The End of Criminalization: On Free Will, Accountability, and Compassion

in #philosophy8 years ago (edited)

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Criminal justice systems are a worldwide phenomenon

The same goes for central banks, governments, and the fiatcurrencies that we use today. Surely there's nothing wrong with something so universal? Catch the bad guys and punish them accordingly. Is it that simple?


Why did I spend 20 hours writing this?

Criminalization is an inefficient tool in keeping society safe and sound. If you have experienced the state knocking down your door and giving you hell for no good reason, you'd understand that criminalization is a disruptive process. It destroys lives. Look no further than mass incarcerations in the United States.

Make no mistake that mankind has always been rolling with the punches. Every social structure, like a technological device, starts off crude before becoming sophisticated. Currency have recently updated itself through blockchain technology. So what about criminalization? Sure, we've kept some psychopaths at bay, while causing countless amounts of collateral damage in the lives of innocent, sovereign beings. Is there a better way of doing things?

There are ways to render criminalization obsolete. But first, let's inspect its fundamental problems.

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I like @dollarvigilante's take on this matter


Why criminalization sucks?

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Socioeconomic leverage determines most outcomes -

People in position of wealth and power have better immunity against criminalization. If I'm a highly networked rich and powerful individual, common sense is telling me that I'm not going to jail. I'll just pay off some fines as punishment. Some people are above the law, period. And not everyone has access to proper legal representation.

Also, those not in position of wealth and power do not have the necessary resources to fight yearlong court cases. Criminalization is disproportionately disruptive for 99% of the population.

Lawbooks are so complicated -

Am I going to tell my child that she needs to fully understand the thousands of pages of convoluted fiction in order to avoid scuffles with the law? Social contracts are necessarily built upon mutual consent. But we know that laws are always revised without our expressed consent. Becoming a criminal is not just as simple as the act of theft and violence. You can easily become one out of petty rules of law.

Criminals are branded differently across all pockets of society -

This increases the complexity of criminalization. As an extreme example, there's nothing wrong being a headhunter in a headhunting tribe. It is perfectly fine within the community. But the headhunter will soon discover that he's a criminal once he steps into the broader world. You'll never really know what's unacceptable in another region.

Criminalization can be used for political powerplay -

Criminal cases can be pushed forward to indict political opponents. Power players wishing to rise up the ranks of government could overzealously search and close criminal cases. It happens, usually at the expense of underrepresented minorities.

Criminalization is incompatible with compassion -

Compassion is something that grows day by day as you're exposed to more personal stories from people all around the world. Criminalization is a shortcut to cull members of society that do not fit into the system. Compassion is all about healing. It is hardwork channelled through the love and care for others. Practising criminalization alongside compassion contributes to the overall unhappiness of our society.

Falsity of complete free will and accountability -

All man made laws assume that every moral agents are completely accountable over their thoughts and actions. While I certainly believe in personal responsibility, there are plenty of issues with free will. There will be an erosion in criminalization once free will is properly understood. I will address in the next section.


Limitations of free will and accountability

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You have free will, no matter what others may tell you. However, you can only be as free as your environment and mental life. Take for example, slavery used to be acceptable in the United States. Are supporters of slavery exercising their own free will to support the idea of slavery, regardless whether if its right or wrong? If its so commonplace in a culture, it may never occur to someone that it's wrong.

Life is a lottery -

I could have been you, and you could have been me. Whatever it is, all of us are thrown into this existence without our consent. There wasn't any console for us to input our preference for our birth condition. It's just an impossibility due to the nature of our existence.

Sure it can be argued that everyone has personal responsibility over their own thoughts and actions. But consider this:-

Slavery used to be acceptable in the United States. Those in the privileged class were born into such human conditions. It would seem normal to do so, like how a tribe of headhunters would inadvertently create more headhunters. Sure, you have the free will. But you can only be as free as your environment.

We may have the power of imagination, but like it or not, our environments play a great deal in shaping us.

Count in the fact that most underrepresented people do not have socioeconomic mobility.

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Our thoughts are cloudy, nebulous -

I'm pretty sure you're enlightened enough to know about the volatility of the human perception. We would always empathise with our friends when we begin to see their side of the story. Truth is, we can pretty much frame any situations in wildly different perceptions.

