Punishment For Rapists

[Russ]

I have meant to post a topic like this quite a few times, but have either not gotten around to it or have avoided it because it could potentially be a really emotionally charged topic. But after reading this article, I think it's a question worth asking.. what do you think should be the punishment for those convicted of rape?

 

As far as I'm concerned, I personally place absolutely zero value on the life of an individual who decides that violating other human beings in that way is how they are going to spend that life. People who do that, in my opinion, should be immediately, swiftly, and permanently removed from civilized society via a non-negotiable life sentence or execution. In my opinion, any subhuman piece of walking rubbish who has the audacity and depravity to do that to another human being does not deserve to breathe and should be killed. But of course there is always the issue of false convictions, so I think that unless there's objective, 100%, guaranteed proof that it happened (a clear an uncoerced confession, photographic/video evidence, something of that nature where it is known that the specific person did that specific act), then the person convicted should just get life imprisonment. I mean, I don't feel okay with the idea of a convicted rapist actually being allowed to take up space on Earth.. but unfortunately that's a necessity to prevent innocent people from being executed, which of course should never, ever happen.

 

Even if you don't support the death penalty, which I totally understand, I just can't fathom why people think that just throwing someone into prison for a couple of years and then allowing them to walk among other human beings is actually a sufficient punishment for this. Cannot understand why sentences are as small as they sometimes are. I don't see a single reason why rapists should be allowed to walk around at all, let alone after just a couple of years. Sickening to think that someone I walk by on the street could be someone who did this.

 

Interested in what other people's stances on this are.

 

(post edited cuz the second half of it turned into a larger font for some reason)

Edited November 10, 2013 by Russ

[Nimphal]

I would like to see the correct people getting sentenced before I start making judgements on the punishment. Once we globally agree that it is not, by any means, ever, the victims fault, other things will start falling into place. I don't support death sentences - we are no better if we agree to take a life, nobody has the right to judge a life's worth.

[Welcome Back Apathy]

The interesting thing is, in America we talk about "cruel and unusual punishment" a lot. And prison rape tends to go in that--it's considered cruel, and a serious problem. (It is.) We don't accept rape of prisoners to be an okay punishment.

 

But we consider the death penalty okay.

 

So...are we saying that killing someone is better than raping them?

 

I know, I'm not actually addressing the topic. I got distracted with thoughts of "an eye for an eye".

[tylerscribble]

If a rapist only gets a slap on the wrist, what is the deterrent? The death penalty is a sharp retribution for ruining someone else's life. It is simple justice to punish someone for literally destroying their specifically chosen victim's life. Such a criminal act is worthy of death, which is a shorter lived pain than the victim's anyway. To further that point: What if they get 5 years in prison? So what? They get free rent, food, shelter, tv, gym access, outdoor access, and we pay for it. Then guess what happens? They get released from the free hotel and come and rape YOUR children. You can't act like a pacifist just because it may not have happened to you particularly. If you have empathy, that's when the death penalty comes into play. A criminal like that lacks empathy, and that makes them a danger to all that is good. They need to be removed. The ones who are removed need to be the example for others to not follow in such disgusting footsteps.

[Duma]

I am VERY much against death penalty. I don't feel anyone has the right to take someone else's life. It's just wrong. I do not agree with the things they get in prison, like tv and such. Taking away someones freedom (for more than a few years) is the worst punishment you can give someone. I would really prefer them to be locked up, give them some (safe to do) jobs and NO luxuries. The jobs is more for times that there are plenty of jobs to do for the "free" world so they can "earn their keep"

I don't say I agree with releasing them to the world again, but I just dislike death penalty, no matter how "humane" they are carried out. in my opinion no one has the right to take the life of someone else.

If a soldier kills people because his supervisor told him they get a label war criminal and are considered murderer. The one carrying out the death penalty is a murderer too if you look at it that way. Yes he might be following orders, just like the soldier but it's still wrong.

 

And I'm not even considering they might be innocent, so many people have gotten death penalty when later it turns out they didn't even do it. You destroy a family's life too. When locked up for life, you can still release them when better technology or other proof makes it clear they didn't do it but you can not bring back the dead...

 

I do have empathy but I value a persons life too. (Everyone's life.)

 

On a different road: If you kill a tiger because it killed, is another tiger allowed to kill you for killing that tiger? You see the chain? Where did it start and where will it end? You can say it's completely different but it's the same really, killing someone or something for doing something really bad, on a life destroying scale, to another living being.

 

And another thing, it's not a "distant and unknown" thing for me as my sister (almost) got raped once. Luckily she was able to overpower him and get away. But still, we were all shocked. I still feel the way I do. Hatred brings only hatred.

[AJ11]

The article is a bit a of a red herring, Im not sure you can use it to make a decision on every case of rape because it seems to be written in a sensationalist way and who knows what the truth is.

