'Justice' in a post-revolutionary society

[Blake's Baby]

This keeps coming up as a topic - there have over recent months been a few topics started on 'Anarchy and prisons' - http://www.revleft.com/vb/anarchy-and-prisons-t138086/index.html?t=138086 - and 'Prisons and justice in Anarchism and communism' - http://www.revleft.com/vb/prisons-and-justice-t175812/index.html?t=175812 - but I'm not sure it ever gets anywhere.

As it's come up again on the 'Bordiga/Hipster' thread, and I think it's pretty important (which is why I keep on intervening in the threads) I'm going to start a new thread.

What is 'reasonable' for a post-revolutionary society to do in the provision of 'justice'?

It seems to me that justice as a concept involves the blend of several different things:

1 - punishment; this can be broken down into a) punishment to make the punished feel bad, and b) punishment to make the punishers (or the others, eg the ones who originally suffered the hurt that is being punished) feel good; these it seems to me are synonymous with vengeance and have no place in socialist thinking ('crime' is basically a synonym for 'sin' here, it seems a totally religious way of treating people), but i can just about understand c) punishment as a deterent to the punished or others - I don't agree with punishment as a deterent, I think it's barbaric, but I can approximately understand it: it's better to hurt one if that means 100 are not hurt in the future.

2 - restitution; this essentially is the idea that if you broke something you should fix it, and if you can't, you should work to somehow make up for the damage you caused. This in turn brings up the notion of compulsion; is society permitted to use you as a slave because it disapproves of your actions? This is what prompted me thinking of this again - is the idea of 'restitution' just a liberal version of the GULAG?

3 - rehabilitation; is society allowed to label you as a 'problem' and then try to find a 'solution' in your altered behaviour? If so, how far is society justified in doing that? Forcible chemical lobotomy? Shock therapy? What is reasonable behaviour on behalf of the rest of society?

4 - removal; this is essentially a question of taking someone out of society to protect the other members of society, which might include prison or exile - or potentially, judicial murder. I would prefer sequestering rather than death, and I'm very ambivalent about exile. Anyway, if we have 'prison' at all, as a place where those who commit socially-disapproved actions are to be sequestered, I'd prefer this to be somewhere nice where there can be plenty of 2&3 going on, 'prisoners' let's say get to do useful work and develop a more social and sociable outlook by working together for the good of both them and the rest of society.

Not sure what other concepts might be involved, but they're the main ones I can think of. Thoughts?

[Quail]

1 - punishment; this can be broken down into a) punishment to make the punished feel bad, and b) punishment to make the punishers (or the others, eg the ones who originally suffered the hurt that is being punished) feel good; these it seems to me are synonymous with vengeance and have no place in socialist thinking ('crime' is basically a synonym for 'sin' here, it seems a totally religious way of treating people), but i can just about understand c) punishment as a deterent to the punished or others - I don't agree with punishment as a deterent, I think it's barbaric, but I can approximately understand it: it's better to hurt one if that means 100 are not hurt in the future.

Punishment is something that I don't think should have any place in a socialist society. Vengeance isn't justice and I don't think punishing people for negative behaviours does anything to prevent them from doing it again. If you learn not to hurt other people because you will be punished for it, you don't get to understand the impact of what you are doing or why you really shouldn't do it. Plus, a society which punishes criminals is inhumane and authoritarian by nature. People should not need the threat of punishment to treat others with respect.


2 - restitution; this essentially is the idea that if you broke something you should fix it, and if you can't, you should work to somehow make up for the damage you caused. This in turn brings up the notion of compulsion; is society permitted to use you as a slave because it disapproves of your actions? This is what prompted me thinking of this again - is the idea of 'restitution' just a liberal version of the GULAG?
I think that restitution is good in that it helps to repair damage and in the process, the offender will have dialogue with the victim which I think could be useful in helping offenders to understand the impact of their actions, which is an important step in working on changing themselves. I think the victim should be involved in what happens to the criminal and restitution allows for this.


