Why we should deliberately incarcerate people on the basis of their parentage

[e_jo_m]

Epistemic status: I feel that surely this can't possibly be true, but I do not know why or how it is not true.

 

Why do we not punish the family of criminals?

Sure, it often will fail as a deterrent, since a lot of criminals don't care about their families; but it often will succeed! And sure, it's true that likelihood of getting punished is a way better deterrent than severity of punishment; but it's also true that if your mum's looking after you then you're way less likely to commit crimes. And come on, we both know that making a punishment so severe will deter a whole lot of crime.

 

We already do this consensually – in many US states it is possible to guarantee someone's bail such that if they skip town then you have to pay up. We also do this nonconsensually: when a criminal goes to jail, you're paying for his upkeep with your tax dollars, whether you like it or not.

 

So (besides the laws preventing this, such as the Fifth Amendment) why don't we do this? Because we feel it's wrong to punish the innocent. But we already tax the innocent, and wage war even when we know there will inevitably be civilian collateral damage, and kill people whose only crime were taking up arms for the sake of their country, and imprison people when there's a slight chance of their innocence, and allow police officers to fatally shoot criminals when necessary, and bulldoze forests to provide our country with lumber.

 

But hang on: we also feel it's wrong to punish the guilty! Civilized persons do not believe that crime should be punished because it's good when bad persons suffer; civilized persons believe that crime should be punished because that deters crime. Harming someone so that we may exult in the suffering of the unrighteous generally does not make the world a better place. We (should) harm criminals only because it reduces crime, not because it's inherently good to harm criminals. It is inherently bad to harm criminals, but it is justified (and therefore overall good) because it acts as a deterrent to crime. So, why is it not the case that it is inherently bad to harm innocents but justified (and therefore overall good) if it acts as a deterrent to crime?

 

The first counterargument that comes to mind is that the government will absolutely abuse this power to do something terrible. But how could a simple law like "For every jail sentence, each blood parent and blood sibling of the convict must serve a sentence equal to fifty percent of the convict's sentence." be abused, other than how every jail sentence is higher when certain groups are in the dock? (Of course, this gives an unfair advantage to, eg, people with adopted kids; but every sentence is unequal: a young rich person can much better afford ten years in jail than an old poor one.)

 

One could make the living-in-fear argument: if you're going about living your life in the full knowledge that if any one of your reprobate relatives gets convicted of a crime then you're going to jail, you'll be a nervous wreck. But how is that not as scary (especially after a generation or two of getting used to it) as going about living your life in the full knowledge that anyone can commit a crime against you, since not much is deterring criminals?

 

There is the argument that there will be more civil unrest if the citizens are upset about the government punishing the innocent. But we already punish the innocent, and after a generation or two the citizenry will get used to this system.

 

There is the argument that the suffering caused by the punishment will work out to be much more than the suffering averted by the deterred crimes. But heck, even if the total penalty was less (eg, "All jail sentences shall be split among the criminal and his three closest blood relatives"), that would still reduce crime, since it would force all the family members to keep an eye on each other.

 

We've spent a couple thousand years considering hereditary punishment to be barbaric. But should we?