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I think you’ve kind of elaborated on the wrong things (although I’m interested to hear more about the skateboarding and if we know any of the same spots).
But what are they? I do too though. I believe that there is a human instinct for retribution that has been delegitimized in academic penal theory regarding deterrence, and that a victim is actually owed this retributive justice because it instinctively feels good and its omission is a harm. Additionally I think that there are some things humans naturally find disgusting, and that disgust is also a harm (in a lesser but similar way that assault is a harm), and I found the class I took on Rawls laughable because the professor a priori denied that a person has a right to not feel disgust while possessing a right to not be slapped.
But what topics?
I definitely agree here. Once a civil authority can no longer predictably keep you safe from crime or make satisfaction after the event, you should have the right to inflict corrective corporal punishment on the criminal provided you have sufficient evidence of the crime occurring (video recording). This is doubly true if the crime will not be investigated or if the response time is greater than half an hour. Our idea of withholding personal justice is predicated on the faith that our victimhood will be satisfied by a higher civil power. It’s also truly insane from a psychological position of (ironically) deterrence theory. Imagine if you withheld administering a slap on your dog after biting a child, and instead waited months before assigning a verdict. Such a process is only effective for rational intellectual creatures and criminals who reason about there actions longterm, not for your average violent or antisocial criminal. We could be deterring so much more crime by simply beating criminals immediately if sufficient evidence is obvious, or at the very least throwing them in a cell without food for 30 hours (the walls decorated with the psychological cues of their crime). This is actually vastly better for the criminal who hopefully develops a minor trauma response when considering criminality in the future.
I disagree there. Excess punitiveness led to the opposite swing of the pendulum which we have now, where in some places crimes are not even prosecuted and instead reclassified as "aw shucks boys will be boys" horseplay. The insurance will pay for your cleaned-out store, why are you even complaining? If you insist on having a car parked in public, of course the window will be smashed so any items that may be inside can be stolen. So why would the police even bother, when they know nothing will come of it? To quote a story from 1909 about the same viewpoint:
But you need the reform and rehabilitation as well as the punishment, otherwise you are just throwing the person back into the same environment from which they came. People starting off with petty crime will continue on the path to more serious crime, the serious criminals will just take 'doing time' as part of the package. There has to be a balance. Some small amount will be truly incorrigible and locking them up for long stretches will be the only way to deal with them, but some will also be willing to change, if they get help on to another path and support to keep them away from falling back into the same neighbourhood, same associates, same situations they were in before they were convicted.
And more convictions. Fewer slaps on the wrist. People plainly gaming the system having to face the consequences of their behaviour. Absolutely I agree with all that. But you can't just beat the crap out of them (though a timely slap round the back of the head for some of the 'youth' might do way more than all the bleeding-heart 'little Johnny can't help it, he's a victim of society' or being thrown into a cell with no food for two days) and leave it at that, for those who can be helped, then we should extend mercy. Mercy does not mean stupid or soft-hearted, though.
What should be the purpose of the criminal justice system? You have given punishment & reform already, and I agree with you on those. But you left off isolation, we also need to keep dangerous people out of society. This is the "leviathan shaped hole in the discourse" that OP is refering to.
I think that hole exists because we have framed the discourse around the criminal, not society. Which is stupid, why should the discourse revolve around the 1% of people who do bad things? Whats best for society is really only considered through the reform lens - i.e. society benefits from reform as we dont have to spend $x to imprison and get $y from every successful reintegrated convict. When you leave out the leviathan lens you miss out on three strikes laws. The idea that "hey the vast majority of violent crime is done by people who have already done violent crime, we can just lock them up and isolate them and cut the occurrence in half." Or whatever large amount. The idea that the state could just uphold the law, actually send people to jail for their full terms, with the enhancements, and not let them out until theyre in their 50s and mostly too old to get into much trouble. The idea that we could actually do that, and in fact we have an obligation to do that. The law is what we legitametly and democratically agreed upon, we could just enforce it. And not have to deal with violent homeless people in the subway.
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