DS9: Force and Motion by Jeffrey Lang blurb

[rahullak]

I think I agree with you more than I disagree, rahullak; I think my main issue is the idea that he should never be allowed captaincy again. I still think that if he's proven himself over an extended period following his release - say, decades of slowly moving up the ranks once more, having started his Starfleet career essentially from scratch and re-entered at the same level as a green ensign fresh out of the Academy with all seniority officially cleared from the board and with having to dealing with the reactions of both peers and superior officers throughout the process, having to literally re-establish himself and his reputation even with the weight of his actions - then it should be possible. After 20, 30, 40 years of exemplary conduct after his release without a single slip in order to truly demonstrate that he is not the sort of person who would perform in such a manner ever again.

But other than that one sticking point, I think we do essentially agree, yeah. And in reconsideration, I'm not so stuck on that point that I'd think it outrageous that that not be allowed. I'm more just "well after he theoretically did all that, is there any more risk from him than from a brand-new captain that's never before held the chair?"

Fully understand what you're saying.

My concern is more about having a justice system that actually metes out justice. Some kind of consequence for egregious actions that families who have been hurt can understand and accept. Without justice, things turn anarchic.

So in Maxwell's case, there could be a sentencing not for imprisonment, but for becoming captain. "You can become captain only after 30 years of diligent service, without a single blemish and starting from the position of cadet." Something like that.

 

[Idran]

Okay, yeah, that's basically what I had in mind too. I think we're thinking pretty much the same thing at this point, just from slightly different angles.

I always love when a discussion ends up at that point.

 

[Christopher]

My concern is more about having a justice system that actually metes out justice. Some kind of consequence for egregious actions that families who have been hurt can understand and accept. Without justice, things turn anarchic.

Which sounds to me like a prettied-up way of saying that you believe in an eye for an eye and revenge. You're implicitly saying that only a punishment-based system actually works, and that's an ideological assumption that isn't supported by the evidence.

To me, justice does not mean "getting back." It means ensuring the most beneficial outcome. If crime is a pathological behavior, then justice means healing the illness so that no further damage is done. If rehabilitation works, if it prevents further crimes from being committed and further harm from being done, why is that not justice? And if punishment doesn't work as a deterrent but just causes criminals worse trauma and makes them more likely to do more harm in the future, how is that not an injustice?

 

[DimesDan]

Well I for one am looking forward to this novel and the discussions being spoken about being answered (or not) as until then, it just seems like a lot of speculative posturing.

 

[Idran]

Did you mean posturing or postulating? I'm not sure what you'd mean by posturing here; you think we don't really hold these opinions? Or that we're exaggerating them somehow? Because everything I've been saying isn't just in the context of the Federation, but is my overall viewpoint of how a proper criminal justice system should function; there's no exaggeration or hyperbole on my end at all, I solidly mean everything I've said. The evidence shows that the method I've been talking about is the most effective way by which one could be formed out of those methods that have been tried in practice, I just initially brought it up here largely because I'd think that the Federation's criminal justice system would function based on what works in practice rather than what feels good.

 

[flandry84]

Maxwell,with his extensive sources of information on Cardassian movements,plus his years of command experience would certainly have been on 31's wish list don't you think?

 

[rahullak]

My concern is more about having a justice system that actually metes out justice. Some kind of consequence for egregious actions that families who have been hurt can understand and accept. Without justice, things turn anarchic.

Which sounds to me like a prettied-up way of saying that you believe in an eye for an eye and revenge. You're implicitly saying that only a punishment-based system actually works, and that's an ideological assumption that isn't supported by the evidence.

Not at all. An eye for an eye is like A murders B, B's family murders A. If A murders B, and receives rehabilitation and a consequence, then it's not an eye for an eye.

We're sending multiple messages: What A has done is wrong. We need to cure him of it. We need to make sure he doesn't do it again. And we need to make sure that no one else thinks murder is an easy way out of anger, hatred, greed or any other vice. And B's family needs to receive closure.

There's always a human need for justice. When a bad thing is done, it needs to be censured. The level of censure, the extremeness of it is going to depend on the century we're talking about and the culture.

To me, justice does not mean "getting back." It means ensuring the most beneficial outcome. If crime is a pathological behavior, then justice means healing the illness so that no further damage is done. If rehabilitation works, if it prevents further crimes from being committed and further harm from being done, why is that not justice? And if punishment doesn't work as a deterrent but just causes criminals worse trauma and makes them more likely to do more harm in the future, how is that not an injustice?