 

To make a decision like this without any facts is a dangerous thing to do especially where you are going to impose the death penalty.

 

As an example a man raped a woman in a hospital,she was his nurse and she was trying to care for him at the time....awful isnt it and no doubt that sounds like someone who deserves the death penalty

 

however the facts are..the man was an 18 year old lad who had been abused most of his life mostly because his father hated him because he was mentally disabled with the mind of a child, he was taken from his family and put into hospital after his injuries were recognised at last as abuse.

 

The nurse he raped was a lady in her 30's who said that she did not want anything to be done to him because she felt that he had totally misunderstood perhaps the only bit of kindness he had ever been shown and got carried away perhaps because he had not had the kind of upbringing he needed

 

Is it right to decide that all rapists should be put to death ?

[tylerscribble]

By Matt Rivers

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Philadelphia Police are searching for two suspects wanted in connection with a violent home invasion Friday night in the city’s Oxford Circle section.

The incident was reported at the 1500 block of Rosalie Street.

Police tell Eyewitness News a 28-year-old woman was tortured in front of her two-year-old daughter and her four-year-old nephew.

Police say a pair of men broke into the back door of this home on Rosalie Street, attacking the people inside including the 28-year-old woman, her two-year-old daughter and four-year-old nephew, her 54-year-old mother and an electrician working at the house.

“These two individuals tied up all the three adults. They tied up their wrists and their ankles,” Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said.

Beating up the electrician in the process, police say the pair started demanding money, something the 28-year-old said she didn’t have. That’s when one of the attackers allegedly picked up a kitchen knife, turned on the stove, and put the blade in the flame.

“And then four separate times burnt the 28-year-old female, burnt her face, both of her arms and her stomach,” Small said.

Still she refused to speak, so the crime went further.

“Then picked up the 28-year-old’s two-year-old daughter and threatened to kill the daughter if she didn’t say where the money was,” Small said.

Finally she caved, and gave up some money she had. So did her mother and the electrician. The pair got away with nearly $4,000. Glenn Sanders is related to all the victims, an ex-husband, father and grandfather.

“Her mother called me crying and said she’s tied up and you know, you gotta be in this position, I’ve never been in this situation,” Sanders said.

He’s livid though, and hopes police catch those responsible. Neither he nor the police know why the crooks would target this house.

Police are sill looking for the two men. They have limited descriptions of the suspects but are hoping fingerprint evidence recovered inside the home with help identify them.

 

People are evil and they need to be reprimanded when they are allowing their evil to surface. You could say you don't believe in the death penalty, but you agree that the criminals shouldn't get any nice things in prison. So isn't that torturing the criminal, therefore breaching your ideas of "two wrongs don't make a right"? I believe that retribution is correcting a wrong, and if you don't make someone feel like corrective action has been taken, they will just repeat the same mistakes. (Most of the time they aren't even mistakes, but completely preconceived actions). So I see flaws in the pacifist ideas of keeping someone alive and making their life miserable with isolation (done correctly). If the death penalty was banned and criminals were forced to survive in isolation, I would personally at least hope that they have to do back-breaking work all day every day. Or get tested on instead of innocent animals. Very few innocent people are falsely put in prison, especially for long sentences. We are talking death penalty replacement. You have to do something really bad to get that. Many drug pushers get a couple years even when they are doing big operations and have probably killed people. Police don't actually want to deal with all the problems because there are too many. Too many people and not enough isolated spaces to put them or money to fund making more. So again, how much do you want to cater to someone who will destroy an entire family, torture a parent in front of their kids, and even kill their children all for a measley amount of chump change.

 

The article is a bit a of a red herring, Im not sure you can use it to make a decision on every case of rape because it seems to be written in a sensationalist way and who knows what the truth is.

 

To make a decision like this without any facts is a dangerous thing to do especially where you are going to impose the death penalty.

 

As an example a man raped a woman in a hospital,she was his nurse and she was trying to care for him at the time....awful isnt it and no doubt that sounds like someone who deserves the death penalty

 

however the facts are..the man was an 18 year old lad who had been abused most of his life mostly because his father hated him because he was mentally disabled with the mind of a child, he was taken from his family and put into hospital after his injuries were recognised at last as abuse.

 

The nurse he raped was a lady in her 30's who said that she did not want anything to be done to him because she felt that he had totally misunderstood perhaps the only bit of kindness he had ever been shown and got carried away perhaps because he had not had the kind of upbringing he needed

 

Is it right to decide that all rapists should be put to death ?

First of all I find this story very fishy because in a hospital there is a button to call a nurse every where you look in the patient rooms. The patient rooms are also very close to the supervising area where there is usually more nurses or professionals literally sitting on their computers next to the rooms. It isn't just one nurse in a wing of a hospital. I also think it is weird because she could have been screaming for help or again trying to page someone or anything. I don't know how this could have happened without anyone noticing. I can hear an old man screaming in pain in the next room. The walls aren't that thick.

