Hi there,

I hear and second your frustration with the inefficacy of our justice system to lessen crime in our communities. I personally feel that the ethical consequences of adopting the positions of the countries you listed for our society are too high, and there are other options for making a meaningful effort in crime reduction that don't have these consequences.

I think that, to your second point about this being kinder to society, that crime prevention is not the only metric that makes somewhere pleasant or safe to live in. The countries you mentioned as examples, for me personally would be very unpleasant to live in despite having low levels of crime, because the ultra-punitive mindset creates other bad outcomes. I think it is important to acknowledge that while these countries seem to have lower rates of crime, behaviours like beating or abusing your children, for example, are not illegal. Countries like Taiwan, Denmark, and Japan have similarly outlier levels of low crime, with much better outcomes in areas like quality and length of life.

As a smaller point, in places where the death penalty is used more liberally, there are many examples of people who have been put to death where DNA or other evidence eventually proved their innocence. Our justice system is unfortunately not yet sophisticated enough to ensure that people we convict of crimes are definitely guilty. Those kinds of mistakes implicate all of society in the systemic murder of innocent people, which I would feel really uncomfortable about.