation's prison system far more closely resembles those of Scandinavia than the for-profit racist mass incarceration system of torture and neo-slavery currently used in the United States.

Nicely put.

Off topic, but I wonder if this is what GR meant to imply when he said no space pirates -- that is, he meant but didn't say no space pirates within the Federation, because there'd be no need for piracy, which would fit in with his idyllic utopia. But space pirates outside the Federation should be fair game. Or just some excuse to have space pirates because space pirates are cool.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Obviously all crimes have not been eliminated. When Janeway went to pick up Paris in prison he had a decent amount of company.

However, they are as low as can be reasonably expected from the human race. Like Switzerland level low.

 

[Ithekro]

300 prisoners in a population of trillions?

 

[Cyke101]

300 prisoners in a population of trillions?

Perhaps not so optimistic, but a few thousand on a utopian planet of millions or a few billions seems more likely (especially since the Federation has penal colonies), and definitely much lower than today's prisoner stats. After all, from what we've seen, most Federation races still have some degree of political autonomy, which means different societies and cultures with their own set of laws.

 

[Greg Cox]

300 prisoners in a population of trillions?

. After all, from what we've seen, most Federation races still have some degree of political autonomy, which means different societies and cultures with their own set of laws.

Yeah, I always figured this stuff varies from planet to planet. The Andorians surely have different ideas regarding crime and punishment than the Vulcans, for instance.

And we know the Denobulians (sp?) aren't nearly as uptight about genetic engineering as humans are . . ..

 

[sonak]

I don't think that Trek's society is supposed to be fully crime-free, but it makes sense that in a future where scarcity of resources is no longer an issue, and technological advancements mean that citizens enjoy a commonly high standard of living that crime is a pretty rare occurrence. Heck, violent crime has been on a decades-long drop NOW, so just imagine what future trends will be.

Also, Trek's more enlightened penal policies probably mean less recidivism.

 

[section31agent]

I recall nowhere it was stated no crimes exist in the Federation. In fact, it would be impossible. Too many people, too many races from other worlds, too many situational circumstances.

Let's look at just TNG alone:

"Eye of the Beholder"[/b]
The dead body of a murdered ship worker onboard, killed by another worker.

"The Most Toys"
Data almost committed murder. If you cant' stop somebody who has no emotions and is programed to perserve life from killing...

"Too Short a Season"
The admiral's actions.

And that's just the Enterprise. Not any other ship, starbase, colonies, etc.



And for good meassure, we all remember Sisko's lines about what he did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YyL7X4CWw

I dont remember either hearing that theres no crime in the Federation.

Earth is a paradise and probably so is Vulcan and all the fully developed, core Federation worlds. But there are colonies like Turkana IV where everybody is on drugs and gangsters run the streets.

I guess you could say Earth and Vulcan are the rich Federation neighborhoods. Turkana IV is the ghetto.

But I always found it weird how the Turkana police had no help from federal authorities until like 10 years later when the USS Potemkin showed up. And it doesn't sound like the Potemkin made any attempt to retake to planet or ask Starfleet Command to send in ground troops.

Its like the LAPD getting overrun by the Bloods and the Crips. And the FBI and National Guard don't do anything about it

 

[Timo]

That analogy should take into account that LA there is an isolated Wild West town that ranks among the smallest in the world, and gets telegrams from other towns about once a year, and random visitors (who prefer not to deal with the Federal government, like, ever) even less often on the average. NYPD probably didn't even know who the local sheriff was when the rebels forced him to early retirement.

Colonies in Star Trek, be it TOS or TNG, are isolated refuges for people who just plain don't want to live on Earth. In "Operation: Annihilate!", a formerly busy freight hub with almost a million people doesn't warrant a starship visit until a year into total silence. Turkana IV just follows the pattern. Heck, the place doesn't even warrant a proper name, just star name plus numeral... Deneva did better there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

Here is what I would like to know.

How they hell can you convict anyone of anything?

In a universe of time travel, shape shifters, androids, an accused murderer can just say--my evil twin did it.

Tricorders entered as evidence I suppose, but reasonable doubt would seem a lot less limited than it is here. I talk about an evil double--and I get the rubber room at best.