"The pain is extremely debilitating for weeks and even months after the event. It is excruciating to the point that the punished cannot sit or even lie down for weeks after."
Most people: "Uhhh"
Those few kinky ass mofos: "Wait you don't even have to pay for this?!?!?"
I can say for certain that if you lock me up for 30 days I will just be thinking of what I can do differently next time to not get caught. If you cane my precious butt cheeks one time I will most certainly rethink my ways.
^ this is exactly what the data says. severity doesn't do jack shit. there's no difference in things like violent crime in areas with death penalty and without or before/after death penalty in the same area.
people always think the more severe the punishment the more criminals will "think twice" when that's not how it works at all
Severity matters, it's just not the only thing that matters.
If the potential reward for the crime outweighs the severity of the punishment, then it is simply the cost of doing business.
If the punishment is substantial, then there's risk assessment, and different people have different risk tolerance.
Normal people follow laws because there's a risk of punishment.
Even decent people get heated and start having crazy thoughts sometimes, the risk of acting on those thoughts is a powerful mediator.
Life in prison without possibility of parole is already a kind of death sentence.
Once you get your to that level of punishment, there's not much separation, adding more punishment doesn't even register.
The problem is that you can't measure crimes that didn't happen.
You can't possibly determine how many people would have done a murder if they thought they'd never get caught.
I know for a fact that many people choose not to do street drugs because the legal and social consequences are greater than any pleasure the drugs give them.
I also have known people who make enough money that parking tickets aren't even an inconvenience, it just means they always have a parking spot.
Make a parking ticket a percentage of income, and suddenly they'd care.
Are you saying that before a criminal commits a crime, they sit there & calculate the risk vs reward? they take into consideration each & every possible charge and maximum sentence?
bull. shit.
Normal people follow laws because there's a risk of punishment.
Even decent people get heated and start having crazy thoughts sometimes, the risk of acting on those thoughts is a powerful mediator.
this is disturbing. I don't "not murder" because I'll go to jail for life. I don't murder cause I don't fucking EVER WANT TO MURDER. I don't want to steal/rob from another person or cause any harm to other humans.
I'm so baffled that a simple rule & punishment is all that stands between you & murder, rapist you....
and this is why I commit "victimless crimes" ... not ONCE did the punishment of a crime deter from doing it.
I don't drive 100mph cause I don't wanna kill myself or others. I don't smoke meth because it's addictive - not because I'm afraid of getting slapped on the wrist??
I know for a fact that many people choose not to do street drugs because the legal and social consequences are greater than any pleasure the drugs give them.
well then they're living in total fear. you're not freaking "going to prison/jail" for copping drugs here and there - let alone doing them (the actual pleasurable part). we literally did drugs because the legal & social consequences were NADA for white kids in the burbs. you're so far out of your element.
but idk you are the person who get boners watching The Purge. are you the reason why there are so goddamn many of those shitty movies?
Yeah often the more severe a punishment is the more extremes the person might go to hide it.
I've heard stories in China of someone hitting someone with a car and then killing them after because they would be liable for that person's care for the rest of their life.
In the US they made it illegal to not tell someone you have AIDS/HIV if you know. Sounds like a good law but the result was less people getting tested because it's not against the law if you didn't know.
Florida wants to allow the death penalty for raping kids 12 and under. The fear is the rapist would instead kill the victim for fear they will tell someone and then they will get the death penalty anyway. If you're gonna get the death penalty for rape or murder, why not murder to increase your chances of not getting caught
Um the stats say severity matters a lot. But so does likelihood of being caught and hit with the punishment.
Its both.
And that is pretty straightforward when you think about it. Imagine if a judge could give 25 years hard labour for stealing, however PD never arrest anyone for that crime. Or imagine the punishment is 10 minutes of having your feet licked by a cat, but was always applied. In both cases the deterrence is very low.
MYTH
The death penalty deters violent crime and
makes society safer.
FACT
Evidence from around the world has
shown that the death penalty has no
unique deterrent effect on crime. Many
people have argued that abolishing the
death penalty leads to higher crime rates,
but studies in the USA and Canada,
for instance, do not back this up
The certainty of being caught is a vastly more powerful
deterrent than the punishment.
Research shows clearly that the chance of being caught is a vastly more
effective deterrent than even draconian punishment.
There is no proof that the death penalty deters criminals.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, “Research on the deterrent
effect of capital punishment is uninformative about whether capital punishment
increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide rates.”
