本周，我们将探讨监狱系统。美国监禁的公民比世界上任何其他国家都多，罪名也多，监禁时间也长。2008年初，美国有近250万人在监狱服刑。每100个成年人中就有一个。中国的人口大约是我们的四倍，在同一时期，监狱人口大约为150万。这种大规模监禁真的符合正义吗?还是说，这是一种效率低下、功能失调的解决社会弊病的方式，用其他方式处理会更好?

现在有一个开始的想法似乎可以证明这些庞大的数字是合理的。美国可能是一个暴力的地方。我们的监狱里挤满了人，因为我们的街道上充斥着暴力犯罪。但暴力犯罪只是故事的一部分。这是另一个事实。In the twenty-seven nations of the European Union, whose combined population exceeds ours by nearly two hundred million, the total prison population for all crimescombinedis around six hundred thousand. In the US, we’ve got almost that number of people – five hundred thousand to be precise -- in prison for drug related crimes alone. And many of these crimes involve no violence whatsoever.

That’s a lot of people. And it costs a lot of money. The states spent almost fifty billion dollars on incarceration in 2007. That’s up from ten billion in 1987 – adjusting for inflation, that’s an increase of a hundred twenty-seven percent.

And not just how many we imprison, but who we imprison raises moral questions as well. African Americans make up roughly twelve percent of our total population, but they make up over forty percent of the prison population. Latinos make up thirteen percent of the population, but twenty percent of prison inmates. The prison system is one of the epicenters of racial inequality in America. If current trends continue, one-third of all black males and one-sixth of all Latino males will go to prison during their lives, as opposed to one in seventeen white males.

To make some philosophy out of those numbers, think about theories of just punishment.

Intuitively, we think of a just punishment as a punishment that "fits" the crime. But what exactly does that mean? What does it take for a punishment to “fit” a crime?

One what to start answering that question is to ask about the goals or aims of punishment. Suppose you thought that the point of punishment is to deter future crime. In that case, a punishment might be said to fit a crime, if the punish is just harsh enough to change the cost-benefit calculations of potential criminals.

Alternatively, you could think that punishment is about extracting retribution – an eye for an eye. In that case, a punishment would fit a crime, if the pain or harm imposed on the criminal was proportionate to the pain or harm that the criminal imposed on its victim.

It could also be the point of punishment is to rehabilitate the criminal. In that case, the punishment fits the crime only if it helps to make the criminal a better person. But it seems a little odd to think of this as a theory ofpunishment,完全正确。你通过治疗或教育人们来让他们康复。当你对待或教育一个人的时候，你并不是在惩罚他们。最起码，惩罚需要谴责。那受害者呢?他至少该还点钱吧?

Actually, we’ve just introduced two more theories of punishment. Therestorative刑罚论要求犯罪人对自己的罪行进行赔偿。Thedenunciationtheory of punishment says that just punishment should express society’s collective condemnation of the criminal and his acts.

But by any measure -- deterrence, retribution, restitution, rehabilitation or social denunciation -- I suspect our prison system is riddled with moral imperfection. Moreover, it's not at all clear that our prison system has a well-thought out conception of "just" punishment at its core. I suspect the system rests on a hodge-podge of hardly thought out, politically driven practices that respond to panic and fear rather than being the product of deep philosophical reflection on the nature of just punishment. But that's where we come in right?

And to help us sort through these thorny issues, we invited Kara Dansky, Executive Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. She is a terrific guests and has thought long and hard about the moral costs and benefits of our prison system. Tune in, I am sure you thoughts will be provoked.

Photo byEmiliano BaronUnsplash