Don't Kill or Cage Them...Banish Them!

I think Australia worked better, since when children were born, as offspring of the original prisoners that were "transported," they stayed in Australia and developed the island nation.

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The convicts didn't direct the development of Australian society, they were merely coopted as the labour to help build it. They had the added incentive of becoming 'ticket of leave' men if they cooperated (ie free after a period of servitude).

I think the idea sucks because

a) punishment is the same regardless of the nastiness of the crime and building on this:
b) there is every chance that the meaker will suffer much more than the stronger, even though this unlikely to have any relation to the seriousness of their crime.
c) I'd prefer at least some attempt at rehabilitation - some cons can actually reform with help and support. Your proposal doesn't say how one would 'graduate' from the proposal.
d) Finn thinks it's a good idea.

More about Australian Convicts from http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6864292/ANCESTRY-COM-LAUNCHES-RECORDS-OF.html :

Stealing sheep or wool or cloth in 18th- and 19th-century England could land you a minimum seven-year sentence at an Australian penal colony, according to Ancestry.com's newest online collection of Australian convicts records. For those interested in uncovering the criminal ancestors lurking in their past, the world's largest online resource for family history today released the largest collection of Australian convict records, indexed and searchable online for the first time. Records detail the some 165,000 convicts transported to Australia from 1788 to 1868.

An estimated 22 percent of Australians are descended from these British exiles. Their sentences served, many convicts remained Down Under, becoming Australia's first western settlers.

The British government deemed transportation, as the practice was known, just punishment for a mixed bag of crimes from marrying secretly to burning clothes. Although "felony," "larceny" and "burglary" described the overwhelming majority of crimes, a few records include juicy details, such as, "obtaining money by false pretences," "stealing heifers" and "privately stealing in a shop." The convict records typically contain convict's name, date and place of sentencing, length of sentence -- usually 7 years, 14 years or life -- and, sometimes, the crime committed.

"By today's standards, many of these crimes are minor misdemeanors or are no longer illegal, and the severity of punishments seem ludicrous," said Megan Smolenyak, Chief Family Historian for Ancestry.com. "No wonder Australians consider a convict in their family tree a badge of honor and seek to uncover the amusing, quirky and outrageous details in their family's 'criminal' past."

But as notorious as the Australian convicts might be, England first disposed of its felons in the American colonies. High crime rates and over-crowded jails led the English government to transport small-time criminals to British colonies. By 1775, England had shipped some 50,000 convicts to America. They worked as indentured servants, typically on tobacco plantations in Virginia and Maryland.

Tired of England deporting unwanted citizens to America, Benjamin Franklin suggested sending rattlesnakes to England in return -- a sentiment shared by many Colonial leaders. The American Revolution ended convict banishment to the United States, and the British began shipping their criminals some 15,000 miles to newly discovered Australia.

Unique Attributes of Australian-Bound Convicts:

* A vast majority of Australia-bound convicts were English, Irish and Scottish men between the ages of 20 and 24

* Women accounted for some 15 percent of Australian convicts but were outnumbered by men, six to one

* 39 percent of male and 35 percent of female convicts had no prior convictions

* The oldest convict transported was approximately 60, and the youngest nine

* 1,321 convicts were from other parts of the British Empire

* The majority of convicts were illiterate and convicted for crimes of poverty (theft)

* In the first years of transportation, convict ships were unsanitary and disease ridden; conditions improved in the later years

* Convicts typically served their sentence building roads, bridges and buildings or for free settlers

* When transportation ended, convicts made up 40 percent of Australia's English-speaking population

Personally, I think that's one of the most ridiculous ideas I've ever heard. But, hey, that's just me.

lot's of room on the moon

Kentucky and Arkansas also continue to use banishment for certain crimes. Arkansas's constitution prohibits banishment "from the state," but it allows intrastate banishment. In 2000, a Corbin, Kentucky, judge exiled from the entire state a person who had been convicted of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Florida judges have been known to address prostitution by meting out a five-year banishment sentence and buying the convicted prostitute a one-way ticket out of town.

The idea of banishing a criminal is not new.
My wifes (that still sounds strange) brother Was convicted of a crime here in Ky.
As part of his sentence he has been banished from Ky for 2 years.
He is not allowed to be anywhere in the state.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/4646/Banishment.html

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Kentucky and Arkansas also continue to use banishment for certain crimes. Arkansas's constitution prohibits banishment "from the state," but it allows intrastate banishment. In 2000, a Corbin, Kentucky, judge exiled from the entire state a person who had been convicted of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Florida judges have been known to address prostitution by meting out a five-year banishment sentence and buying the convicted prostitute a one-way ticket out of town.

