It is kind of arbitrary, there's nothing so magical about it. Two or four would be just as good or at least not a whole lot worse; one seems overly harsh, and five seems overly lenient. Social policy is not an exact science, and we make these decisions democratically; most people seem to have a sense that people should get a few chances, but there should be a point at which they get the book thrown at them. Better to try and draw the line in a place that makes sense, and tweak it if necessary, than to be paralysed by indecision because you can't decide exactly where the line should be.
> I am asking by which reasoning we decided on three. If it is just “baseball” then I think we can do better.
If you think we can do better then what's your concrete proposal for doing better. 2? 4? Paying a philosophy department to crank out papers until we spot one we like?
Three seems like a reasonable number. Not too high and not too low. Like a more relaxed version of "fool me once, shame on you...".
I'm surprised by your second line because it seems like you're the one philosophizing. I bet nobody has ever written down a "reason" for three strike policies for criminals/sentencing/etc. It just seems like a reasonable number, and we have the baseball metaphor to back it up.
How are we supposed to answer your question if you're not interested in philosophizing?
> Do you think recidivism should ever result in harsher punishments?
They don’t seem to work so… no?
If you are convicted of a crime the individual offense and circumstances should be considered. Adding more punishment because someone failed to be persuaded by punishment seems ineffective at rehabilitation. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.”
Maybe it makes sense to give up on a person and lock them up forever but if we are going to do that we should be honest and thoughtful about it.
“Well baseball” doesn’t seem sophisticated enough to address what should be an exceptional action in a nuanced situation.
> If so, do you think this should be codified in sentencing policy?
This is a good question. I guess my real objection to three strikes is that it seems both arbitrary (still willing to be wrong here but so far it’s just “baseball”) and mandatory. Similarly I’m also not a huge fan of minimum sentences. Let the judges… judge.
You said "If it is just “baseball” then I think we can do better." So suppose for the moment there is no fancy philosophy and the number is just some vague, messy human sense of how many chances someone ought to get before we throw the book at them. What, concretely, is your better proposal?
> In other words do we have a framework for deciding on additional punishment for repeat offense?
Yes, and you should be able to find how it's handled in your state fairly easily. The fact that you don't know that, and that you're generally focusing on the rhetoric rather than ideas, makes me wonder if you're interested in the subject or just arguing...
Go directly to jail. Like… Monopoly? It still feels arbitrary to me. If two is recidivism then so is three right? So is three be life? That doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t we be trying to minimize recidivism?
I think the idea is that a "good" person can still have a (small) rate of criminality. If you kill after one crime you'll kill many good people, if you do so after 2 you'll still kill good people. But the odds of a good person committing 3 crimes are low enough to go for it.
how could one ever reach a number? because let's say after 7 issues there's a 80% chance they won't reform. so then why 80%?
it's a good chance, don't worry too much about where the line in the sand is drawn. I've seen multiple teams at work also bogged down by this. if there were a name for this phenomenon, I'd love to know
Well 7 and 80 are both mare up numbers. I think details matter and that reality is messy. So I don’t think an arbitrary number that feels good is the right way to go.