 

Yes he does have a sad story, but he still did something incredibly wrong. Now we should ask the nurse how it got that far. Hospitals are supposed to be equipped to deal with anyone whether it be suicidal, mentally unstable, or any other type of ailment. It's a hospital. My wife got strapped to her bed just because her mother is evil and didn't want to take care of her (making her homeless at the time), and she was called crazy because she was 3 days without sleep and breaking down because she had no where to go. If they are that trigger happy with tying you down, and getting involved where they shouldn't, then they should be capable of dealing with a boy like this.

 

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[passiflora]

I think the death penalty may be a separate debate altogether, but I'll just make a quick note that I don't agree with it. I think it's also important to keep in mind that the most effective prison systems are not necessarily the ones that punish, but the ones that offer education and teach prisoners to be better people (I can't think of the word, but it helps to integrate them back into society and lowers the rates of re-conviction).

 

 

I just can't fathom why people think that just throwing someone into prison for a couple of years and then allowing them to walk among other human beings is actually a sufficient punishment for this. Cannot understand why sentences are as small as they sometimes are.

 

Don't forget that in the US at least, the registered sex offender list is public, and I'm assuming all convicted rapists are on it. It's probably quite the punishment for anyone that wants to have a "normal" life again.

 

 

 

This doesn't necessarily reflect my views as I don't have time for a long reply, but just wanted to bring a few things up that might add to the discussion!

[siniri]

People are evil and they need to be reprimanded when they are allowing their evil to surface. You could say you don't believe in the death penalty, but you agree that the criminals shouldn't get any nice things in prison. So isn't that torturing the criminal, therefore breaching your ideas of "two wrongs don't make a right"? I believe that retribution is correcting a wrong, and if you don't make someone feel like corrective action has been taken, they will just repeat the same mistakes. (Most of the time they aren't even mistakes, but completely preconceived actions). So I see flaws in the pacifist ideas of keeping someone alive and making their life miserable with isolation (done correctly). If the death penalty was banned and criminals were forced to survive in isolation, I would personally at least hope that they have to do back-breaking work all day every day. Or get tested on instead of innocent animals. Very few innocent people are falsely put in prison, especially for long sentences. We are talking death penalty replacement. You have to do something really bad to get that. Many drug pushers get a couple years even when they are doing big operations and have probably killed people. Police don't actually want to deal with all the problems because there are too many. Too many people and not enough isolated spaces to put them or money to fund making more. So again, how much do you want to cater to someone who will destroy an entire family, torture a parent in front of their kids, and even kill their children all for a measley amount of chump change.

Okay, I see that you're an American, so I'm going to limit this to a discussion of the U.S. prison system (the one I know something about, and feel I have the most right to discuss myself as an American citizen). I don't want to get dragged into the philosophical debate because we have vastly different opinions on the inherent nature of humans and the purpose of the criminal justice system, and I don't think either of us could change each other's opinions on either topic. Instead, I would like to put some hard numbers on some of your statements:

 

Wrongful imprisonment rate in the U.S.: 5,000 to 10,000 people per year (and the rate is highest for those on death row!). And that's just raw numbers; that doesn't get into the injustices based on race and socioeconomic status. Check out the Innocence Project, which has overturned a number of convictions based on incontrovertible DNA evidence that the crime was committed by someone else -- people who were serving life terms or even on death row.

 

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, higher than countries that imprison political opponents, protestors, activists, homosexuals, etc. I personally think maybe it's not that we don't have enough prisons (what with so many sitting empty; here's just one example); maybe we're putting too many people in them for too long. The rise in prison population (and the homeless population, not unrelatedly) was concomitant with the closing of mental health institutions in the U.S. The facilities treating the most mentally ill in the U.S. are prisons, though many mentally ill prisoners go untreated.

 

Here's a map showing the use of the death penalty. We were one of only 21 countries in the entire world to use the death penalty in 2011-2012. So how's that working as a deterrent for crime? It's not: we have the highest murder rate of any "developed" nation.

 

Just wanted to put some raw numbers on the arguments you used. As I said, I'd rather not get into the debate properly, since my inherent beliefs are so fundamentally different from yours (e.g., I believe that humans are inherently good, not evil, and that everyone has the capacity for reform. I also believe the primary goals of the criminal justice system should be protection of the public, reparation, and reformation, not punishment. Therefore, the death penalty should only be used when absolutely necessary to protect the public, when no other means are possible for creating security; this condition is not met anywhere in the U.S. today -- I'm not sure it's met anywhere in the world today).