How do we know punishment does not work as a deterrent? After all, we're not doing a survey of how many people stopped themselves from committing a crime just because they were afraid of the consequences, are we? And punishment can't be catch-all. What kind of punishment matters. Kids in school receive punishments all the time for misbehavior. Most of it mild. And somehow when a person becomes an adult or grows out of school he is assumed to be emotionally mature enough to not do wrong? That if he does wrong he should not be punished for it, even mildly?

Fact is, human beings respond to both carrot and stick. I believe the carrot alone is not enough. And the humans of the 24th century are not so significantly different from us physiologically that they don't need any kind of stick to keep them in check. Heck, the chain of command in Starfleet works because Captains listen to Admirals, Commanders listen to Captains and so on, and some of part of them is apprehensive of the consequences to them if they don't listen. If Picard goes off the reservation and disobeys a direct order (without committing a crime) and is adjudged to be in the wrong after the dust settles, he is going to be stripped of command, and maybe court-martialed and kicked out of Starfleet. It's not gonna be like "Oh Picard, you need to be retrained to think correctly. You just didn't think correctly. After 3 years of corrective rehabilitation, you will be fit to join back as Captain." Which is why Picard makes certain the choices he makes are for the right reasons when he decides to disobey, and more often than not it is some Starfleet Admiral who has transgressed.

 

[rahullak]

Well I for one am looking forward to this novel and the discussions being spoken about being answered (or not) as until then, it just seems like a lot of speculative posturing.

Did you mean posturing or postulating? I'm not sure what you'd mean by posturing here; you think we don't really hold these opinions? Or that we're exaggerating them somehow? Because everything I've been saying isn't just in the context of the Federation, but is my overall viewpoint of how a proper criminal justice system should function; there's no exaggeration or hyperbole on my end at all, I solidly mean everything I've said. The evidence shows that the method I've been talking about is the most effective way by which one could be formed out of those methods that have been tried in practice, I just initially brought it up here largely because I'd think that the Federation's criminal justice system would function based on what works in practice rather than what feels good.

I don't believe I'm posturing.

I think Dimesdan thinks we are speculating too much in our discussion and we'll know Jeff Lang's take on things once we read the books.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Maxwell,with his extensive sources of information on Cardassian movements,plus his years of command experience would certainly have been on 31's wish list don't you think?

Another excellent point.

Assuming he wasn't working for Section 31 all along, of course.

 

[Christopher]

How do we know punishment does not work as a deterrent? After all, we're not doing a survey of how many people stopped themselves from committing a crime just because they were afraid of the consequences, are we?

That's a disingenuous question, considering that there's already been plenty of discussion in this thread about the failures of punishment-centric systems. The key is seeing how many people do commit crimes despite strong punishments in place -- for instance, the fact that murder rates are actually higher in states that use the death penalty, not lower.

Morality is not based on fear. If people's only check on their behavior is the fear of getting caught, then they'll just try to avoid getting caught. Look at all the corporate executives who abuse their workers and customers and screw up the economy and environment for personal gain because they know they're rich and powerful enough to get away with it. No -- true morality comes from considering the consequences to others, not just to yourself. It doesn't come from being afraid that you'll go to jail or go to hell; it comes from caring about what happens to everyone else as a consequence of your actions. And that is something people learn through positive reinforcement, through socialization and identification as part of a larger community, through experiencing the mutual benefits when people help and support each other.

I look at the world around us today, and all the worst, most dangerous leaders out there, both domestically and abroad, are the ones whose ideologies are based on fear. They want their followers to be afraid of foreigners, of immigrants, of racial minorities, of modernization, of secularization, of the government (unless they're running it), of sexual license, of women controlling their own bodies, whatever they can paint as an existential threat so that people will be too scared and stupid to think for themselves. Controlling people through fear is the way of tyrants and bullies. The successful societies are the ones that find better things to inspire people than fear. Like responsibility and compassion and the enlightened self-interest of recognizing that each of us benefits most when everyone benefits.

So yes, make people aware of the consequences of their acts, but that includes the positive consequences. It's a small example, but once I was in a grocery store and the kid in front of me in the checkout line kept picking up the bar dividing her family's groceries from mine, and her mother kept telling her "Put that down," and she'd put it down for two seconds and then pick it up again, over and over. So finally I explained to the little girl what the bar was for, to let the clerk know when their groceries ended and mine began. And the girl nodded sagely, put the bar down, and left it there. Because it wasn't just an arbitrary ban anymore -- she understood why she shouldn't do it, and why it was beneficial to others for her to leave it there. Doing right comes from understanding how your actions affect others.