3 - rehabilitation; is society allowed to label you as a 'problem' and then try to find a 'solution' in your altered behaviour? If so, how far is society justified in doing that? Forcible chemical lobotomy? Shock therapy? What is reasonable behaviour on behalf of the rest of society?

I don't have an issue with declaring certain behaviour problematic. Assaulting someone else (for example) is definitely problematic behaviour. Rehabilitation gives offenders a chance to change their problematic behaviour so that they can be a positive member of their community again. I would imagine rehabilitation would involve mental health treatment or some kind of therapy to help the individual (and wider society) understand what made them do something unacceptable and figure out what they can do to change that.


4 - removal; this is essentially a question of taking someone out of society to protect the other members of society, which might include prison or exile - or potentially, judicial murder. I would prefer sequestering rather than death, and I'm very ambivalent about exile. Anyway, if we have 'prison' at all, as a place where those who commit socially-disapproved actions are to be sequestered, I'd prefer this to be somewhere nice where there can be plenty of 2&3 going on, 'prisoners' let's say get to do useful work and develop a more social and sociable outlook by working together for the good of both them and the rest of society.

The "prison" I envisage in a socialist society would be pretty much as you describe, and would be more like a mental health treatment facility than what prisons look like now. People who are a danger to society need to be kept somewhere which keeps the rest of the community safe, but they should still be able to study and do socially useful work that they find fulfilling. If they feel that their community is worth living in, protecting and making a nicer place, I imagine they'd respond better to rehabilitation and be less likely to want to do anything that would harm the community.

So in short, I think we need a mixture of restitution, rehabilitation and removal in an ideal system for dealing with criminals.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Blake's Baby and Quail have each intelligently and thoughtfully posted their views on certain aspects of a post-revolutionary system of justice.

With respect to the "worst offenders" I would agree that it is necessary to retain the option to remove them from society at least for awhile. In general, I would hope that post-revolutionary institutions of removal would approximate what Quail describes as mental health treatment facilities. Regarding recidivist violent offenders it might be necessary to hold them in a more secure institution so that they are unable to prey upon the general populace, both in free society as well as those held in custody.

What ought to be avoided at all costs is the establishment of networks of slave labor facilities, such as the Soviet GULAG network or its equivalent in other "socialist" countries. We must learn from past errors and eschew the notion that socialism can be constructed upon a slave labor basis. The revolutionary left must stand for the emancipation of labor, not its enslavement. Criminals may deserve punishment, but slave labor is not a proper form of punishment for a society based upon the emancipation of labor.

[Radical Dandy]

There is no objective morality and therefore no such thing as "justice." I'm not concerned with making a society that is "just", but in liberating the individual from class, money, work etc. That is, in maximising pleasure, which is impossible under compulsion.

The very concept of punishment must be rejected completely. If there is an obstacle to the realisation of our goals, that obstacle must be removed: by any means necessary. Neutralising the enemy is not a punishment, but a necessity.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Blake, you forgot the concept of deterrence to go along with retributive justice, restorative justice (both restitution and rehabilitation), and removal or plain security.

Gramsci, there are different kinds of "worst offenders." There are psychopaths and sociopaths who can't be dealt with other than by isolating them and securing the broader society. There are others whose offenses warrant measures aimed at deterrence, as discussed notoriously in the other thread.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Deterrence is bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about. Look up the statistics, imprisonment and execution do not function well as deterrents. The reason why the industrial prison system continues to exist and grow is not because it is an effective means of correcting social ills, but because it reproduces the socioeconomic conditions for its existence.
The most effective means of correcting social ills is by addressing their socioeconomic roots.

[Blake's Baby]

Blake, you forgot the concept of deterrence to go along with retributive justice, restorative justice (both restitution and rehabilitation), and removal or plain security...

Check out 1 (punishment) part c) - deterence of the offender from committing further anti-social actions, or other potential offenders from committing similar actions. It all looks like punishment to me, and therefore something like expurgating sin, not something socialists should be involved in. We can't base our actions towards people on the basis of what they or others might do.