All actions originate as thoughts, or as impulses from our subconscious. Complete free will necessarily requires the mind to have a complete picture over one's situation.

Here's a fun thought experiment: Think of 10 prime numbers. Notice as your thoughts come into existence - a cloud of numbers.. did you really choose 100% of the contents in that cloud? If I ask what's your top 3 favourite movies today, I think you would agree that your answer will be different if I asked you tomorrow instead. At times, we forget some of our options. Our minds are fuzzy.

And what about snap decisions without sufficient time to understand the complete picture? Such disruptive situations deteriorate the quality of free will.

However, it is something that can be trained. Thinking is a skill by itself - just like how you could master specific types of thinking in 10,000 hours. Let's say if you were born in Nazi Germany, you'd most likely become a supporter of the Nazi Regime, especially if you're not exposed to the broader world.

You can only be as "good" as your immediate environment. Thanks to the Internet, immediate environments are shared these days. Good becomes greater good.

We always make our decisions based on the shifting tides of our inner narratives.


Putting our ego aside, it's best to understand there's a chance that we are not fully accountable all the time. I'm not expressing this to absolve people from their misdoings. I'm expressing this in hopes of telling you that things may be not be what it seems. Sure, everyone is responsible for their actions. I just hope no one receives the blunt end of being branded a criminal, especially when criminal justice systems are not very just for the common man.


What about murderers, thieves, and psychopaths?

We are getting more civilized everyday. Simply because we are exposed to different ideas, meeting all sorts of people. Technology helps here. Think about roads, autos, airplanes, and the Internet. Most of us are not in living in secluded tribes. Not anymore. Without a clash of cultures, we are just bound to our immediate environments, operating and valuing things that our environment can only promote. Free-will or not, you are only as free as the system and the information you are exposed to.

While admittedly the real criminals are often those with the establishments (order givers and order followers), do we want to continue with the idea of criminalization alongside our collectively discovered sense of compassion?

All wrong-doings can be boiled down to one word - "theft".

So what do we do about theft?


Source: Mark Passio

There's a difference between violence and self-defence (force)

There seems to be a growing misunderstanding that compassion should necessarily be a path of complete pacifism. It should be understood that anyone is right to apply sufficient force against the violator (the initiator of violence). Self-defence is not violence, but an act of self-preservation.

So in regards of murderers, thieves, and psychopaths - it is not a moral problem for society to apply force against violence. As long as central governments exist, the practice of criminalization is necessarily made for those that sync up well with the establishment. Not the people. Which is why it needs to end.


Be the change that you want to see in the world.

Homelessness is now considered a crime. It's time to realize that criminal justice systems are not really made for the people. Disputes could be solved with compassion. Rather than killing people off and throwing them in jails, it's time to treat people like they're in need of healing (instead of punishment).

If you subscribe to the notion that we're all somewhat connected, remember that I could have been you, and you could have been me. Shit happens all the time. Maybe the system continues to perpetuate criminal activities as long as there is support for such an idea. Clearly, it isn't working on the right kinds of people.

With the advent of decentralization technologies, will the idea of criminalization be surpassed? We need to find a better way of doing things.

Choose to be compassionate.

What are your thoughts about this?


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I overall agree with the conclusions of your article @kevinwong It's a very important subject. I choose to be compassionate!

WELL-written.

@core has articulated "3 Laws & 7 Rules To A Harmonious Planet" that upon diving deeper into, really connect in with this whole idea. Essentially, the core principle is everyone has the right to do what they choose with their bodies and aother people so long as it doesn't inflict harm upon another. The background behind it is pretty interesting and not openly discussed, but comes down to natural law.

Hopefully our societies will eventually wisen up to bring man's law in alignment with nature's...

Thanks @rok-sivante! I think cryptocurrencies / decentralization in general are beginning to show itself as the next best alternative :) Gonna read that article you linked me up with!

Don't worry, the government is moving away from criminalization, so this problem will solve itself over time. Convicting people of crimes requires writing laws that say exactly what is prohibited, investigating, having at least a slightly fair trial, and proving things beyond a reasonable doubt. That's way too much trouble. Instead, we're moving to civil forfeiture and lists of people who are mere suspects that are used to deny them services. So this problem is already fixing itself. Yay.

civil forfeiture... nothing like realizing you have no rights because the government indicted your money instead of you.

