Crime And Punishment OT

1: Do you approve of the death penalty?

2: Do you think rapist and child molesters should ever be released back into society?

3: What about children who commit murder (not in self defense) should they be locked away for life?

4: Can you recall any sentences handed down that you thought were to lenient or to harsh for the crime?

5: Can you think of any other punishments you would like introduced other than the norm?

Your thoughts on any of these would be much appreciated OT

I realized lives are disposable and this is coming from a bible student

I believe that if a country has the capacity to hold a prisoner for life then that is what it must do. If killing a criminal is the only way to protect society then so be it, but the death penalty punishes death with more death. We already live in a death heavy world, we don't need anymore.

only for war criminals

not sure

osama bin laden should have been captured and tried at the hague, that would be more brutal for him

de guillotine

• Death Penalty - I do not approve of it in any sense aside from a specific society or an emergency situation within a society where a prisoner cannot be housed indefinitely away from the public.
• Rapists/Child Molesters - Assuming they have been successfully rehabilitated, have served their time, and will become productive members of society, then I don't see any reason why not.
• Sentences - You really want specific examples? Um... I think people should get 10+ years for killing someone with a car while either intoxicated or distracted. Driving is a privilege that requires 100% focus and concentration. Anyone who doesn't want to take it seriously doesn't deserve to drive.
• New punishments - I would like stupid people to not be allowed to have children (i.e. This fucking ****).

I have a question for you. Why does this interest you?

jesus, that video. fucking racist bitch. does she really think the law is on her side there?

Apparently she's stripped for a lot of cops.

@foxhound_fox: I just figured it would be a good topic with lots of discussion value, and I'm interested to see everyone's answers and opinions, especially to question 4 because sometimes judges can pass some crazy sentences that make u think WTF.

In relation to your link, that women should have her kids taken off her for sure.

@foxhound_fox: "Rapists/Child Molesters - Assuming they have been successfully rehabilitated, have served their time, and will become productive members of society"

How can you know if someone is successfully rehabilitated, they could just say all the right things, behave in the desired manner all just to be released and offend again maybe even commit a worst crime. I think if someone has it in them to commit horrible crimes it will always be in them.

Off topic , this thread is BRHD style , not crappy at all like BRHD's, but opinion style matches BRHD's way of thread making lol.

I think we should do away with "cruel and unusual punishment" clause in the 8th Amendment. We could learn so much from not having it!

1) No.

2) It depends.

3) It depends.

4) Not really, but I also don't really care to think too hard about that.

5) Not really.

Uh, you are joking, right? I'm assuming that you must be joking, but given how people are (case in point, the dumbass in the video that you just posted), it's hard to tell.

@MrGeezer: I wonder if he thought that punishment all the way through

Hopefully he was just joking. Otherwise, one could make the argument that he wasn't smart enough to think that punishment all the way through. Which would mean that if he got his way, he'd be one of the first ones to have demonstrated that he's stupid (and should therefore not be allowed to have children).

1. Yes, in certain situations. There's a guy in my city who raped a bunch of women and tortured them, was allowed to live with his mother on house arrest and, surprise surprise, he wasn't 'cured' and went and kidnapped, held hostage and repeatedly raped a girl in a store. He deserves to be put down, because you can't stop someone like that. Why leave them in jail for life? It won't help anyone and will just be a taxpayer drain. Thankfully though, he 'died' in jail.

2. Depends on the situation. I could be considered a 'child molester' because my boyfriend and I were born 7 months apart and when a change in the age of consent happened, I was past it but he was still below it because of those few months. Am I gonna go touch a 5 year old? No. There are a lot of situations where people are statutory rapists, sex offenders or child molesters that do NOT deserve to be on the list but were because of technicalities or parents pressing charges against their kid's boyfriend or girlfriend who was just slightly older than them.

But other than those technicality cases, probably no. They should rot there.

3. If they're killing in defense, they should walk free. If they killed someone over an ipod or slender man, they're not well and should probably be rehabilitated. If they're mentally unstable that probably will not happen and they can be kept away from society.

4. Casey friggin Anthony. That bitch got away with everything because of shoddy police work missing evidence. And Karla Homolka. She's wandering around free after she helped her husband rape and kill a bunch of girls.

As for too harsh... pretty much all pot-related anything.

5. Castration for male rapists.

@thegerg:

"No

It depends.

It depends.

Yes.

Yes"

Are you in a mood with me Gerg, just giving me one word answers like my wife when she's in a mood :P

Care to elaborate on any of your answers especially question 4.

@indzman: "3: What about children who kill should they be locked away for life? DEPENDS"

ok say a child kills his/her parents by drugging them and stabbing them multiple times, just because they wouldn't let him do something he wanted to do, the parents were nothing but good to him/her and provided a stable home. let's say this child is 13.

I shouldn't have used the word kill because it's not very specific I'll change it to murder.

(1) No I don't approve of the death penalty. Besides it being costly on the legal system, there's many cases that cause to question whether the people even did it, and with that in doubt I don't think there should be any legal system. People should get life instead, and they have room for potential evidence or challenges to their conviction to be considered.

(2) Some states have a law that prevents sex offenders from being released at holding them indefinitely. I'm against this, people get sentenced, they serve their sentence, they should be released. It'd probably help though if the criminal justice system actually attempted to rehabilitate people so that when they are released their in a better position to be reintroduced back into society, not just for sex offenders, but everybody. This is not how it works though. It's entirely a punitive system.