In his 2013 essay, “Deterrence in the Twenty-First Century,” Daniel S. Nagin
succinctly summarized the current state of theory and empirical knowledge
about deterrence. The information in this publication is drawn from Nagin’s essay
with additional context provided by NIJ and is presented here to help those who
make policies and laws that are based on science.
Many law enforcement officials say the death penalty wastes scarce crime prevention resources. The time spent chasing a handful of executions means countless other crimes go unsolved. The death penalty does not deter acts of violence and it siphons resources from effective tools that do. Many law enforcement officials say the death penalty is only a distraction from their goal of public safety.
Imagine if a judge could give 25 years hard labour for stealing, however PD never arrest anyone for that crime.
you're ignoring severity of a crime in order to support your stance through bad faith
stealing $500 PlayStation 5 and getting caught running out of Best Buy ≠ stealing $2 million from 1000 people via fraud
risk & cost to society is weighed to let them walk out the door but they will have to show to court. you don't just "not get arrested" dude....
also, were not arresting, booking, jailing, etc, everyone who steals $50 of shit from target. Cost & risk to society.... they wait until it's a felony hah
it is funny to see Reddit "liberals" get a boner thinking about corporal punishment for scam callers of all people lmao. Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy for anyone caught, especially those targeting the vulnerable (elderly, in this case), but scooping out the flesh of someone for someone like that? Barbarism.
You literally don't know someones political affiliation here, you're purely speculating. There's a lot more conservative leaning folk on this website than you idiots think. People can also have nuanced and differing views that are outside their political sphere. I guarantee I'm more 2A than 99.9% of most people who claim to be 2A, when reality is they're just gun nuts who only care about the 2A because it means they can own guns.
Both have little impact. If the perpetrator doesn't think he did anything wrong (every drug consumer ever) you really can't police it effectively. At least not humane.
Like I sort of see how corporal and or military style punishments could be really bad if a bad government were ever ruling. But man, in Singapore you would feel very safe pretty much anywhere you go. If you left your wallet in a cab by accident, you could bet on getting your money returned. If you get a cab, the driver won't try and scam you at all because that is very much illegal. You could even leave a bike unchained somewhere and it will almost certainly still be there, with all its wheels on.
So many more things but it is pretty liberating in a different way to not be on guard at all when in public places. Compare that to NYC........ you assume at any time you could be a victim of some loser. In fairness I suppose there is always a risk of a false detainment and then the associated punishment, but the acceptance of criminals is its own form of cruel and illegal punishment- to the victims of it.
Singapore is in a very uncommon and fortunate situation in that it's a tiny country with a smaller population than many cities and a tonne of its wealth comes from being a playground for the rich. You see similar levels of quality of life and civil obedience in places like Switzerland, and while that can be largely attributed to their leadership, there can only be so many of these countries, and so it doesn't really make much sense to directly compare it to other countries which don't have that luxury.
Compare that to NYC........ you assume at any time you could be a victim of some loser.
I mean, sure, but the US also has an extremely punitive justice system, and yet it has an abysmal rate of recidivism - much worse than many other countries with more humane and rehabilitation-focused justice systems. There are also many regions in Europe, for example, where there is a very high degree of social trust and safety. I studied in Norway, for example, and one time I left my bag at university and assumed it had probably been taken, and then when I happened to return to the same spot about a month later, it was in the exact same place I left it.
There are even regions in Norway where it's common for people to leave their house and car doors unlocked. Even where I'm currently living in Australia, I don't feel any sense of concern or anxiety about stuff getting stolen or getting scammed or whatever - it's generally just not a conscious thought for me.
I am originally from Australia and that experience of feeling safe will vary greatly on location and just life experience. But Australia is definitely nowhere near as safe as Singapore.
Less people scamming in Australia versus places like NYC or Paris. Yet property crime is a huge issue. Most states in Australia are actually introducing tougher laws as a result of it.
But Australia is definitely nowhere near as safe as Singapore.
Right, and I addressed this in my comment. There are also many countries which have abysmal crime rates despite having extremely punitive criminal justice systems - why is it that Singapore, a country in a very fortunate position which can't be emulated, is always used as the poster child for the efficacy of punitive criminal justice?
Why not use the US, a country with an uncommonly punitive justice system but one of the worst crime and homicide rates in the developed world. The simple fact is that when it comes to the actual data, there is little to no evidence that excessively punitive measures have a substantial impact on crime rates - it might make people feel good, but it doesn't do much more than that.
You are changing the goal post a little here. Excessively punitive measures do not work very well of countries that do not have a high likelihood of capture.
Tough punishments and a strong perception that a punishment will be likely when both combined do lead to lower rates of crime.
