People commit acts of crime all the time. A crime by definition is an act of negligence that's considered hurtful to the general public. But sometimes a crime is detrimental to the criminal rather than the public welfare. This is usually shown in crime involving vagrancy, alcohol, and drugs. The question for this topic would be whether or not someone should be charged for causing themselves harm, setting them further back. Or to provide treatment for them instead.
We'll start with drug and alcohol users. Drug users to be treated differently depending on the type of drug they use. Marijuana for example is a socially acceptable drug by most and is usually taken more lightly by the law. However someone drunk in public, snorting rows of cocaine or injecting heroine into themselves are bound to meet some bigger consequences. People however disagree with the law laying down these big consequences on drug users saying that they're used for their addictions rather than recreational purposes and thus let them be treated rather than punished.
Then there are pan handlers and beggars. They don't do anyone any true harm, and they certainly don't mean any harm. After all they're simply just asking for money in their time of need. It's still vagrancy though, and that's against the law. It's not an enforced law however, as you don't see any cops around streets with their batons chasing beggars. Surely these beggars are as innocent as we are, right? But then you'd have to account for what they aren't doing, and that is contributing to society. You can reasonably assume that the money you'd give them could go to a drug dealer or some other money sink which won't do any good for either party in the end.
I believe that the best possible solution would be to punish and treat the these crime-doers. If we were to give the criminal treatment with no punishment, then they'd feel there'd be no consequence for them to repeat their actions again.If we were to give a criminal vice versa, then that'd only be another problem in a mountain of problems the criminal would already have. The only problem with this solution would be the cost, as now we'd have the three, jail, fine and treatment to give them rather than a fine/with a sentence to jail or treatment. But I believe this would prevent repitition of the crimes from an individual leading to much more progress than the current system we have.
I like your thought of criminals repeating their actions if no punishments are set on them. This brings up a really good point where you mentioned if its better to treat them and not punish them and risk them repeating their crimes or to send them to rehabilitation and jail which would in turn cost more money. While I do think that it is better to fully punish and rehabilitate these individuals in order to have them be a part of society, I believe that would ensue more taxes leading to riots and outrage of the public people.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your solution about treating the addicts rather than being put into jail for quite some time and possibly re offending of the same case over and over again. Financially, I do believe that it is doable for the government to build treatment facilities or anything similar to that even when it is likely to be expensive. I have watched a video from my University Law class which talks about this certain country (I forgot which country it was) that focuses more on treating the addicts instead having to put them in jail for a long time. Not only was it effective, it was also very cost efficient. I think what's important is what the environment is like inside the jail or a treatment facility. There is no doubt that Canada can pull it off because our country is much wealthier than the one that I talked about. It's just the matter of whether we want criminals to be treated, be put in jail for quite some time, or even both. And if Canadian government were to mimic the same system that country has, I think this would certainly help prevent criminals or drug addicts from re offending.
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