 

[JD]

The one big thing that confuses me about the whole no punishment thing, is what really keeps people from committing the crimes, if they aren't going to face some kind of harsh punishment. People are violent, selfish, assholes more often than not, so what keeps them from acting on those on those violent, selfish, asshole instincts if not fear of the consequences? If all that is going to happen if you kill someone is you spend a few years in some cushy rehab facility, then what makes people not want to end up there? Especially if they are poor and the rehab facility looks better than their current circumstances. Hell, there are people today who commit crimes because they see jail as better than the outside, and that is in modern punishment based jails.

 

[Christopher]

The one big thing that confuses me about the whole no punishment thing, is what really keeps people from committing the crimes, if they aren't going to face some kind of harsh punishment.

I just said that: By being aware of and concerned about the consequences their actions have to other people, which is how psychologically healthy people think anyway. I still remember something I read in my college psychology textbook: morality based only on the desire for reward or the fear of punishment for oneself is the most juvenile, underdeveloped form of ethical behavior. It isn't really ethical at all, just self-centered. And as I said, it doesn't make people unwilling to do wrong, just unwilling to get caught doing wrong. If that's the only morality people have, then they'll do anything they believe they can get away with.

Genuine, adult morality is based on understanding the consequences your actions have on others. It's based on recognizing that you're part of a community and that you benefit from that community in exchange for what you give. It's based on developing a sense of attachment and responsibility to other people. If you have true morality, then you regulate your own behavior, and won't do harm to others even if you can personally profit from it and get away with it.

People are violent, selfish, assholes more often than not, so what keeps them from acting on those on those violent, selfish, asshole instincts if not fear of the consequences?

"People" include everything from Gandhi to Hitler. Human behavior is a continuum, and whether we develop our more positive attributes or our more negative ones is a consequence of our upbringing and experiences. And abuse begets abusers. People who are hurt and traumatized and afraid don't become more ethical, they just become more emotionally damaged and more likely to cause harm. The children of parents who beat them as punishment become more likely to be disruptive and violent, because those beatings don't teach them morality -- they teach them, rather, that bullying and violence are the way to get what you want and control others. We learn from example. Maybe that's also why murder rates are higher in states with the death penalty -- because if the state says it's okay to kill people you don't like, what message does that send?

Even children who are born with sociopathic tendencies -- the kind of children who could grow up to be dictators or school shooters or serial killers -- can be guided toward a healthier psychology if they're raised with kindness and positive examples. Because humans have neuroplasticity, and the potentials in our brains can be either amplified or suppressed by the kind of behavioral reinforcement we get. (I've heard a saying a couple of times -- there are two battling wolves inside us, one of which is kindness and mercy and the other of which is cruelty and hate, and the one that wins the battle is the one we feed.)

So the idea that the way to regulate people's behavior is to hurt and frighten them into doing good is a dangerous fiction. It contradicts the science and the evidence. It's touted by ideologues and politicians who want to trick people into voting for them by scaring them and offering them an easy answer, but like all political scare tactics, it's a fraud.

If all that is going to happen if you kill someone is you spend a few years in some cushy rehab facility, then what makes people not want to end up there?

Most people don't want to kill in the first place. If they end up in a state of mind where their natural empathy is badly enough compromised that they're willing to kill, then society has already failed them by letting them get damaged to that degree. The focus should be on prevention, on keeping people from getting to the point of being willing to kill at all.

Saying the solution to crime is to build more prisons is like saying the solution to disease is to build more cemeteries. It's addressing the problem at the wrong end.

Especially if they are poor and the rehab facility looks better than their current circumstances. Hell, there are people today who commit crimes because they see jail as better than the outside, and that is in modern punishment based jails.

Well, there you go. The root of the problem is that we allow poverty to exist, that we tolerate letting our own citizens live in such hellish conditions. That in itself is the real crime. A responsible society would work to end poverty, racism, and the other factors that drive people to crime.

And of course, we're talking about the Star Trek universe, where poverty, injustice, and suffering have been banished, where material gain is irrelevant because it's a post-scarcity society where everyone is wealthy beyond imagining, and where people are encouraged from childhood to develop their positive potential to its fullest. It's not Dickensian London.

 

[Idran]

The one big thing that confuses me about the whole no punishment thing, is what really keeps people from committing the crimes, if they aren't going to face some kind of harsh punishment. People are violent, selfish, assholes more often than not, so what keeps them from acting on those on those violent, selfish, asshole instincts if not fear of the consequences? If all that is going to happen if you kill someone is you spend a few years in some cushy rehab facility, then what makes people not want to end up there? Especially if they are poor and the rehab facility looks better than their current circumstances. Hell, there are people today who commit crimes because they see jail as better than the outside, and that is in modern punishment based jails.