 

Sorry this was only indirectly on the topic of rape, but I think these statistics are germane to any discussion of imprisonment and the use of the death penalty in the U.S., and I wanted to get the numbers out there since points were made based on them. Obviously, given my statement in the previous paragraph, I'm opposed to the death penalty in rape cases. I'm also opposed to minimum sentencing laws on principle, because I'd rather trust the people assessing an individual case to mete out an appropriate minimum sentence considering all extenuating circumstances. (E.g., in some states, it's statutory rape for anyone over 18 to have sex with someone under 18. But what about a hypothetical situation such as two people with birthdays 2 days apart, who have been dating for 5 years and are engaged, celebrating their joint birthdays on the day in between, just before one of them leaves for basic training? Should the older one get the death penalty for that statutory rape? Or even a 5-year minimum prison sentence? What about a 1-year minimum sentence, just for being 25 hours older? My example was intentionally extreme, but it demonstrates the shades of gray possible in a rape conviction.)

[xkittyxxx]

I don't believe in the death sentence.... I can't live with the idea that innocent people would get put to death due to another person's mistake or poor judgement. And we all make mistakes. It's not just the innocent person that has been put to death and has had to pay for these mistakes, it's their families and friends too.

I also believe that people can change and may have done stupid things while they were not right in their own minds.

As for sex offenders, I believe they should be looked at on an individual basis... But in the grand scale of things, they should be sentenced similarly to murderers... They have essential destroyed someone's life and self worth and need to learn that there are consequences to their actions.

Although sometimes I think prison is too soft on them. I have known many people who would happily go back to prison rather than return to life outside... That should not be the case.

But that's just my opinion :)

[Russ]

The interesting thing is, in America we talk about "cruel and unusual punishment" a lot. And prison rape tends to go in that--it's considered cruel, and a serious problem. (It is.) We don't accept rape of prisoners to be an okay punishment.

 

But we consider the death penalty okay.

 

So...are we saying that killing someone is better than raping them?

 

I know, I'm not actually addressing the topic. I got distracted with thoughts of "an eye for an eye".

 

Here is my thought process on this. When the death penalty is applied, I see its role as being to remove the individual from society entirely. Regardless of whether one agrees with it, its goal, I think, is to say that someone's crime(s) is/are so heinous that the only fitting punishment is to get rid of that individual. That is what it accomplishes. Again, whether or not that's a good or bad aim is certainly very debatable, but that's what the aim is.

 

If somebody is raped as a result of committing a crime, all that does is cause immense pain to them. It accomplishes nothing other than putting that person through suffering. The ultimate result of rape is specifically that the victim is harmed, and nothing else.

 

I don't know that I would call either one "better" or "worse" than the other, necessarily, because I don't see what you would take into account to make a qualitative comparison like that.. but when it comes to what is "cruel and unusual", I would say that the death penalty -- which has a specific and purposeful objective of removing someone from society (again, it is obviously debatable whether that is a good or fair objective) -- does not fit that label as much as rape, which exists solely to cause harm and suffering to another human being with no end goal whatsoever.

 

The article is a bit a of a red herring, Im not sure you can use it to make a decision on every case of rape because it seems to be written in a sensationalist way and who knows what the truth is.

 

I am not using that article to make a decision on every case of rape.

I have had an opinion on this for a while and reading that article made me decide to post the topic. I am not using it to argue anything; it was just what happened to spark my mind to start this topic.

 

To make a decision like this without any facts is a dangerous thing to do especially where you are going to impose the death penalty.

I do not think literally anyone in the entire world would tell you that the death penalty, or any penalty, should be imposed for rape or for any other crime "without any facts."

 

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I will say that on this topic I definitely understand and respect opposing opinions. ^_^

I am not going to say that anyone who does not share my viewpoint 'has no empathy' -- it is a matter of how much empathy one has for different people, as well as many other values.

 

To explain my opinion, since all I really did was state it in the OP without totally expanding -- I have never been sexually violated in any way (for which I feel very fortunate.) I can't say "If I were a victim of rape, I would feel X, Y, and Z" because I cannot possibly put myself into someone else's shoes like that, but knowing what I know about myself and knowing how stories like that make me feel, I believe that if I were a victim of rape, the knowledge that the person who did that to me was able to walk on the streets after some duration of time -- if not like everyone else can (because, as passiflora pointed out, we do treat registered sex offenders differently [in the U.S., where I live] than other people once they are out), still among everyone else -- would be unbearable and I would never be able to get closure. Or if it was done to someone incredibly close to me, like a best friend or a sister. It would enrage me that they were still allowed to have some degree of autonomy and intermingle with other people without those people knowing what a sick [inappropriate-expletive-of-your-choice] that rapist is. I could be wrong on this because I cannot fully put myself into the shoes of a rape victim or a rape victim's loved one, but I believe that this is how I would feel. Just imagining a family member or one of my close friends being raped, and imagining that I knew the person who did it was able to walk free.. even picturing it makes me sick. So if I had to live it, then I imagine I'd feel the same way. That is what my stance is based on: the absolute revulsion I have towards rapists and (my educated guess of) how I would feel if rape directly affected my life.

