In practice that mostly means taking the ability to be aggressive (or to vote) away from poor men with dark skin.
It occurs to me that one result might be an increase race and class violence, since there’ll likely be entire neighborhoods full of people most of whom can’t raise a hand in their own defense if someone wants to go there and just beat people to death for fun. Thugs who won’t get chips, since they are white or well off or a cop.
The net time some cop decides to kill a black guy there won’t be any protests, since the cops can just wade in and the protesters will fall over in convulsions while the cops beat on them.
We are stipulating a voluntary process. If blacks – or any other subpopulation – feel they are targeted unfairly, they would probably refuse to accept it.
The fact that our justice system is, today, unfair isn’t a meaningful rebuttal to such a proposal. It’s a problem that desperately needs fixing, but it’s a different problem.
Sure, it’s a DIFFERENT problem, but like the sex offender registry issue, it’s a problem that needs to be solved BEFORE the chip plan can be implemented successfully, hence a legitimate issue.
I’m not sure that’s been demonstrated. Setting pre-conditions like that is a pretty sure way to prevent any progress from being made. (Just as one example, it brings to mind the Republican viewpoint that comprehensive immigration reform must wait until the border has been secured. They refuse to accept any other considerations until their own specific demand has been met first.)
It creates an interlocking thornbush of demands. It’s a case of “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Ideally, all problems would be addressed, immediately, and with sufficient resources to provide real solutions. In practice, an improvement in any one aspect of the many (and I’m not belittling this!) problems with the criminal justice system is, at least to that degree, a good thing.
Hardly. They’d just be hit with enough pressure that they “submitted voluntarily”; “get the chip or face life in prison”. Constantly stomping on black people (and non-whites and the poor in general) is and always has been a central function of the American justice system; they’ve never had the ability to just opt out.
Not really, since it strongly affects would would actually happen, as opposed to what would happen in an ideal world. But then in an ideal world there wouldn’t be any violent criminals in the first place.
Not quite a voluntary process according to the OP.
Also, I’d only support such a technology if the society had a proven 100 year track record of fastidiousness with respect to civil liberties as well as an iron grip on its collective id. Certain Scandinavian countries might qualify, but the US would certainly not.
That’s certainly possible…but… I don’t see it. What is the bigger problem, specifically?
Two problems seem to have been suggested here: 1) a sub-population of people who are helpless, because they can’t use violence even in self-defense; 2) an exploitive government will use the technology to suppress dissent.
I don’t consider either of these meaningful.
We already have a large subpopulation that is incapable of self-defense: the handicapped, the elderly, children. They seem to get by all right in our society without being assaulted at every turn. The new population of chipped felons would simply be treated as a different kind of handicapped persons.
(And…if not, if the general population took up the habit of chipper-bashing as a customary pastime, then the experiment would be seen to have failed and would be discontinued. We can’t know until it’s tried. You can’t argue against an idea on a priori grounds. “Let’s raise the minimum wage.” “No! Millions of employers would refuse to honor it, and criminal black-market activity would overwhelm the economy.” Yeah…maybe. No one actually knows that.)
The exploitive government used monitoring of telephone call data, not to suppress dissent, but to explore for terrorism. We, the People, didn’t like it, and made them cut it back. If chipping started to be a threat to our liberties, we’d do the same thing.
I’ll grant points A & B, but who cares whether whether the chip addresses non-violent crime? I have measures on my computer to protect me against malware; they do jack-diggly to shield me against muggers, but that doesn’t make them “pointless.”
No, they won’t. The handicapped, the elderly, children-these are traditionally looked upon as groups that deserve our protection. This status is not generally visited upon those that are released from prison, and I suspect that if violence is visited upon someone who is implanted with one of these chips the first thought through many a person’s mind, even if that person is an officer of the law, might be “I wonder what he did this time?”
Assuming that the chip works as advertised, the cop should know that the victim didn’t do anything to merit a beatdown, as the chip would prevent it.
Which is not to say that you don’t have a point. Even when I am not wearing my Evil!Skald hat, I am disinclined to trust a randomly-chosen beat officer not to be unduly violent. I worry less about random persons tracking down chipped offenders than I would cops abusing them.
There is this. I wouldn’t mind seeing a poll of police officers to see if they think that people that have left the penal system have fully paid their dues.
It does occur to me that, in the likely case of a cop bashing a chipped crook, the cop would at least have a harder time justifying his action. Especially if the chip logs each time it goes off, which seems likely.
I’m not talking about a cop bashing a chipped crook. I’m talking about a cop responding to a report that a chipped former crook might be in danger, deciding how high it falls on his list of priorities. I’m talking about bystanders being willing to help out a chipped former crook that cannot defend himself. I’m talking about a too-large segment of society that includes some law enforcement personnel that think that people in prison should damn well stay in prison, so whatever happens to them on the outside is somehow their own damn fault.
:: slips on Cobra-Commander mask, goes into Evil mode ::
Rhymer Enterprises does not support the use of anti-violence technology. Why, our Murder for Hire division alone could be crippled by it. Additionally, using the pacification chips on rapists is inappropriate; that is what sharks are for.
How are all of those problems dealt with right now, when felons have served their time in prison and are released? Every single issue you just named already exists with ex-cons, people on parole, people on the sex-offender registry list, etc.
Why would a non-violence chip make the problem any different?
