Our society bears a huge burden when it comes to confining criminals. The prisons are overflowing, and the costs are stupendous (I believes it's somewhere around $40,000 per year per prisoner).
How can this problem be solved? Also, what's to be done in a truly libertarian society? How would we deal with criminals?
Just the fact that drugs wouldn't be a crime assures a much smaller prison population
Keeping in mind, that majority of criminals are in prison for non-violent crimes, I don't see a big problem here at all. This violent minority can be easily dealt with private institutions and social/economical ostracism.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
rosstaylor:How can this problem be solved? Also, what's to be done in a truly libertarian society? How would we deal with criminals?
Move the focus of justice a way from "punishment" which does nothing for the victims, and instead focus on restitution. This would inherently eliminate the problem of victimless crimes.
As it stands now, a thief may steal and destroy a certain sum of property from a victim. The only restitution the victim can expect is to pay room and board via taxes to house the criminal in a jail. The legal system should instead be focusing on how to bring monetary compensation back to the victim, the criminal would then be obligated to find some way of paying back his dept To the victim.
For some reason our society seems to think that justice only comes about via torture, pain, and wrist slapping. IMO it's an adolescent belief at best.
I recently posted in this forum on that very subject. "Crime and Punishment in an Anarcho Capitalist Society". Please give it a read and let me know what you think.
Check out the chapter on police and courts in For A New Liberty.
http://mises.org/rothbard/foranewlb.pdf
Richard Maybury wrote in his book Whatever Happened to Justice?:
Many Americans today believe that law and government are nearly the same thing, but this is incorrect. Law and government are different institutions and don't necessarily go together. Early common law judges had no connection with government. So could a criminal simply walk away? Yes and no. If they refused to pay restitution to the victim, the judge would use a procedure called outlawry. He'd say, "We will not force the law on you. But since you don't accept the responsibilities of the law, neither shall you have its protections. From now on your legal status will be no different from that of a rabbit or any other wild animal outside the law." Then anyone could hunt him down and kill him or take his things or enslave him. It was none of the court's business. The victim might even hire a bounty hunter to track the criminal down and sell him as a beast of burden to other individuals or corporations.