I believe that everyone has the right to exist in public space regardless of socioeconomic status, and that nobody should be subject to harassment, exclusion, or discrimination based on their appearance or their lack of stable housing. I also believe that the rights of individuals in public space outweigh the economic interests and objectives of businesses and government. All members of our community have inherent worth as individuals regardless of their economic or financial contributions, and those who lack the ability and means to access shelter have a right to engage in life-sustaining activities in public space without fear of harassment or arrest.

Very well put @jennamarbles , I can appreciate that sentiment. It's a shame that plenty of cities (even in Kuala Lumpur) are moving homelessness out of sight. Part of modernity nowadays is removing "unpleasant" elements, which equates to "better value". Good thing there are many private initiatives providing safe haven, while the state is somewhat trying to brush the issue aside..

I just dont understand why the government couldn't give houses to homeless citizen when they all have the capacity to do it. What could be the possible reason? Don't ask them about reason because they are good at reasoning. Their on for the development of the country and yet they are depriving the rights of others.

Somebody has to pay for those houses but I do think that criminalising homelessness is a abhorrent practice.

Ha sorry crypocurrency1 agnostic here lol I don't do religion

you got yourself a follower. please pass by me blog and criticize my part II of my story.
I like your writing much.

I really enjoyed this piece. I agree with the majority of what you've said. It seems fairly obvious that most of the world around us is shaped via strengthening ripple effects caused by the corruption of money, along with efforts to retain and sustain the power of its levers. Let's hope we can come to our senses.

Thanks @benjojo! Yes I can even see it unfolding in my country. People in the lower rung of the ladder getting picked all the time :(

@benjojo That's why Steemit is so exciting, as it has the potential to reshape the entire money game--let's further hope this platform is honored as such

absolutely. Steem, or something like it, could one day become the global reserve currency. wouldn't that be something?

@kevinwong those on the lower rungs of the ladder are expected to have little or no power and therefore make easy targets for those with the monopoly on violence

That makes us believe that money could be the root of all evil.

IMO, it is lol. One of next month's post will be about money :)

We are finding out, by talking and describing to each other and comparing our traditions, what simply is a bad habit and what is universal consensus across our species. It makes pretty obvious which laws are only in place to terrorize and which are meant to ascertain peace and prosperity and mutuality for the community.

There is only one rule necessary from which all willing and wanting can be derived, IMO: the "Golden" one. Once you have that, you don't need another one that forbids to go and kill someone, just for example.

WOW! What an amazingly well though out piece. You had me at Jeff Berwick's quote. It is obvious to me that you have researched this and spent a long time proof reading.

If a person murders my family, what is to be done about that violence?

Of course you have the free will to respond in any way you choose, but you have to deal with the consequences of your actions. In the US, the law says that only the state has the right to kill someone, so you would be labeled a criminal if you chose revenge.

State violence is unavoidable as long as we live in "civilized" societies. In the mountains of the outland, if your family is killed, you pursue the killer and kill him and his family and anyone else who's in the way. It's that "simple." In many ways, dealing violence to those who attack you is the best "generic" way of eliminating threats and taking revenge (yes, revenge, a very human element that is outlawed in 'civilized' societies).

Have you watched one of @dollarvigilante's video on decentralized assassination marketplace? I thought it's a very fascinating subject lol

Ok so person A kills a person because they feel like it, person B goes after and kills person A because well reasons are not required in your uncivilised world. This really annoys person C who kills person B until eventually there is only one person left, revenge is not the only reason people murder each other. I understand that there is corruption, I understand laws change over time and I understand that the people who write the laws are fallible but laws are required if you plan on living in a group larger than your immediate family, they are usually there to protect you from others and others from you, you may not be the strongest person in the community.

But we might have trouble with killing people if were going to consult the law of heaven, that if you still in it.

I agree! Great job discussing this issue from the various angles you chose!

I was gonna say something very similar! I loved how you approached it from different angles !

That pic from Mark Passio, is it a screenshot from the video? The one when he talks about Jesus?

Thanks @steemrollin @the-alien! Mark Passio has a series of slides called Natural Law (can be found on his website) :)

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