See-Dubya: The Statistical Life You Save May Be Your Own
Let me try to synthesize a couple of divergent ideas. First we have a link from XRLQ to a scholarly article by left (I would say way left) University of Chicago law prof Cass Sunstein. The esteemed Prof breaks with type, however, and takes an honest look at new evidence about the death penalty. I’m going to post most of the abstract here:
Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death. Capital punishment thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. … The familiar problems with capital punishment – potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew – do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs involved in capital punishment may depend on cognitive processes that fail to treat “statistical lives” with the seriousness that they deserve.
This is a huge admission from Professor Sunstein and it will probably earn him some dirty looks in the faculty lounge. If the death penalty really is a deterrent to further murder, he argues, then we ought to retain it; capital punishment may be arbitrary and racist, but the murders it might prevent are even more so. Interesting.
But now look with me over at this piece up on Fox News, courtesy of The Shape of Days. Rep. Duncan Hunter’s office claims that of the 167 Gitmo inmates released after review so far, ten have been recaptured or killed fighting for the enemy. In other words, among the no-brainer easy-release cases there is a recidivism rate of about six percent, that we know of. NOT among the Gitmo’s really bad guys, but merely among the ones we thought we had by mistake or that were just not that serious a risk and so we let them go.
For those who would like to close down Gitmo, let us return to Professor Sunstein’s statistical lives. How many statistical lives would be lost as a result of a guilty decision to release more detainees, given that the remaining detainees are even more likely to be guilty and/or recidivist terrorists? To paraphrase Sunstein,
This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to Gitmo, because it suggests that to release enemy combatants condemns numerous innocent people to death. Detaining enemy combatants thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. … The familiar problems with Gitmo- potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew – do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of terrorism suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs involved in detaining unlawful combatants until the termination of hostilities may depend on cognitive processes that fail to treat “statistical lives” with the seriousness that they deserve.
Purely utilitarian arguments for the death penalty are kind of creepy (I’m a “retribution” man, myself), but Gitmo isn’t the death penalty. It’s just detention and interrogation–the sort of things cops can do with nothing more than probable cause. We don’t have a way to evaluate how much the information we’ve received through these interrogations has helped the war effort, because that’s public knowledge. But as far as the detention goes, we now have some tangible evidence that, contrary to the moonbat stereotype of addled Afghan shepherds who just wandered into a battlefield and were whisked away, we’ve got some genuine bloodthirsty headhackers inside there and we’re safer because of it. Our citizens and our soldiers are safer, and the Iraqi army and civilians across the Middle East are safer (and even the detainees are safer since several of those recidivists have since ended up dead on the battlefield).
We’re at war. These people are trying to kill us all. But Gitmo’s opponents are depending on cognitive processes that fail to regard this truth with the seriousness it deserves.
UPDATE FROM PATTERICO: See-Dubya’s post originally suggested (rather snarkily!) that the Sunstein article is not available to be read in its entirety on the Internet. But I downloaded it the other night, after seeing Xrlq’s post. At least one commenter has done the same. I have corrected the post. Hey, See-Dubya! Take your Acrobat Reader and go download the article!
The Sunstein article is actually available for free download on the site you linked to.
DF (83519e) — 6/20/2005 @ 5:41 am“Purely utilitarian arguments for the death penalty are kind of creepy (I’m a “retribution” man, myself), but Gitmo isn’t the death penalty. It’s just detention and interrogation–the sort of things cops can do with nothing more than probable cause.”
Actually if we’re talking about releasing, its quite a bit more than what cops can do with nothing more than probable cause. Its eternal detention and interrogation. You need quite a bit more than probable cause to do that.
And I don’t think cops can do what they do at gitmo. Which is not to say that it doesn’t happen.
actus (cd484e) — 6/20/2005 @ 6:44 amOmnibus Camp Delta blog post of 2005
Michelle Malkin — back from a fishing trip where she caught no actual fish, but really I’ve never found fish to be essential to the fishing process myself — joins the public debate about Camp Delta with her article about how we’re giving our pr…
The Shape of Days (af7df9) — 6/20/2005 @ 6:48 amThe rules for how long a civilian criminal can be detained and questioned are different from those that apply to enemy combatants. Civilians can be held for 72 hours. (I think. It’s early and I’m not really awake yet.) Enemy combatants can be held until the Administrative Review Board determines that they’re no longer a threat and that they have no intelligence to offer.