[hetz]

Plus, a society which punishes criminals is inhumane and authoritarian by nature.According to who?
Name one society that doesn't or didn't punish criminals.
Criminals ought to be punished. In fact the term itself implies "deserving" a punishment.


Vengeance isn't justice and I don't think punishing people for negative behaviours does anything to prevent them from doing it again.
Have you ever trained a dog or a cat not to shit on your carpet?
Those who don't learn anything from the punishment need to be put the hell away from society.

[l'Enfermé]

Somalia doesn't punish criminals. An anarchist paradise!

Yes, I know these Somalia jokes are old.

[Blake's Baby]

According to who?
Name one society that doesn't or didn't punish criminals...

Name one society that wasn't a class-based dictatorship.


...
Criminals ought to be punished. In fact the term itself implies "deserving" a punishment...

I think your philosophy is a crime against humanity, do I get to punish you?


...
Have you ever trained a dog or a cat not to shit on your carpet?
Those who don't learn anything from the punishment need to be put the hell away from society.

And thus, we see that hetz thinks that people are dogs. Presumably, you'll be happy when we put you in a kennel and put a leash round your neck, teach you to walk to heel, and kick you if you don't?

[hetz]

Name one society that wasn't a class-based dictatorship.The primitive community? Anarchists in Barcelona? The Communards?
In Barcelona it was very simple, you do shit and you get shot by the workers militia, problem solved.
Name one reason why there wouldn't be punishment in communism.


I think your philosophy is a crime against humanity, do I get to punish you?There's no such thing as thought-crime.


And thus, we see that hetz thinks that people are dogs. I wasn't speaking literally. But yeah, asocial types who haven't learned anything from being punished for their crimes have no place in society. If someone rapes again after leaving prison and doing "rehabilitiation" he should be sent far away from normal people.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Deterrence is bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about. Look up the statistics, imprisonment and execution do not function well as deterrents. The reason why the industrial prison system continues to exist and grow is not because it is an effective means of correcting social ills, but because it reproduces the socioeconomic conditions for its existence.
The most effective means of correcting social ills is by addressing their socioeconomic roots.
All true. I would add that it serves as a stick with which to terrorize whole sections of the population.

However, we are talking about post-revolutionary justice. I agree with comrade Neue that there are some that must be sequestered from society -- sociopaths -- because, to date, there are no effective treatments for these folks. Of course, if they are not violent, they should be permitted to live amongst the rest of society. This is not punishment, this is taking care of the greater good, albeit at a cost.

I think in a socialist society that sociopaths will have far less leeway to damage other people, as their actions will stand out as blatantly anti-social. We live in a society where very anti-social behaviors are not only normal, but rewarded (e.g., closing down plants and firing thousands of workers). You try that kind of shit in a socialist world and you stick out like a neon purple zebra.

In psychology, it has long been known that punishment is not effective in changing people's behavior.

[GoddessCleoLover]

We ought to avoid inhumane punishments, even for sociopaths or worst offenders. Once we set a precedent for inhumane treatment for one class of persons, that precedent can be extended and distorted. Some people must be removed from society for reasons of specific and/or general deterrence. If we allow the conditions of their removal to be inhumane (working them to death, forced medical experimentation) then we discredit the very first principles of socialism. It has been done before. We must say never again.

[helot]

I find there's a fundamental problem with separating someone from society because of anti-social activities namely that it can easily breed them. I can't for the life of me see how it can reduce anti-social activities when they're separated from society at large, instead i'd expect a greater alienation from society. This of course doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye or 'forgive and forget' just that we need to experiment with methods to reduce such behaviour and breed behaviour conducive to developing strong social bonds. An alternative to separating someone could be constant supervision in their interactions with others.

I do suppose however that a post-revolutionary society would use separation from society as a last resort when no other method works and that is the only context of it which i can support, albeit hesitantly.