JD, did you see my earlier post about the Norwegian criminal justice system? Major Norwegian prisons for those people that aren't a clear danger to people are essentially isolated resorts that offer vocational training, have open genial interaction between prisoners and guards, and have very little in the way of restriction of rights or ability beyond being separated from society. They don't even have cells. And both crime rates and recidivism rates in Norway are far below what they are in the US. It legitimately works measurably and undeniably better than the way we do things to just not punish inmates but instead treat them like people that will eventually be reintegrated into society.

You're thinking from the perspective "someone is going to commit a crime unless they are punished". But most people don't commit crimes unless they have a reason to commit them, and those that do commit crimes for no reason aren't going to be deterred by punishment anyway. The key is to address the reasons why people commit crimes and tackle them through means such as public safety nets, which I'm sure the Federation has in spades (and which is probably also a big factor in Norway's much lower crime rates). People aren't actually generally "violent, selfish assholes" as a starting point; if they were, we never would have survived, and the vastly better functioning of such criminal justice systems proves it. Altruism might not be easily sustainable by default outside one's immediate social sphere, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist within that by default (it's actually evolutionarily preferable to be altruistic within one's immediate social network, so it'd be biologically odd if we weren't), and that doesn't mean it can't be encouraged through social or governmental means beyond that.

 

[JD]

Oh, I understand that, and in a society like the Star Trek Earth it would work. I just hear so many horrible stories about things happening today, that I have to question if it would work in our modern day America.
Edit: I think I see the misunderstanding, I thought you guys were trying to say if we switched over to this system tomorrow, crime would suddenly drop drastically over night. I find that hard to believe.

 

[Sci]

The one big thing that confuses me about the whole no punishment thing, is what really keeps people from committing the crimes, if they aren't going to face some kind of harsh punishment.

You can cling to the idea that rehabilitation-focused systems would be unable to deter crime all you want, but reality does not agree with you.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, I understand that, and in a society like the Star Trek Earth it would work. I just hear so many horrible stories about things happening today, that I have to question if it would work in our modern day America.
Edit: I think I see the misunderstanding, I thought you guys were trying to say if we switched over to this system tomorrow, crime would suddenly drop drastically over night. I find that hard to believe.

What we're saying is that America's corrupt, abusive, and ineffectual penal system is a symptom of a larger societal problem that allows dysfunctional and antisocial behavior to develop widely in the first place and then makes a feeble attempt to clean up the mess afterward, rather than addressing the systemic problems in society that encourage crime in the first place, including child abuse, poverty, racism, a fetishistic gun culture, and a sociopolitical climate that promotes fear and hate and selfishness over empathy and responsibility. Solving the problem means solving all of it -- the causes of crime, not just the aftermath.

 

[Idran]

Oh, I understand that, and in a society like the Star Trek Earth it would work. I just hear so many horrible stories about things happening today, that I have to question if it would work in our modern day America.
Edit: I think I see the misunderstanding, I thought you guys were trying to say if we switched over to this system tomorrow, crime would suddenly drop drastically over night. I find that hard to believe.

Oh, no, no, it would have to be a slow introduction over time that entailed both a shift of our general approach to criminal justice and a vast improvement to our social safety nets.

 

[JD]

Oh, I understand that, and in a society like the Star Trek Earth it would work. I just hear so many horrible stories about things happening today, that I have to question if it would work in our modern day America.
Edit: I think I see the misunderstanding, I thought you guys were trying to say if we switched over to this system tomorrow, crime would suddenly drop drastically over night. I find that hard to believe.

What we're saying is that America's corrupt, abusive, and ineffectual penal system is a symptom of a larger societal problem that allows dysfunctional and antisocial behavior to develop widely in the first place and then makes a feeble attempt to clean up the mess afterward, rather than addressing the systemic problems in society that encourage crime in the first place, including child abuse, poverty, racism, a fetishistic gun culture, and a sociopolitical climate that promotes fear and hate and selfishness over empathy and responsibility. Solving the problem means solving all of it -- the causes of crime, not just the aftermath.

I completely agree with you there.

I guess I just hear so many stories about the horrible things people do to each other, animals, ect that I find it hard to believe that people really are that decent.

 

[Christopher]

I guess I just hear so many stories about the horrible things people do to each other, animals, ect that I find it hard to believe that people really are that decent.

But the news reports the events that aren't typical. Otherwise, they wouldn't be newsworthy.

 

[JD]

Yeah, I guess you're right there.
I was thinking some earlier, and I am a big supporter of positive reinforcement when it comes training animals, and I realize now that this is probably the same kind of thing. If it works on animals, then I guess it would probably work with people too.
I haven't read the whole articles you guys have linked to so if this was addressed there, I apologize, but I was wondering what the crime rate was like in the counties with these prisons that emphasize rehabilitation before those prisons were introduced? I was under the impression those countries have never had the same level of violent crime as the US.