Thanks for the explanation. While I definitely agree that offenses exist that should not result in prison time, I cannot agree with the above. This assumes that people are reasonable and can at least learn to be considerate of others.

For example, in the case of white-collar crime where psychopathic CEO/Shareholders/etc consistently find ways to increase profits at the expense of everyone else, I think prison is the only place they should ever be. There's a difference between a guy selling tinnies and a guy who offloads HIV infected blood to poorer countries and infects thousands of people.

Until we have a societal shift that eliminates the possibility of being solely profit (or selfishly) motivated, I would like to keep the prisons.

[–] thatsTheCatch 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe white collar criminals could be disallowed from positions of power or authority. I don't know if they would be able to do much harm stacking shelves at Countdown. It's fair to think they deserve prison because of the horrible things they've done, but I think they could still be useful to the community in certain roles.

But I'm not too familiar with all the arguments. I'm not studying criminology

[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah this seems like a relatively simple problem to fix in the grand scheme of abolition. Also worth noting that not having prisons doesn't mean not having a justice system. There would still be ways of identifying people that are doing bad things, and confirming that they are indeed doing those things. All that could remain as public as it is now (or more so), so folks would know who the white-collar crims are.