This topic has to be one of the most difficult to discuss.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Deterrence is bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about. Look up the statistics, imprisonment and execution do not function well as deterrents. The reason why the industrial prison system continues to exist and grow is not because it is an effective means of correcting social ills, but because it reproduces the socioeconomic conditions for its existence.
The most effective means of correcting social ills is by addressing their socioeconomic roots.

Deterrence isn't bullshit, I always drive more slowly and with more paranoia after getting a traffic ticket. And there's not even any jail time involved there. I can say for a fact that the only reason I don't routinely shoplift from major stores is because I don't want the police being called on me. Am I just an exception?

Edit - didnt mean to bump this, BB linked to it in another thread and I felt like replying to this not noticing the thread was like 4 years old

[ckaihatsu]

As I understand it this entire topic is something of a red herring since there would be no social basis for anti-social impulses once society and all individuals are collectively self-liberated.

The problem for us as revolutionary theorists is that there's no comprehensive precedent of a just-world 'petri dish' to examine for a purely clinical perspective to adopt. The world as it is breeds alienation as a matter of course and it's difficult to imagine society otherwise.

I myself happen to subscribe to a personal- and global-empowerment scenario, from the premise of working class collective self-emancipation from the control of capital. This is virtually the standard communistic 'social-heaven' model, except that I think people would still find their own particular challenges with their own freely-chosen, unique paths through life.

What we can definitively say *would* be different post-capitalism, is that no one could find anyone else in the world to even be *conceivably* threatening -- there would no longer be any standing institutions with the function of protecting class privileges through officially individuating all others and using punishments, so everyone would, by definition, necessarily be on-the-same-page with a fully-organic, continuously collectively self-recreating social paradigm. No one would *have* to look for refuge in a fierce individualism -- with possible accompanying idiosyncratic anti-social behavior -- because there would be *no objective benefit* to such a dissociated escapism, with the background of societal pressure for such being totally absent.

Outside of one's freely-chosen, uncoerced personal life sphere -- meaning larger social life -- one would find nothing but tacitly *positive* social interactions, because there would simply be *nothing else to do* but to improve social endeavors in the world at large. There could be no petty jousting because there would be no individual reward to be *gained* from avaricious maneuvering in a fully-socialized global social environment. Humanity would have the collective memory of what self-aggrandizing efforts -- for private property -- had cost itself through the modern era, and it would be in a position to not have to resort to such arcane practices because of where it had gotten itself and presently benefitted-from.

The worst anyone could do would to-be *a-social*, which would equate to an individual stance of *non-participation* in larger social efforts -- which would certainly not be any kind of a problem or issue for the rest of the world, including those who *would* proactively participate in wide-open avenues for the common good. Abundant material productivity with a minimum of labor effort would be the norm, as technologically exists today, so whether any one person worked or not for society as a whole would effectively be irrelevant, since only a fraction of the population at any time *would* be necessary for adequate material production (U.S. farming today is only 2% of the entire U.S. population).

[(A)]

“The first duty of the revolution will be to abolish prisons — those monuments of human hypocrisy and cowardice.
Anti-social acts need not be feared in a society of equals, in the midst of a free people, all of whom have acquired a healthy education and the habit of mutually aiding one another.
The greater number of These acts will no longer have any -raison d’être-. The others will be nipped in the bud.
As for those individuals with evil tendencies whom existing society will pass on to us after the revolution, it will be our task to prevent their exercising these tendencies.
This is already accomplished quite efficiently by the solidarity of all the members of the community against such aggressors. If we do not succeed in all cases, the only practical corrective still will be fraternal treatment and moral support.
This is not Utopia. It is already done by isolated individuals and it will become the general practice. And such means will be far more powerful to protect society from anti-social acts than the existing system of punishment which is an ever-fertile source of new crimes.”

— Peter Kropotkin, Prisons and Their Moral Influence on Prisoners





*That means no gulags for Leninist's.