 

I recognize, however, that this is a very emotionally charged viewpoint and one that may contradict some other ideals that I have, so "rapists should be permanently removed from society via lifetime incarceration or the death penalty" is not a stance I'm as solid on as some others I hold.. but it is still, for now, my stance, because I do not think emotions should be left out of the debate entirely when it comes to an issue as inherently emotional as that of sexual assault.

[tylerscribble]

Wrongful imprisonment rate in the U.S.: 5,000 to 10,000 people per year (and the rate is highest for those on death row!). And that's just raw numbers; that doesn't get into the injustices based on race and socioeconomic status. Check out the Innocence Project, which has overturned a number of convictions based on incontrovertible DNA evidence that the crime was committed by someone else -- people who were serving life terms or even on death row.

 

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, higher than countries that imprison political opponents, protestors, activists, homosexuals, etc. I personally think maybe it's not that we don't have enough prisons (what with so many sitting empty; here's just one example); maybe we're putting too many people in them for too long. The rise in prison population (and the homeless population, not unrelatedly) was concomitant with the closing of mental health institutions in the U.S. The facilities treating the most mentally ill in the U.S. are prisons, though many mentally ill prisoners go untreated.

 

Here's a map showing the use of the death penalty. We were one of only 21 countries in the entire world to use the death penalty in 2011-2012. So how's that working as a deterrent for crime? It's not: we have the highest murder rate of any "developed" nation.

 

Just wanted to put some raw numbers on the arguments you used. As I said, I'd rather not get into the debate properly, since my inherent beliefs are so fundamentally different from yours (e.g., I believe that humans are inherently good, not evil, and that everyone has the capacity for reform. I also believe the primary goals of the criminal justice system should be protection of the public, reparation, and reformation, not punishment. Therefore, the death penalty should only be used when absolutely necessary to protect the public, when no other means are possible for creating security; this condition is not met anywhere in the U.S. today -- I'm not sure it's met anywhere in the world today).

Those are interesting points that I will have to review. I definitely agree that it should be a case-by-case judgement of deciding the punishment for ANY crime. They should have thorough evidence and be 'fair' in their judgements. I'm glad that we have juries. They aren't perfect but they help.

 

The prison population is a good debate for this subject, and I will merely say that I think there are a lot of factors as to why we would have higher crime rates. I think traditions and customs have a lot to do with the health of a nation, and also the leaders. I tend to blame the people before the leaders for crime rates, especially since we aren't regulated as much as a non-free country. I think there are a lot of unhealthy customs and traditions that could be removed from society. Exploits that shouldn't be allowed, etc.

 

The statistic about incarceration rates is kind of hard to analyze and use because it's not including what kind of crime or how long they were in prison for. I have a gangster for a neighbor who I get along with because I think the best deterrent is creating a friendly relationship with a potential threat. It's a sort of social camouflage to feign a certain behavior or style that someone has, but it makes them think you are trustworthy. But he goes in and out of prison for drugs/dealing all the time. They are very short sentences, and they don't extend the sentences even when he is a repeat offender. These people aren't being kept in prison for long. We could be putting so many more proven guilty criminals in prison if we wanted to. Police don't always want to deal with it. My neighbor's face is disfigured from fights to the point where he looks like he was born with a cleft lip. I know he has a gun, and has potentially killed people. He was so wanted at one point in time that Arizona fished him out from New York because the Mayor wanted him that badly. He has no will to change and just sees prison as burning his hand on a stove by accident. I know people can stop doing evil at any point, but I am pointing out one example of how it isn't easy. I know you understand this too since you acknowledge the mental health issues. I agree. When people follow evil to such extents, it takes a lot of work to get them to recover. What I do when I talk to him is focus on nicer things like if he has a relationship or how he got married or has kids or things like that. (I do worry for them).

 

