If people are not questioned, as to how they justified committing their crimes, how can we know for certain, WHY they did what they did, learn this to prevent others from repeating it? How can you rehabilitate someone, if you have no idea why they did it? Is punishment alone going to prove to them, they were wrong? What if I go to prison for obtaining pain pills for my sons mother to ease the pain of the steel rods in her back? Did I do anything wrong? Or does a mercifull person go to prison? Will the punishment change me?
Anyone guilty of violating the law must go to jail, or the authority loses a little authority. It’s the broken window theory of law enforcement.
I’ve studied the question of crime justification and have drawn the conclusion that most feel that the victim has somehow wronged them and that thier wrong doing is called for to be even. Others are just mean, mostly in proportion to the meanness inflicted on them.
If punishment was the answer to crime crime would have been solved in Rome.
Crime keeps the current power structure in place. If there is no big bad wolf one doesn’t buy news stories, hire protection, or create laws. The policeman is the cause of crime all too often.
I suppose that is why they spend so much time blaming the “results”, rather than trying to find the “cause”. killing all the gas station clerks to combat high gas prices. Makes no sense to me.