Same idea exactly, just different rules and procedures.
Jeff Harrell (a5b150) — 6/20/2005 @ 6:49 amYeah, in the systems I’ve, uhhh, been involved with, an arrestee had to be arraigned within 48 hrs, and bail was set. Bail is often denied, and given the seriousness of the Gitmo combatants’ crimes that seems appropriate here. The fact that 167 prisoners have been released suggests that there is some (rather flawed ) process is in place to review the cases.
I have now downloaded the article.
See Dubya (1440fc) — 6/20/2005 @ 12:28 pmLiving in Detroit as I am, I am aware that the FedGov is investigating complaints that the Detroit Police Department rounded up residents near murder scenes in order to gather additional information regarding the crime. In some instances, detained persons were not charged with a crime, nor were they allowed access to counsel. Hence the investigation and pending Fed takeover of the DPD.
It does happen here. DPD Witness Detention:
I find it especially troubling that Conyers holds imaginary impeachment trials in Washington while his own constituents are unconstitutionally arrested and detained.
Politicians are obsessed with the treatment of combatants taking up arms against US Military and Citizens while innocent civilians like me spend time in jail for living near some drug dealer who gets shot.
Apologies if this is off topic.
_Jon (6b3992) — 6/20/2005 @ 1:31 pm“Purely utilitarian arguments for the death penalty are kind of creepy (I’m a “retribution” man, myself)…”
Retribution’s a common gut reaction to murderers. Society as a whole needs a better reason. Utilitarian arguments suit some folks. I prefer the simple idea of cleansing society, the gene pool even, of murderers, rapists and the like. Permanently, publicly and brutally. The positives far outweigh the negatives, IMO. Murderers drawn and quartered in public executions would have the salutory effect of making juries think long and hard about imposing the death penalty; would be a serious discouragement to those contemplating capital crimes and would, of course, remove the offender from society permanently, and relatively inexpensively (less expensively than life in prison).
OTOH, what’s to be done to offer recompense to the families of the slain? Confiscation of any and all possessions of a murderer (for distributioon after liquidation ONLY to family) might be a small solace. Too bad if it beggars the family of a murderer in the process (unless, of course, it’s a family deal all around as so many killings seem to be).
There is a wealth of things we could do beyond simply warehousing killers.
Guantanamo detainees? Illegal combatants have no rights. Period. As they come in, hand them out to survivors of 9-11 who have the stomach for it to do with as they will, no questions asked. Any intel would just be gravy. Only requirement: videotape the torture, “if any”, for distribution via any media that’ll accept the tapes.
I’d bet creative and vengeful family could make terrorist wannabes last for years.
Oh, BTW, in case it wasn’t clear: I have not one counce of mercy in my heart for terrorists. The worst, most lingering horrors are far too gentle for the least of them.
Retribution? No. Pour encourager les autres
An excerpt from the novel The Weapon by Michael Z. Williamson illustrates what I mean:
Extreme? Yeh, but Islamofascist jihadists are savages. Communication in their “native tongue” (brutal savagry) would work wonders… How did the Ottomans keep the savages under control? By being more brutal than they. Destroy them root and branch, salt the earth they dwell on, loot their trasure down to the last cup of oil and send them back to the sixth century where they belong.
On the bright side: every single damned (and I use the term theologically here) terrorist scum delivered to Ultimate Judgement by our forces (and the Iraqi forces, now) in Iraq means many, many more civilian noncombatants who will not be killed by these savages. Downside: their deaths are not horrible and savage and broadly broadcast enough to serve as proper deterrence to other savage scum of their ilk. Removing them from the gene pool (and a huge majority are still of reproductive age) is a BIG plus. Need to get them younger before they have a chance to reproduce at all, though.
Genocide? No. Vermicide.
David (10149b) — 6/22/2005 @ 9:18 am