I think the death penalty goes hand-in-hand with mental health issues. Our system does NOT take care of mental health at all. The ONLY form of 'care' they attempt is through drugs, which I heavily disagree with. Psych wards, and asylums, they do NOT help people. I know this because my wife was wrongfully accused and put in one for literally doing NOTHING. She had no place to go at the time, and was wrongfully petitioned by her seriously evil mother, which makes no sense to me since my wife is a legal adult and should have rights. I could open that story up but I prefer that my words be trusted there. What I will summarize about her three-month excursion is that she was dying from a chronic disease, while dangerously underweight at 69 lbs. and she never got treatment for the disease, instead only having psych drugs forced on her. She never ate, they didn't care. There was extremely insufficient monitoring. When she did eat near the end of three months, they were giving her the OPPOSITE food that her disease permits. It's a severe stage of Crohn's Disease and she needs simple easy-to-digest foods (gastrointestinal disease). They were giving her mountains of beans and things of that nature that are actually harmful, and she was VERY fragile at her state of health. She needed a black box drug called Humira, which they only gave her near the end, administered by workers who had never handled it before. They have mixed genders, and can enter each others rooms. She did encounter rape situations (from both patients and medical 'professionals'), and narrowly escaped, still close enough though that we both have mental and emotional scars permanently. It was certainly not an unscathed escape. The 'professionals' there do not protect you from the crazies in there. Does it make sense to mix up a bunch of crazy people and expect nothing bad to happen between them? She got punched in the face by a crazy guy for doing nothing. She never had any therapist sessions either. We both marvel over how she made it out alive. It was divine intervention. We are trying to figure out how we can file a lawsuit against these places (not just one). My point is that we are not taking care of people with mental issues, and I do also acknowledge the wrongfully accused, my wife is one of them as I explained. Her experience is the proof we have of our flawed system. My neighbor is another example. They could either keep him in prison longer since he is showing no signs of change, or they could have went the other route and tried to help him with mental therapy. And don't even get me started on mental therapy. I have not seen any true mental therapy come from a 'professional' in my life. They have textbook mindsets and don't know how to approach people with real care and insight. My wife would make a better therapist than anyone I have ever met, and she didn't need a degree. She helped me more than anyone else I have ever known, including my own family, and I have seen her help others as well. If people want to fix criminals with mental therapy, they need to get them REAL help. Not an asylum, not a ward, which only make the insane MORE insane. It is not grounding in reality to put the insane with more insane in a white room. That makes no sense. It does not make sense for them to be without nature being more integrated into their surroundings. It does not make sense to drug someone instead of talk to them. People could benefit a lot from talking to someone who cares and understands to help them. Psychologists fail to meet my standards (I acknowledge that I have not met all of them, but my experiences and observations are where I draw from). Real help is showing care and love, not drugs. Taking the time to get to know their story, to pinpoint their sources of pain, to find ways to help them heal with words and actions. That is the ONLY thing that could effectively replace death penalties for REAL criminals that have been proven guilty.

 

I do believe that humans can repent from evil, but I do believe that humans have evilness in them that they have to be aware of and protect themselves and everyone else from. If you don't have evil then you are perfect. That means any time we pick up a wallet found on the ground we will always have the two options of keeping it or returning it. Maybe we need to feed our hungry family like Jean val Jean and the bread, and maybe we are simply wanting the money for our own gain. It is a nearly inescapable or even subliminal temptation. But if we are trained in our minds we will think about what that would do to the person who lost it if we didn't return it, what their situation is and their feelings, and simply choose to have good will. This next example is a little strange to those who don't think deeply into everything they encounter (which I do recommend), but I still want to share it. When I am online looking at users of a game or community of artistic nature I do tend to see a large amount of people expressing a liking of evil-based ideas or aesthetics. I find that interesting to study since I grew up with that community and have the experiences to draw from. Even Neopets at times (to me) seems to have more dark and scary looking pets winning the Customization contest. I know these examples probably sound silly, but I find them interesting because they are online, and online you find a lot of unmasked truths with human expression since they have the choice to hide their real identity or express their true identity without repercussion (in most cases). Plus they have the ability to virtually express a persona or character that they otherwise could not. You can trace every action of a person down to a truth about them. That is how you find out about people's identity, is tracking those little notions and asking why. Truth is simply about reading into things (I give credit to my wife for helping me see and hone these tactics). So I do agree that humans can stop themselves from being evil, but I also know there is no way to permanently rid ourselves of sinful nature. I guess to sum up our different thoughts is to say that humans are inherently good and evil at the same time. It just depends on how we balance our inner-selves since the inner is what stems the actions of the outer (which is why notions can be traced). To be good is to practice self-discipline, similar to the method of monks. Identifying a thought, behavior, or action as healthy or unhealthy, and making corrections and adjustments as needed. Practicing inner-strength and control. I believe that is what makes someone good. It is what they've done to stop evil from growing. People NEED to do this actively, and if they don't, then bad things happen. That is why I have a hard time with criminals. It is possible to get unhealthy, but going so far as to rape someone with a planned process and awareness of what they are doing all drawn out in their mind is despicable. If you focus on someone who has lived on this planet for three or four decades, they have had a lot of time to practice such control. I know everyone's story is different, but I have to bring up points to add to the debate. I will say too that I think porn contributes to a lot of sexual harassment. If a male abstains from such behavior over a long period of time, they will have less temptations or urges. An addiction to cigarettes can be cut off, it may be hard at first, but it gets easier to avoid as you continue on. Thus is the same with all addictions. I think sexual addiction is the key to stopping any sex offender.

