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Cake day: July 17th, 2023

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  • I think the mainstream liberal take is probably very aligned with yours. You have to go further left to get a different opinion. But I hold such an opinion so to give my perspective: I don’t give 2 shits about punishment for punishments sake. If anything I only see that as causing more harm. What I care about is reducing net harm. There have been countless studies that have shown that severity of punishment is an extremely poor deterrent. Often times perpetrators are more concerned with the social impact getting caught will have on their immediate contacts over how long they’ll be jailed for, and frankly, just don’t think that they’ll get caught at all. If we take that for true, and my goal of reducing net harm, the value of jail becomes reforming those who can be reformed, and keeping those who can’t locked away from the rest of society. Neither of these things are intrinsically tied to any period of time. And because of how we treat ex-cons in society currently recidivism rates get worse for having been in prison. Possibly because they can’t get legal work, and possibly because the social reputation damage has already been done, so that fear is no longer holding them back.