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Notes -
What should be the purpose of the criminal justice system? You have given punishment & reform already, and I agree with you on those. But you left off isolation, we also need to keep dangerous people out of society. This is the "leviathan shaped hole in the discourse" that OP is refering to.
I think that hole exists because we have framed the discourse around the criminal, not society. Which is stupid, why should the discourse revolve around the 1% of people who do bad things? Whats best for society is really only considered through the reform lens - i.e. society benefits from reform as we dont have to spend $x to imprison and get $y from every successful reintegrated convict. When you leave out the leviathan lens you miss out on three strikes laws. The idea that "hey the vast majority of violent crime is done by people who have already done violent crime, we can just lock them up and isolate them and cut the occurrence in half." Or whatever large amount. The idea that the state could just uphold the law, actually send people to jail for their full terms, with the enhancements, and not let them out until theyre in their 50s and mostly too old to get into much trouble. The idea that we could actually do that, and in fact we have an obligation to do that. The law is what we legitametly and democratically agreed upon, we could just enforce it. And not have to deal with violent homeless people in the subway.
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