 

When I bring up sexual addiction, that brings up a whole other slew of problems. Sexual exploitation. It's in the media, in the advertisements, in products, in gaming (which I am very passionately against), in men or women's personal choices of clothing or activities, pretty much every where you look or go. What does a reality like this expect when it is attempting to tempt every living thing? I now have an image blocker button on my Firefox addons so that I can read the news without feeling like I am going to a porn site. It's pretty bad these days. I play Neopets as an adult because it is whimsical and light-hearted and fun and safe. I don't watch many movies. I still enjoy children's picture books. I am to the point where I literally wonder why we ever stop treating ourselves as children. Children are protected from these things (generally), and they are treated as fragile creatures. I think we should treat all humans that way. We wouldn't want our kids to watch the rated 'R' horror movies, calling it filling their mind with garbage, so why should WE fill OUR minds with garbage, especially when WE are the ones MORE CAPABLE of doing MORE damage than a child (in most cases)? Why should we expect grown adults to have some superhuman ability to be inherently good? We CAN be good and resist, but why should we tempt evil every second that we try to be good?

 

I will pause here to refrain from turning my essay into a novel. Sorry for the long post!

[brynchilla]

If a soldier kills people because his supervisor told him they get a label war criminal and are considered murderer. The one carrying out the death penalty is a murderer too if you look at it that way. Yes he might be following orders, just like the soldier but it's still wrong.

~

I think it's wrong to say that.

In a war, there is going to be death. It doesn't make you a criminal to defend your country and the rights that it has.

Which, one of those rights in the US, is ironically freedom of speech.

If it wasn't for those 'war criminals' and 'murders', we wouldn't have that freedom.

 

 

Our system does NOT take care of mental health at all.

~

Oh I agree with you on that one.

I don't even know what you or your wife look like, but I want to put you both up on pedestals for living through that.

 

 

"Real help is showing care and love, not drugs. Taking the time to get to know their story, to pinpoint their sources of pain, to find ways to help them heal with words and actions."

~

I also agree with you on this part. I'm currently seeing a psychiatrist for some problems I'm having. They don't really do much, you just go in, answer a few questions and they give you medicine for it. They don't get to know you, or what you're going through. Just the bare minimum to get by, and sometimes it's not even that. When I was younger, I was miss-diagnosed with ADD, and the therapist/psychiatrist were throwing medicine at me, without really looking at what I was going through. I've found that just with talking, and through talking and finding different ways to handle things, that I am able to stop taking one of my pills that I had to take before, because I was told it would help me.

 

 

"I do believe that humans can repent from evil, but I do believe that humans have evilness in them that they have to be aware of and protect themselves and everyone else from. If you don't have evil then you are perfect. "

~

I'm just going to agree with everything you are saying.

I think it's like having a taste of something new. Once you taste it, you usually don't forget what it taste like. The memory is always going to be there.

Once you have experienced something, there is always the pull to do it again. It's the thrill, the adrenalin rush that makes you want to do it again.

You cannot have a light without a shadow. There is no night without day. The two two things, evil and good balance each other out.

 

 

Even Neopets at times (to me) seems to have more dark and scary looking pets winning the Customization contest.

~

Personally, I like the dark and scary look because there are so many different items for it. Plus, after a while, the hearts and rainbows of the other customization just gets bleh.

 

 

 

I think a big part of good and evil depends on the person's point of view. Depending on the culture that you grew up in, some things may be totally normal to you, while totally not to someone else.

[MarioFanaticXV]

The interesting thing is, in America we talk about "cruel and unusual punishment" a lot. And prison rape tends to go in that--it's considered cruel, and a serious problem. (It is.) We don't accept rape of prisoners to be an okay punishment.

 

But we consider the death penalty okay.

 

So...are we saying that killing someone is better than raping them?

 

I know, I'm not actually addressing the topic. I got distracted with thoughts of "an eye for an eye".

 

The death penalty in and of itself is not cruel and unusual. If you do some torturous, drawn out execution, then that's cruel and unusual. If you do a quick, relatively painless execution, that's not cruel and unusual. But that's a seperate topic entirely.

 

As for myself, I believe that the death penalty is appriopriate for rape- but only for the rapist. If there is a child concieved by rape, the child should not have to suffer because of what one of their parents did, and to punish the child for the sins of their father (or in rare cases, the mother) did is simply barbaric.

[rinoa812]

Well as someone who has had a close encounter with this kind of situation, I think rapists are despicable. That being said I do not agree with the death penalty for any reason. Im a hippocrate though in a way because if someone hurt my child like that I might retaliate . violently >.<I have known people in prison before and they do tell me they have some nice things there but for the most part its a miserable experiance. And I hear that rapists are not popular in prisons. The guards abuse them and the other inmates do as well. So maybe some kind of solitary situation would be best. For life. None of this 10 months and you are free thing. Sadly here in my state , women are generally blamed for the rape. Things like , well she shouldnt have been walking alone that late, or her skirt was to short. Or even, shes making it up to get sympathy. I have heard all of these excuses before and they should not be tolerated. I think I should be able to take a walk at night to look at the moon, without worrying that some man cant control his urges and might attack me. Why is it the womans fault that someone cant control themselves. Until these people stop blaming the victim (because some women will even defend the rapist) rapists will not get the punishment they deserve. But eh I didnt mean to go on a rant .