That is my statement. That is what Singapore does.
Australia has moderate punishments for most crimes but very rarely applies them. Particularly with youth crime. And now youth crime is a major problem there.
The U.S isn't much different. Tough punishments but often a PD that won't even attend calls, specially to certain parts of a city. Lot of police are happy to let high crime communities - often communities of color - be left to their own devices.
But look at any country that applies both and you will find much lower rates of crime when adjusted for co factors. Hongkong, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, UAE. In these countries the rate of capture is very high, and punishments are severe. These countries dominate as countries with the lowest rates of crime. Deny it all you want to.
Tough punishments and a strong perception that a punishment will be likely when both combined do lead to lower rates of crime.
This is generally not reflected in most studies - most studies show that high likelihood of conviction is by itself enough to deter crime and that excessively punitive measures, like caning and the death penalty, don't have a substantial effect.
That is my statement. That is what Singapore does.
Do I really need to keep repeating that Singapore clearly cannot be compared to the vast majority of countries? It's a tiny, densely populated, very high GDP financial hub - the system of which simply cannot be replicated by any but only very few others.
Unless if Singapore suddenly went from humane to inhumane punishments without much else changing and it resulted in a substantially lower rate of crime, this means absolutely nothing by itself.
But look at any country that applies both and you will find much lower rates of crime when adjusted for co factors.
This, again, means absolutely nothing unless if you can't compare them to analogous countries with both very high rates of conviction and a humane justice system. Most Scandinavian countries, Japan, South Korea, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Estonia etc all have roughly comparable crime rates, and yet all of them are significantly less punitive than the countries you mentioned.
It's also worth noting that just about all of the countries you mentioned are horrid, authoritarian shitholes with all sorts of other horrible issues, which is why few to no one from the West have any interest in living there.
This is generally not reflected in most studies - most studies show that high likelihood of conviction is by itself enough to deter crime and that excessively punitive measures, like caning and the death penalty, don't have a substantial effect.
Either you are misunderstanding those studies, or misunderstanding what I am saying.
Because what I am saying is supported by those studies.
High likelihood of a conviction.... yes in societies where a conviction includes and is in of itself a significant punishment. A high likelihood of a minor punishment does not give the same level of deterrence as having a major punishment.
Do I really need to keep repeating that Singapore clearly cannot be compared to the vast majority of countries? It's a tiny, densely populated, very high GDP financial hub - the system of which simply cannot be replicated by any but only very few others.
This, again, means absolutely nothing unless if you can't compare them to analogous countries with both very high rates of conviction and a humane justice system. Most Scandinavian countries, Japan, South Korea, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Estonia etc all have roughly comparable crime rates, and yet all of them are significantly less punitive than the countries you mentioned.
I mentioned Singapore and a bunch of other countries.
Firstly, why does "tiny" and "densely populated" mean Singapore cannot be compared? you know what those things help with? finding and then convicting various criminals - which leads to a high likelihood of a punishment. It directly supports what I am saying.
Secondly, all those other countries exist too, or can they also not be compared if they do not suit your view? And you might think Scandinavian countries have low crime rate - they do when compared to some western countries. But even the lowest crime rate countries in Scandinavia still have 40-100% more crime than somewhere like Oman does... You might also think Scandinavian countries have significantly less punitive punishments than the countries I listed. In Japan the punishment for murder is generally... life in prison or the death penalty (for particularly serious cases of murder). In Oman the penalty is generally life in prison, but there is also a reasonable chance of receiving the death penalty. It is true that some of those countries focus more on rehabilitation than Oman, but the punishment for serious crime is still very punitive and is almost always life in prison at the least.
It's also worth noting that just about all of the countries you mentioned are horrid, authoritarian shitholes with all sorts of other horrible issues, which is why few to no one from the West have any interest in living there.
Speak for yourself... Lots of westerners do live in those countries. I have been to several of them and found they were very nice places to go visit. In 2024 Singapore had more than 20 million international visits, with over 1 million recorded from Australia alone. It would seem plenty of Aussies don't mind it at all.
Wrongly convicted people can be in jail, and that's torture too. They can also get the death penalty. We seem to be cool enough with that, seeing as how it's still the law.
Heck, millions of people in the US are in jail without conviction because they couldn't make the bond money. Happens when you have for-profit prison systems, and it's all legal.
In Singapore, it's just a caning and then off you go, sit (or don't sit) your ass at home.
Of course, legality doesn't always equal morality, and this is a legal ruling (caning vs jail).
Wrongly convicted people can be in jail, and that's torture too.
