If an inmate is sentenced to life in prison after being properly convicted by a jury of his/her peers, is it ethical for that person to attempt to escape from prison if given the opportunity?
(I understand that it would be legally wrong – and if caught they would receive proper punishment. I am asking if it is right from the perspective of the inmate)
Does a person not yet caught have an obligation to turn themself in?
If the person knows that they are innocent, they can certainly try to escape. If they are guilty, I would still say they are entitled to give it a shot. But in that case, they would have to pay a lot more attention to the possiblity that innocent victims may be hurt during the course of their escape.
Since you say “properly convicted”, I assume the person in question is guilty of the crime.
I personally believe that the moral choice for this person would be to accept the punishment for the crime they committed, and not escape. Escape would be unethical.
That of course is a very high moral ground that I feel very few people operate at.
…and then there is the innocent guy wrongly convicted who escapes. He is recaptured sentenced on the escape however, the original conviction gets overturned. So now he would be free except he still has the term to serve for escaping. I heard this during a news segment on the local radio about two weeks ago. To answer the OP question I would say no!
If the convict knows that he or she will no longer pose a danger to others, then it is ethical.
I don’t believe in punishment for the sake of punishment. Such punishment is reserved for a higher power, and if there is no higher power then it is irrelevent. I do believe in segragating people that cause harm to others, so that they can no longer harm others. If an inmate knows that they will no longer cause harm, then there is no longer any need for segragation. In fact, society would be better off with this person as a contributing member instead of a burden.
Of course, this is impossible to impliment in our legal system because we have no way of knowing what goes on in someones heart.
I hope Revtim enjoys the view from the moral high ground.
No.
Yes.
No. If someone is a member of a society, or wishes to be one, he has an ethical obligation to accept the sentence given by that society. If he is unwilling to do the time, what on earth was he doing committing the crime?
Take what you want, and pay for it. Whitewashing it by saying that he won’t “pose a danger to others” is simply bullshit. Punishment is not for the sake of punishment, punishment is a result of breaking the rules. Simple equation, that.
So do women if Afghanistan have an ethical obligation to accept the punishments that recieve for, say, going to school? Or are you refering to a higher law- you should not accept punishment for going to school, but you should for hitting people with sticks? I find it hard to believe that society is always right. Right now, I think we do the best we can because we cannot see into the hearts and minds of people. If we could, I think our legal system would change vastly.
Punishment is not a natural result of breaking the rules. If I am on a deserted island, and I don’t eat, I die. That is a natural result. If I am on a deserted island, and I hit my friend with a stick, I do not go to jail. It is not a natural result. Jail is something we have created to fulfill a purpose, not some sort of cosmic force.
Heck, we might as well say “If you put people in jail, the result is that they will try to escape” and we should accept that and call off all the FBI searches because the convict is just following the natural order of things.
My ethical system is dedicated to keeping society a relatively decent place to be, not playing God by createing artificial consequences.
If an Afghan woman wishes to be a part of the existing society, she will either not attend school or be willing to accept the consequences of her actions. If, of course, she does not wish to be a part of that society, or wishes to change it, then she might feel justified in not accepting those consequences–provided (if you’ll forgive the syntax) she is willing to accept the consequences of her not accepting the consequences.
But it is societies in aggregate, groups of people living together, that determine acceptable behavior, no?
Rules are not rules if they are unenforced or unenforcible. Punishment is not “natural,” whatever that might mean. Starving to death because you don’t have any food to eat on a desert island is not punishment. Being imprisoned for violating the strictures of society is.
Yes, that’s right. And? Who said anything about cosmic forces?
Errr, that seems awfully contradictory. You want the society of which you are a part to be a nice one, but you are unwilling to condone enforcement of that niceness?
That is not to say that I think societies are always “right.” But the fact remains that I must obey the rules of my society if I do not wish to accept the punishment for breaking those rules.
“Society” contains shifting and opposing points of view; ethical behavior is based on presuppositions regarding currently emphasized social mores. The women in Afghanistan who oppose the impositions of the Taliban do so according to ethical standards which existed in their country prior to (and independent of) the Taliban. They are rebelling against a social order, but not against the idea of social order. It’s also important to note that, in order for widespread rebellion against a particular established authority to exist, there must be widespread social support for the moral emphases which conflict with that established authority.
In the case of the typical imprisoned felon, no such widespread social support exists. However, while unlikely, it’s possible to imagine instances where escape from prison could be ethically or morally acceptable, even without a socially popular “cause”. One would have to say though that it’s generally not morally right to attempt escape from socially administered justice.
I don’t see where it makes a difference to an individual what society thinks. Society has its role and the individual has his. These can diverge.
My position is that punishing criminals is society’s right (and obligation). An individual does not have any obligation to conform to this to his own detriment.
I would say it’s analogous to speeding on an empty highway. For the individual I would say it’s OK. But society - in the interests of having uniform laws - can outlaw it anyway.
I would actually extend this further, and say that the person’s close freinds and relatives can help the guy hide and escape, unless the guy is a threat to society.
Obviously, every member of society has some degree of obligation to help fulfil societal obligations. But this obligation can be outweighed by other considerations.
Does society have the right to lock someone up for years at a time? Remember, not all people in prison are in for violent offenses.
An inmate who is in prison for 25 to life for a non-violent drug offense and is presented with a non-violent means to escape from prison. If that inmate is willing to escape and face the dire consequences of getting caught why would it be morrally wrong for him to try to get freedom?