Criminal restitution? Sell a kidney

Ezra Smack · 07-12-2008, 03:21 PM

An interesting conversation came up the other day. Libertarians belive that the main focus of criminal justice should be the reparation of victms. Locking people up in traditional prisons costs society a lot of money. A better solution might be incarceration in a work house until the victm is made whole through restitution payments. Anyway, a woman near my town was raped and beaten sevearly and incured tremendous medical bills. The guy that did it was caught and sent to the State pen. One of my buddies said that since this thug could not possably pay this womans medical bills that his body should be parted out and his organs sold to the highest bidder in order to pay restitution to his victm. One kidney, one retna, one lung, blood and bone marrow, anything that he could survive without. I never thought of that before. Your opinion?

Dumpy Dooby · 07-12-2008, 03:38 PM

The punishment incommensurate with the crime.

So no.

thewise1 · 07-12-2008, 03:52 PM

No, if the basis of liberty is self ownership, then you cannot sell yourself like that.

It's an interesting thought exercise I think, don't get me wrong, but I don't think that would be compatible with liberty.

Ezra Smack · 07-12-2008, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

The punishment incommensurate with the crime.

So no.

How much is a good used kidney worth? probably not as much as several facial reconstructive surgeries, not to mention pain and suffering that this woman went through.

What amount of money would it take for you to agree to take that kind of a beating?

Should the punishment not exceed the value of what the crime cost the victm?

Suppose you stole one thousand dollars worth of stuff from a store. If you are caught should you only have to pay back one thousand dollars? Where is the deterrent? If you got caught you would only be out what you would have had to pay anyway. Shouldn't the penalty be so expensive that the crime is never worth the cost of the punishment? Besides reparations to the store, someone has to pay for the police investigation, the court system and enforcement of the mechanism of reparation. The criminal, not the tax payer should be liable for that expence.

7960 · 07-12-2008, 05:32 PM

two words come to mind....... "cruel" and "unusual"

And before people start in on what he did to his victim, it doesn't matter. *HIS* punishment can't be cruel or unusual, and parting him out is exactly that.

Rouger2 · 07-12-2008, 07:08 PM

Well it is tempting to go along with this but no.

Smull · 07-12-2008, 08:28 PM

sounds kinda creepy to me

Dispatcher · 07-13-2008, 01:12 AM

I believe that would come under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment.
However, I like the workhouse idea.

Dumpy Dooby · 07-13-2008, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by Ezra Smack

How much is a good used kidney worth? probably not as much as several facial reconstructive surgeries, not to mention pain and suffering that this woman went through.

What amount of money would it take for you to agree to take that kind of a beating?

Should the punishment not exceed the value of what the crime cost the victm?

No, this is dangerous reasoning (and quite silly, to be honest). If your position is that punishments ought to match the monetary damage of the crime, then why have criminal law at all? Wouldn't it make more sense to handle everything in litigation?

That's not to mention the implication here is that a wealthy man can go committing whatever sort of heinous acts he wants so long as he is able to offer his victims monetary compensation in exchange for his atrocities. Again, ridiculous.

Suppose you stole one thousand dollars worth of stuff from a store. If you are caught should you only have to pay back one thousand dollars? Where is the deterrent? If you got caught you would only be out what you would have had to pay anyway. Shouldn't the penalty be so expensive that the crime is never worth the cost of the punishment? Besides reparations to the store, someone has to pay for the police investigation, the court system and enforcement of the mechanism of reparation. The criminal, not the tax payer should be liable for that expence.

There will be unintended consequences to having criminals pay for the police investigation. Law enforcement would become more wasteful and inefficient, and that's not to mention that law enforcement will have an inherently vested interest in ensuring that all suspects are found guilty because its revenue is dependent on having guilty suspects. I'm sure you can figure out what sort of troubles to which that would lead. And what if the suspect is not found guilty? Then who do you charge? What if you remove this guy's kidney, lung, retina, etcetera and then you come to find out that it wasn't him? What sort of liability does the state have?

Simius · 07-13-2008, 04:09 PM

I don't care what the crime is, the state should never be allowed to take a prisoner's kidneys, voluntarily or not.

Why? Because it would give the state incentive to convict people who are innocent. It would give the state incentive to pass overly harsh sentences on those who are guilty, knowing they'll be able to get a retina or whatever in exchange for a more reasonable sentence.

Fuck that, there is a reason I don't want to live in China.