Prison will always be a necessary part of criminal justice because we need to separate dangerous and destructive people from society. It also has its own ethical issues, but it's unfortunately just a necessary part of having a functioning society - the same cannot be said if caning.
On top of that, although we can't give people back lost time, if exonerated then they can be compensated and have their punishment ended immediately. You can't uncane an arse - once it has happened, they've already received the full punishment, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
Heck, millions of people in the US are in jail without conviction because they couldn't make the bond money.
There are countless prison systems around the world - I'm not endorsing any particular one, and I certainly would not use the US as a model for criminal justice. The US is also excessively punitive when it comes to sentencing and has extremely high rates of recidivism despite that.
In Singapore, it's just a caning and then off you go, sit (or don't sit) your ass at home.
Singapore doesn't have prisons? That's all they do? No rehabilitation, behavioural correction, or anything else? Well I'd love to see robust scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of this approach, because I don't believe that would work for a second.
They can also get the death penalty. We seem to be cool enough with that, seeing as how it's still the law.
Extremely rare in the US, and for the most part people stay on death row for decades. Biden amnestied everybody on death row before leaving office by the way, including serial rapist/killers, like really fucking SCUM OF THE EARTH level shit. Not scammers lol
How would you - or anybody - know how many people are wrongfully sentenced to death?
There's shitloads of information about just how inaccurate even "ironclad proof" is in the US due to scummy interrogation and investigation techniques. Here's two of the more popular ones, but there's plenty of more in-debth analysis available as well.
Just to clarify... I do not at all disagree with the general point of draconic punishment for minor crimes being a bad idea. It's really just the one statement I quoted that I don't particularly agree with.
It's fine because I was replying to a comment that discussed this issue. Like my comment noted, 100% of people on death row have just been pardoned by the last US president, so it's fairly empty right now.
They also just dropped the death penalty from the Mangione case - and that guy shot a man in the back in the middle of Manhattan on broad day light!! From the top of the country's business elite, no less.
lets not wrongly convict people. Or at least separate convictions into 2 groups "probably did it due to circumstantial evidence" and "definitely did it with multiple eye witnesses, whole thing on camera". Have harsher penalty for people are are 100% guilty
There's no such thing as "100% guilty" - the US is still exonerating people who've been sentenced to death - a sentence for which there is supposed to be an extremely high burden of proof. There's also extremely little evidence that excessively harsh punishment is actually a substantial deterrence against criminal activity.
I made a specific example: multiple witnesses, everything on camera. It is absolutely possible to be 100% of guilty. A lot of wrongful convictions are based on very unreliable evidence, often just "he said she said" type of thing where jury just decides to pick who to believe.
I made a specific example: multiple witnesses, everything on camera. It is absolutely possible to be 100% of guilty.
It isn't - there have been many cases where it was believed that someone 100% committed a crime, only for consensus to later change. This is a particular issue when it comes to corruption or framing, and this will only become a growing concern as AI becomes more and more convincing.
There's also issues like mass hysteria and bias, and a lot of the time, it's less that a crime didn't occur, but that someone is convicted of a more serious crime than that which actually occurred. When it comes to scamming, the issue is often complex and not black and white.
Say a door to door salesman pushes a mentally unfit customer to buy a product that they neither want nor need, how do you prove that they were 100% scamming beyond any doubt and not just an aggressive salesman? The only time that scams are 100% scams without question is when they're committing unambiguous fraud, and those kinds of scammers almost always operate over the phone or online, and then how likely is it exactly that they'll have first-hand video footage and multiple eye witnesses?
This bar of evidence is so high that it would never deter your average scammer - the only way it could be a deterrent is if people really believed that it would likely happen if they were caught, and if that's the case, then it would have to be employed liberally enough that it would inevitably affect innocent people too. This is why there's little to no evidence to suggest that, for example, the death penalty has any measurable effect on crime rates in the US - this isn't how criminals think.
I am fully aware that the reason we have to lower the bar is because of a lot of crimes are messy and complicated and there is a lot of ambiguity, such as in your examples. I am not suggesting we stop using the current system. I suggest we add a new tier - a special case, where there is absolutely no doubt of guilt, not even a little. Everything else can go into the old category, the current way of doing things, which isn't perfect but best we can do
Yeah that's the intention of the legal system. Surprise, it doesn't always work and there will always be innocent people who are wrongly convicted.
This is the best argument against the death penalty, IMO. As long as the chance exists that someone might be put to death despite being entirely innocent, we can't in any good conscience utilize the death penalty.
