Not only is “prison the moderate option” - but historically one of the reasons the death penalty was so pervasive was because few countries had the state capacity to maintain large prison populations. Generally speaking, all “life sentence” crimes today were historically punished with death as the obvious just penalty. Of course historically, there were many intermediary options between “death” and “no punishment”. For example, flogging or other corporal punishment was widely applied as a penalty for crimes whose seriousness did not merit death.
Other societies, going back to the time of Hammurabi, or the Anglo-Saxon weregild system, demanded fines paid to the victim, which varied based on the seriousness of the crime and the social status of the victim (many crimes were simply unbuyable, whether in Hammurabi’s time or in Anglo-Saxon England, you weren’t buying your way out of regicide, for instance). Or judicial enslavement, if you couldn’t afford the fine, but hadn’t earned a death sentence. Exile to an unpleasant location was also a popular option, used in both Ancient Rome and Imperial China.
Many of these death penalty alternatives are blanket banned under modern practice. Which leaves the death penalty, and not the death penalty (which pretty much means: fines or prison). Prison exist principally because we need an alternative to “prompt flogging” or “immediate death sentence.” That is why the first long sentence prisons were created in the late 1700s.
I read the 'violent toddlers' snippet with interest - recalling a book by Deborah Spungen. If you weren't alive in 1978: Nancy Spungen was a groupie hanger-on who wasmurdered by her boyfriend, rocker Sid Vicious from one of punk's originals the Sex Pistols. Her mom Deborah wrote a pisthumous book about her difficult third child, born into an ordinary somewhat well off JewishAmerican family. One line from thebook stuck out because I had a child often described as difficult, whom we later discovered was intellectually gifted. "She was the toddler who hurt people," Deborah wrote. Woulda shoulda coulda known this was in the spectrum of normalcy.
Toddler violence is truly bewildering. You'll warn them that some action will cause them to get hurt on their own, it will happen, they'll have a big meltdown. And yet, the next day, they will repeat the exact same thing (sometimes, much earlier than that!).
But hey, I was acting just as stupidly as a toddler according to my parents and I managed to survive until adulthood so I guess there's hope for my kids.
Not only is “prison the moderate option” - but historically one of the reasons the death penalty was so pervasive was because few countries had the state capacity to maintain large prison populations. Generally speaking, all “life sentence” crimes today were historically punished with death as the obvious just penalty. Of course historically, there were many intermediary options between “death” and “no punishment”. For example, flogging or other corporal punishment was widely applied as a penalty for crimes whose seriousness did not merit death.
Other societies, going back to the time of Hammurabi, or the Anglo-Saxon weregild system, demanded fines paid to the victim, which varied based on the seriousness of the crime and the social status of the victim (many crimes were simply unbuyable, whether in Hammurabi’s time or in Anglo-Saxon England, you weren’t buying your way out of regicide, for instance). Or judicial enslavement, if you couldn’t afford the fine, but hadn’t earned a death sentence. Exile to an unpleasant location was also a popular option, used in both Ancient Rome and Imperial China.
Many of these death penalty alternatives are blanket banned under modern practice. Which leaves the death penalty, and not the death penalty (which pretty much means: fines or prison). Prison exist principally because we need an alternative to “prompt flogging” or “immediate death sentence.” That is why the first long sentence prisons were created in the late 1700s.
I read the 'violent toddlers' snippet with interest - recalling a book by Deborah Spungen. If you weren't alive in 1978: Nancy Spungen was a groupie hanger-on who wasmurdered by her boyfriend, rocker Sid Vicious from one of punk's originals the Sex Pistols. Her mom Deborah wrote a pisthumous book about her difficult third child, born into an ordinary somewhat well off JewishAmerican family. One line from thebook stuck out because I had a child often described as difficult, whom we later discovered was intellectually gifted. "She was the toddler who hurt people," Deborah wrote. Woulda shoulda coulda known this was in the spectrum of normalcy.
Please link to a transcript.
Toddler violence is truly bewildering. You'll warn them that some action will cause them to get hurt on their own, it will happen, they'll have a big meltdown. And yet, the next day, they will repeat the exact same thing (sometimes, much earlier than that!).
But hey, I was acting just as stupidly as a toddler according to my parents and I managed to survive until adulthood so I guess there's hope for my kids.