[AuRomin]

I would like to know of systems of punishment (or just 'keeping people in line') that are not just the normal system of conviction then imprisonment or death.

Systems that are in use, have been in use, or you hope someday could be in use are welcome. They could have been used by legitimate or illegitimate governments. They might be something you think would work well.

To start off, I will introduce a theoretical punishment system that I thank would be great (and possibly tragic).
I think it would work well (likely only in a technocracy or advanced totalitarian government) to have a system that (literally) takes no prisoners. People would be judged on how bad of an offense they committed in terms of how much use they have wasted. Yes, this means that killing an old woman in cold blood, torturing a murderer for weeks, but not being caused to miss a day of work, and strangling a disabled baby wouldn't be thought of as serious crimes. The accused would have a trial in which he/she could dispute the facts (whether or not they are guilty, did he kill 5 or 7 people, how much longer would the person have likely lived, etc.) to reduce the severity of the sentence. Once the trial is done, a judge must decide the severity, taking into pre-existing algorithms and things like whether or not the defendant lied about the severity. The severity of the crime is judged in terms of negative points. Every person will have some (theoretically) positive number of points attributed to himself. This number is based on expected usefulness. If the negative points of the crime do not bring the criminal's total points below 0, he is allowed to live with no punishment other than maybe a reeducation of some kind depending on the crime (help for addiction and mental health issues is assumed). Once a person's usefulness is negative, a specially appointed board will decide if he lives or dies. If there is more expected crime, he is executed cheaply and efficiently. If he is deemed low-risk, he may live out the rest of his life closely monitored, with no chance of job promotion, and very restricted recreational time (basically a slave to the government but with some facade of autonomy).

I hope to see some very novel ideas. Hopefully no positive-reinforcement believers.

[Harmattan]

Let's review some of the things in use today.

* Prevention. Improving education systems and economic opportunities, delinquency prevention education (showing kids what a prison looks like, letting them hear former convicts, etc), tidying up neighborhoods (no broken window theory), early handling of kids dropping out of school or slipping into delinquency or displaying behaviors proven to be delinquency predictors, reinsertion and probation of former prisoners, urban planning to rehabilitate or destroy troublesome neighborhoods, travel prohibition for possible jihad candidates, etc. In the future this could also include genetic analyses and machine learning to detect dangerous individuals if we can find very good predictors.

* Biology and psychiatry. Chemical castration and psychiatric medication today, maybe genetic fixes in the future.

* Confinement at home, with ankle bracers.

* Conditional freedom and nightly imprisonment. Drugs checks, agenda monitoring, etc.

* Community service, especially for delinquency.

* Exclusion from certain activities. Jobs where security matter or that could appeal to sexual predators.



Now I do not believe in sentence automation or semi-automation. I rather trust human judges to choose the sentence, even though they are fallible. I am also against death sentence and I do not think governments should kill their citizens based on their usefulness.

[AuRomin]

Thank you for this. Probably should have added something similar in the OP.

[AFAIK]

That's disgustingly utilitarian and assumes that only the state is harmed when someone murders a baby or an elderly person. How do you quantify negative externalities? If people are scared to go out at night because so-and-so hates me and has +50 points or my elderly terminally ill father might get attacked if I leave him alone isn't that harmful to my emotional state, the economy, some chain pubs' profits and morale within the army?

If you want to reduce the prison population then you could lock people in their homes by using electronic tracking and sending police to arrest them whenever they break curfew or travel outside of their restricted zone. If there’s a 99.9999999% chance of spending 48hrs in prison any time you leave the house you’ll most likely stay put.

Public shaming would work for minor offenses.
Corporal punishment should be an option too.

[AuRomin]

Yes, I like that. Just have a local standing army that will mobilize when anyone is not where they should be at the correct time. It would be great for a new country or annexed lands that need strong governance.

How do you quantify negative externalities? If people are scared to go out at night because so-and-so hates me and has +50 points or my elderly terminally ill father might get attacked if I leave him alone isn't that harmful to my emotional state

I would suggest implementing a grievance system where you could show to a court that so-and-so is detrimental to your feelings of freedom and safety and ultimately your mental health and usefulness. They could lower his points and then he would have an incentive to not kill people. As for your father being attacked, your negative emotional state will be accounted for in the indictment. This is why I said that it really isn't feasible; you need to have more information than is realistically possible for it to work smoothly.

BTW, I don't actually want to see my proposed system ever exist. It's just novel, and I wanted to see what other novel (or superior) ideas people had on punishment by first giving an example.