Longevity And Justice

[Kaodi]

In a PbP game I am in here on the boards the prospect has been raised of trying and sentencing two drow. While I do not expect length of sentence will be an issue in this particular trial it did make me think: how do you sentence people justly when different races have radically different lifespans?

Two years to any of us would be a substantial if surmountable period of time to be imprisoned. But to an elf it would be like three months. Alternatively a life sentence to an elf would possibly be much more severe, spanning hundreds of years.

And there is a second issue as well: how do you deal with youth justice when you have races that age at significantly different rates? How do you judge an elven child or "teen" who is as old as a middle aged human?

We like to say that justice is blind in the real world (as much as it may not be the case in practice) but in a fantasy world with vastly differently life expectancies blind justice may not be justice at all.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

First, we must establish what a given society views as just. In fantasy worlds, we regularly inject out own ideals of justice, and quite rightly so, because 99% of us aren't experts on medieval justice, and anyway Faerun and Eberron aren't Medieval Earth.

So, do we just run with that, do we lean in to the perception of incredibly harsh and brutal "justice" in pre-modern times, or do we research like the dickens to try to get something similar to a given period and setting of our real world?

Let's say we assume the following about a nation that we'll call, Al Barone:

THere is a criminal justice system. Not just knights and lords who decide what justice means and carry it out, but an actual system. There are judges, appeals, laws that can be referenced, and solicitors. SUch systems go back at least to the pre-Christian Brithonic Celts, so it's not a wild idea.

The purpose of our hypothetical nation's criminal justice systems is to seek an ideal form of unbiased justice, for the good of the social order.

Individuals have rights in Al Barone, as individuals, and the social order and justice system, at least on paper, cares about those rights and the good of individuals.

The point of trial and sentencing is not primarily to punish the criminal as harshly as the law allows, but rather to mete out fair sentences based on the harm done.

Al Barone is a diverse nation, run by gnomes, with a large elf population, as well as many humans, goliaths, dwarves, dragonborn, etc. It's major cities are trade hubs, so people from the entire region have settled there, and been part of the society for many generations.

So, how does justice look, in Al Barone?

If an elf, a gnome, a dwarf, and a goliath are all on trial for murder, on a given day. Each murder would a crime of passion, and each is at the cusp of maturity by the measure of their own people. Thus, will their sentences be of varying lengths based on their life expectencies?

I would argue that no, they will all receive, if convicted, similar sentences, and those will be based on a system of determination that focuses on the offense, rather than the offender. If the crime was premeditated, there would be more time. WIth a violent past, more time. It would be rare for a life sentence to be handed out, and death sentences would be reserved only for the most heinous of crimes. To waste the life of a person that can change and be an entirely different person in a 100 years is anethema, and as a result, the shorter lived races share in the grace that the hyper intelligent and long lived gnomes share.

 

[MechaPilot]

I think it's more than reasonable for longer-lived races to face longer sentences. However, that assumes the notion that punishment is what matters in determining sentences.

In a system that attempts to balance the victims' need to see the offender punished (and, to a certain extent, that of society as well) with the broader social need to reform and reintegrate the offender (ignoring situations of exile or execution), this may not be the case.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Theoretically all humanoids in D&D are physically enough mature for marriage since 16 or 18 years old.

Jail isn't the unique punishment for criminals. Divine magic could cast some spell like the penance stare by ghost rider, or a demiplane where prisoners can't get older because it is only a minute in the physical world, but years in their mind. Or they would avoid the death but only if they accept to become half-golem to work like robots for years.

And in a fantasy world where vampire and other supernatural creatures are a real menace, almost all the people fear the judgment in the afterlife and that is a good reason to be not a sinner or a criminal.

 

[Umbran]

Two years to any of us would be a substantial if surmountable period of time to be imprisoned. But to an elf it would be like three months.

Not necessarily.

As a fraction of their total life, sure, it isn't much. They won't be as concerned about the effective loss of life wasted in prison. But that is largely an intellectual measure. It isn't like, in their personal experience, a minute flashes by in what to us is a subjective second. They still *live* and *experience* all the incarcerated time. And, let us not pretend that a pseudo-medieval prison designed to hold magic-using elves is going to be clean, dry, sweet-smelling,and pleasant. It is still years stashed away in a dank stone box, eating the crappiest food imaginable, with the vermin.... Nobody wants to live through years of that, even if they have yet more years on the other side.

 

[trancejeremy]

I am skeptical that prisons would exist in a fantasy world. More likely you'd have some sort of physical punishment - losing an ear, limb, eye, etc, depending on the crime, or just executed. Especially since religion in fantasy worlds is not simply a matter of faith, but built into the universe.

And in higher magic settings you'd have things like quest/geas instead. (Indeed, the D&D Geas comes from a Clark Ashton Smith story about someone being punished for interrupting a wizard)

 

[MechaPilot]

Not necessarily.

As a fraction of their total life, sure, it isn't much. They won't be as concerned about the effective loss of life wasted in prison. But that is largely an intellectual measure. It isn't like, in their personal experience, a minute flashes by in what to us is a subjective second. They still *live* and *experience* all the incarcerated time. And, let us not pretend that a pseudo-medieval prison designed to hold magic-using elves is going to be clean, dry, sweet-smelling,and pleasant. It is still years stashed away in a dank stone box, eating the crappiest food imaginable, with the vermin.... Nobody wants to live through years of that, even if they have yet more years on the other side.

And that assumes they actually get fed. I've heard that some prisons in antiquity didn't feed their inmates. Instead, people who cared for the incarcerated had to bring them food.

 

[Tonguez]

That’s why fantasy should either use real dark ages punishments (maiming, beheading, torture, exile, branding, enslavement) or fantasy punishments (frozen in carbonate, turned into a frog/beast)

Ands what’s youth justice? - give them a good flogging and send them to the mines

 

[delericho]

And in higher magic settings you'd have things like quest/geas instead.

I'd be inclined to agree with this.

 

[Blue]

If we are talking about incarceration at hard labor until the wronged have been repaid damages, blood gold, whatever, then the rate or repayment would control the length of stay, irregardless of lifespan.

If we are talking about long term incarceration as punishment to the offender and/or a disincentive to others to commit the crime, then the period needs to be an actual punishment, and be seen as an actual punishment. Which would head towards lifespan scaled punishments. Finland does this with some fines - they are scaled to income so that the very wealth are not free to effectively ignore laws punished via fines while the very poor are punitively hit by a minor infraction.

https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...nd-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/

One other point to consider is the availability of magic as alternative sentencing - in some ways long term imprisonment on a large scale is a more modern invention as other punishments were phased out for cruelty. But magic could provide alternatives that are less expensive to provide. For example, someone might receive an appropriate Geas for a smaller crime, and there may be law-specific spells that haven't been detailed, much like we didn't have Ceremony in the PHB.