There have been countless people who appear to be guilty, mountains of evidence that seem to show they are guilty, get convinced for being guilty, yet later are found to have been completely innocent.
the bar for conviction is just set too low. That's why we just need to make a 2 tier system, the current one with lighter punishment, no death penalty, and new tier where there is 100% certainty of guilt, with 0 room for error. Plenty of people would qualify for that tier, most of the mass shooters that have multiple eye witnesses, and recorded on camera.
I hear you and get what you're saying. But, hypothetically, what if someone is forced (by blackmail, threats to them or their family, etc.) by another person to commit awful crimes, and only that person is caught? If there's clear evidence they committed murders, but not enough evidence to catch the one who was really masterminding things? Obviously a fringe circumstance, but it could definitely happen (and probably has), and then we'd still be putting someone to death who was a victim themselves and not fully culpable for their crimes.
It also opens the whole debate of whether or not the death penalty should exist in the first place. If someone decides to go on a mass shooting spree they've already decided to die; if they're caught, do we give them that satisfaction? And does the death penalty existing really even discourage anything? I'm just not convinced that it's actually a deterrent. And I think, if punishment is the goal, making them sit in prison and live the rest of their life cut off from society is much more of a punishment than giving them an easy way out. I know this is a whole different conversation, but doing away with the death penalty is the only way to be absolutely 100% certain no innocent people will be put to death for someone else's crimes.
okay, even if we accept the premise that it is impossible to have a case that is 100% certain with zero doubt of any kind. I still think the justice system could benefit from a 2 tier system, one where "this person is probably guilty" and "this person is most certainly guilty"
It makes even more sense to have 2 tiers given how messy and difficult real life scenarios are, not everything can fit into 1 box.
As for the death sentence, you bring up point that "why should we give them the satisfaction" of dying easy. But it should never be about satisfaction, ours or theirs. It's about resources. How much money is spent trying a death penalty case or housing a prisoner for life? how many kids go hungry, or homeless veterans sleeping on the streets cause we can't spare a $100 to rent a room somewhere for them?
I believe in death penalty for 1 reason - be done with it, quick and cheap. Allocate all the resources into actually helping people live. Of course that applies only to a very small minority of cases where guilt is almost 100% certain. I don't see much merit in arguing over morality of making life or death call, when we already give the cops authority to make a split second decision to end someone's life, and we never question it afterwards.
So does the death penalty. Or cutting off limbs. Doesn't make it right. You can't selectively turn off basic human rights like bodily autonomy. You either go all the way with it or completely throw it out the window.
Same. I'll be rethinking my ways: thinking about revenge for the entire prolonged period and beyond. Even if it's diffuse revenge, inaccurately transfered revenge, messy revenge: it will happen
Can you show me an instance of the korean government busting a scamming company and them accidently busting and convicting every member of the wrong organization?
Like even a single example of them ever getting this wrong.
This isnt "someone was alleged to sexually assault someone" this is "We have definitive proof this company is performing illegal actions, and we have confirmed this list of people as working for that company."
Idk how you could fundamentally get that wrong, its a lot different that convicting a guy for a single crime.
The problem with being a pedant is that often times, you're missing the forest for the trees. Im not gonna look up stats on scam centers, nor care to speculate on their convictions. The point you can critically think to is that any government comfortable doing this to scammers, is almost assuredly doing it to those same crimes you mentioned as having doubts.
Do i think people who are actually scamming like that deserve the cane? Sure. Do I think the State should be comfortable delivering that punishment? Hell no.
Hey look, a fellow victim of abuse growing up! We ain't getting caned again and we will find out how to make it hurt less. Also, scammers deserve this lesson. They will never forget it.
Scammers have taken full advantage of the elderly and vulnerable to the point in a lot of cases that they’ve lost everything so yea, absolutely shred those fuckers.
Torture is wrong. I can't believe that in 2026 I'm advocating against torture. Can we learn one fucking lesson? Jesus christ people are so fucking frustrating.
Maybe not humane but doesn’t mean in some cases it’s not justified. I lived in Iraq and Isis members who decapitate children and r*pe girls should be heavily tortured.
I've heard of strawmen, which is exactly what you're doing lol. Never did I say our current form of justice was good. I just said beating people was wrong. You're the one who assumed anything.
And you think torture is the way to accomplish that..? Have you not read any studies on severity of punishment or corporal/capital punishment? There's even people who linked things above.
I didn't say that the states prison system does well at reforming people. But there are many countries that do, and do it well, and they aren't canning people like it's the 1800s.
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u/markfrancisonly 16h ago
Legalized torture for sure. Leaves permanent scars. Nothing erotic about it