Don't kill them, or cage them like animals... banish them!

They get to keep their lives (as long as they can) and we don't besmirch our society with their blood --- or pay for their upkeep.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Don't kill them, or cage them like animals... banish them!

They get to keep their lives (as long as they can) and we don't besmirch our society with their blood --- or pay for their upkeep.

I've long advocated something similar. Mine is a replacement for the death penalty only (so nothing but life sentences) and involved two islands (one for men and one for women, no offspring should be condemned to live in these societies) where people judged unwilling to conform to society's most fundamental social contracts are expelled from the society and given their own.

Their society is given no more assistance than starting provisions (such as seed and food to eat while you wait for it to grow) and it's survive or die. No hand holding from the society whose bridge you just burnt.

Likely works out just as death penalty for the squeamish...with the addition of hideous torment while you wait to die.

And...what do you do as you drop off more and more people?

Keep seeding, or just let them starve if the society predictable fails? Or put them there and watch them being killed and eaten as you depart?

dlowan wrote:

Likely works out just as death penalty for the squeamish...with the addition of hideous torment while you wait to die.

How do you figure? How do you come to that conclusion? They are already kept in close quarters in prison and it doesn't always work out to a death penalty. In a wide open setting where they could elect solitude I don't see why you feel this is the inevitable conclusion.

But either way, that is their responsibility and not that of society. I think it's more humane than prison or the death penalty anyway. The punishment is forfeiture of the societal protections the individual violates. What could happen to the individual without those protections doesn't really strike me as a hugely relevant problem when weighing a decision to merely remove them from a social contract they don't keep their end of.

See, the solution merely is a large-scale segregation of people that, if not killed, would be incarcerated with other criminals anyway. Do you also advocate solitary confinement for all incarceration to prevent inmate on inmate crime?

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And...what do you do as you drop off more and more people?

Where do you get "more and more people" from? Historically the death penalty is being used less and less, not more and more.

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Keep seeding, or just let them starve if the society predictable fails? Or put them there and watch them being killed and eaten as you depart?

I didn't have such close quarters in mind. I actually had Australia (guys) and New Zealand (girls) in mind for their sizes, history and relative isolation. I don't think the whole world would have enough death penalty cases to bring about your scenario.

They would be given reasonable chances (think pre-industrial farmer) of survival in my plan. If they have problems with people killing each other in their society they should find a way to make and enforce a social contract.

You shouldn't come up with the worst possible ways to implement an idea when considering the merits of the idea itself unless you can make a case for why it would, instead of could, end up that way.

This concept was first presented by David on A2K. It was stupid then , and it hasnt changed. So the moneys for criminal investigations and trials are then poured down a drain as we 'BANISH" the criminals and let the criminals live in Australia (which , of course, would accept being the modern penal colony without question).

I don't know that it is inevitable, but bear in mind that the people you are positing being put somewhere are known for not playing nicely together.

I would by no means think it especially likely that they would settle down to harmonious life together, or scatter peacefully.

You are, I suppose, imagining plenty of food etc? I am imagining what I think is a far more realistic scenario of amateur farmers having lots of crop failures and food being scarce.

Yes, they are kept in close quarters in prison, and I think that prisons are a good argument for trying to think of something else, but they don't kill each other a lot in prison because there is some imposition of outside order

as well as the presence of groups who will avenge an attack on one of theirs (and protection of vulnerable prisoners by powerful ones, in return for sex.)

Remember, these are not even an ordinary prison population (who tend to be pretty goddam brutal to each other anyway) but the most violent offenders. That being said, some of the nicest criminals I have worked with are murderers, but I am unsure if one off murderers would be in your scenario?

Looking at what happens when prisons, or parts of prisons, get taken over by prisoners for a while is likely the closest in vivo experiment with your scenario,

I would think the best hope would be the formation of some sort of gang culture, where there was organised brutality, mixed in with the kind of emotional bonding one sees in gangs in the US.....with the added problem of sexual predation to manage. Adding food hardship to this would be a pretty toxic mix, I think.

I am positing people being added to the population because I do not see it likely that crime would stop because of your islands, and there would be a continuing supply of newly sentenced people to be marooned.

I am not saying a more cheerful society could not form, but I really think you are being rather optimistic about the likely actions of your posited islanders.

If they could all be put in Dallas I might consider the idea.

So the moneys for criminal investigations and trials are then poured down a drain as we 'BANISH" the criminals and let the criminals live in Australia (which , of course, would accept being the modern penal colony without question).