[sniffismydog]

Rape is such a hard to understand topic. I was in an abusive relationship many years ago, and it resulted in me getting raped. It took me up until last year, about 3 years after the incident, to even be able to comprehend what had happened to me and why. Part of what made it so confusing is that it wasn't a violent act done in a back alley by a complete stranger. It was more of a misunderstanding. Even to this day, I know for a fact that he does not see himself as a rapist or that he could even see why I would see it as such a personal invasion. In this situation, the best "punishment" per say would just be some good ol' understanding. Maybe some counseling and rehabilitation for him so that he can see that what he did was wrong and that it shouldn't happen again. Jail will do nothing. He won't feel remorse because he thinks he did nothing wrong. Killing him is just over the top. Again, he can't feel remorse. The whole idea of "punishment" is to get somebody to learn from their actions. They can't learn if they're dead.

[beruichi]

Rape is such a difficult crime to prosecute. It mostly boils down to a question of credibility, because usually, the only witnesses to the crime are the accused and the supposed victim (unless there are more than two accused or victims, or there is a third party present to witness the crime, but I digress). So ultimately, the judge (because we don't have a jury system in my country) will decide whose story is more believable. One of the essential elements of this crime is lack of consent, which is very hard to prove, because consent is a state of mind. Sure, consent may be expressed through words or actions, but how do you prove those words or actions? Through witness statements, which is again, weighed at the discretion of the judge. (Unless you have a video, but then again, it still may not be conclusive).

 

My point is that given the difficulty of ascertaining the accuracy of a conviction of rape, I find it difficult to sentence an accused to death. Mind you, I support death penalty, because I believe it may serve as a deterrent against certain heinous crimes. My problem is, how certain are we that the person to be executed actually committed the crime? If we are 100% certain of the person's guilt, then I say off with that person's head. But then there is the whole issue on reformation and second chances, and that penalties aren't supposed to be punitive but correctional. I will not expound on this, since the current 'correctional facilities' in my country is anything but effective, but in theory, imprisonment for the purpose of reforming the criminal would be more advantageous to society than outright killing the person convicted.

 

In any case, rape is a very serious crime as it violates a person's agency and robs them of their choice, so the accused, if proven guilty, should suffer the highest form of punishment that may be imposed. Imprisonment is well and good, but I wish that even if they are behind bars, they could still contribute to society. (It's a shame that involuntary servitude is unconstitutional where I'm from, because imagine the manpower that could be utilized if the inmates could be put to work, but again, I digress.)

 

With respect to the article OP linked, I am appalled at the impunity when it comes to rape, and what's frightening is that this is not an isolated incident in a single country; this is prevalent in most, if not all countries, including mine. Victims are afraid to charge their offenders because it will cause more harm to them than to their offenders. Rape culture is disgustingly entrenched in society to the point that whenever a rape occurs, the victim is usually blamed, and society always tries to find excuses for the offender. This culture has to change, because only then will the law follow.

[miraclemommy]

the guy who raped me only got 6months probation. Pretty crappy system if you ask me.

 

Any rapist should get the same done to them. But i dont think the death penalty, thats the easy way out for them. I think solitary confinement for the rest of their pathetic lives.

[Pookies]

Reminds me of the reddit forum of a guy posting about the rapes he committed (some psychologists have said serial rapists love to brag and this way they can relive that moment but also means that they might strike again in the near future) and asked for others to post their rape stories (if they ever raped someone and how did they do it)...And many who replied showed a similar pattern that they did not realize they were raping someone until they were doing it or after it happened.

 

link to an article about the thread: http://jezebel.com/5929544/rapists-explain-themselves-on-reddit-and-we-should-listen

another: http://www.xojane.com/issues/serial-rapist-posts-his-story-reddit-people-predictably-appalled

 

I think what we can get out of this is to try to understand there are different states of minds...some people do not know what they are doing while others are just evil and heartless. Some people are willing to admit their mistakes, others are in denial, and others are just lost cases for humanity. I think they should all get some sort of punishment, but I think it depends case by case...

 

For instance:

Would you punish someone for stealing candy the same way you would punish another for stealing a car or robbing a bank?

 

At the same time, some people who get raped dont want to admit it happened to them or are in denial

http://www.xojane.com/search?query=i+was+raped

I was trying to find the post I was referring to but couldnt so Im just linking to the search

 

while I was searching for that, I came across this. Ithought it had a powerful ending, so i am sharing:

http://www.xojane.com/sex/my-rapist-friended-me-facebook-and-all-i-got-was-lousy-article

[lordnuggets]

I am nearly always totally against the death penalty. The first focus should be whether whoever was doing whatever serious crime (murder, rape) has the ability to do it again. If sending them in for an (American) life sentence won't stop them from breaking out, or doing it to inmates or guards, then maybe the death sentence would be okay. I hope this makes enough sense.