(3) Children tried as adults I think again goes back to that rehabilitation issue. Children are still in development both cognitively and morally and an attempt to rehabilitate them should be open. I share this view about people in general whether they're children or not. Our prison system should not be punitive in design but rather it should be designed to rehabilitate.

(4)

Too lenient - The affluenza defense of Ethan Couch, who while as a teenager drunk driving killed 4 people and injured 11 others. His defense was "affluenza", he stole booze from a store, was driving with a .24 BAC. His defense that since he was rich he was under the impression that his wealth made everything he did inconsequential. Given this defense he was argued to not be accountable for his offenses. The judge bought it.

To harsh - take the whole PA Child Care scandal. For profit prisons are a major problem in the US and influence the entire criminal justice system. In this case the PA Child Care private juvenile justice system was in cahoots with the juvenile court judge, who would sentence children to custody of PA Child Care without a trial, and with no clear conditions on release. The children then being in PA Child Care custody sent tax dollars to PA Child Care, and the detention centers would then give financial kick backs to the judge for his contributions to their success. It's cruelty and corruption at its worse, but it's also symptomatic of America's prison industrial complex.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=232qaFGyzwQ#t=1836

(5) more attention needs to be paid to white collar crime and corporate crime, and corruption. Big businesses has little incentive to follow the law as their often penalized such meager sums on their offenses. Also, they often aren't even held accountable when they do wrong. People involved in scheming aren't held accountable either. That needs to change.

13 ?

Should be put in juvenille jail where they put kids according to crime. But in no way death sentence as a 13 year ol barely knows whats right from wrong , jail time in juvenille section is appropiate ... imo :)

@lamprey263:

"No I don't approve of the death penalty. Besides it being costly on the legal system"

What about clear cut cases of seriel killers where the evidence shows without a doubt that someone is guilty. Should the tax payer have to pay to keep these people alive.

"Some states have a law that prevents sex offenders from being released at holding them indefinitely. I'm against this, people get sentenced, they serve their sentence, they should be released"

What about those that get released and then re offend sometimes even commiting a worse crime like not just raping but going a step further and killing also? Don't people deserve to be protected from such potential threats?

"The affluenza defense"

Ridiculous I can't believe this stands up in court, just some bullshit dreamed up to protect rich kids, I mean who gives these kids the idea they can cause harm and it be ok because they're rich? Maybe the parents should be punished instead.

@indzman: "But in no way death sentence as a 13 year ol barely knows whats right from wrong"

Surely at 13yrs old you know murdering someone is wrong, but I wouldn't want to see a young child given the death penalty, but a child commiting such a crime without any reasonable reason means there's a deep evil residing in that child.

(1) It still costs a shit ton more in resources to pursue a death penalty case through all its appeals and bureaucratic costs than it does to incarcerate them for life, the cost of keeping them alive is arguably more frugal on state resources. This has been known for years.

Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about this:

Donald McCartin, an Orange County, California Jurist famous for sending nine men to death row during his career, has said, "It's 10 times more expensive to kill [criminals] than to keep them alive." This exclamation is actually low according to a June 2011 study by former death penalty prosecutor and federal judge Arthur L. Alarcón, and law professor Paula Mitchell. According to Alarcón and Mitchell, California has spent $4 billion on the death penalty since 1978, and death penalty trials are 20 times more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. Studies in other states show similar patterns.

(2) Recidivism is a major issue in the US, but that's more a problem with the roles prisons play. Like I said, prison systems are punitive in design and rehabilitation is not at the core of the criminal justice system. As is stands now 70% people who go to prison will be back in 3 years of their release. A major reason for this is the inability for former prisoners to reintegrate back into society. For sex offenders the recidivism rate is considerably lower, only 5% for being arrested for another crime, 2.5% of another sex crime. 1% of people who served time for homicide repeat the offense. Yet I find it strange that sex offenders are required to register yet other criminals who statistically stand a much better chance of recidivism aren't. Personally I don't think anybody should be required. Recidivism is linked with an inability to integrate in society. Making people social pariahs through registries does nothing to help their integration. They should still be monitored though, that's why we have parole officers and ankle monitoring. The highest crimes for recidivism within 3 years are:

Released prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were robbers (70.2%), burglars (74.0%), larcenists (74.6%), motor vehicle thieves (78.8%), those in prison for possessing or selling stolen property (77.4%) and those in prison for possessing, using or selling illegal weapons (70.2%).

That's how things are now with our current, broken criminal justice system. Though people are driven by fear of crime trends that aren't that big of trends. And things could be improved. But again our criminal justice system is punitive in design. We could try to rehabilitate and that could drive recidivism rate down immensely.

1. absolutely

2. under strict supervision, circumstances, rehabilitation, testing and only after serving real time.

3. tough one... not sure. Depends on the age, curcumstance, psych evaluation, family history, child's change to juvy, jail and prison.

4. no. although I havent gotten hefty fines for no insurance before but I've never had an accident in my life except my first truck.

5. Yes. Littering should be more than a fine. They should have to clean up trash with roadside crews. Punishment that goes to helping our environment and learning a lesson can go a long way.

Punishment for child molesters is that they have to spend 20 mins with the dad of the victim alone. Dad can't kill them and paramedics are on standby.

Just about any harmless possession charge of marijuana should be eradicated.

Because I'm totally like that woman in the video. Why should ignorant, despicable people be allowed to reproduce?

1. If society needs to kill someone to protect innocent people yes. But with modern prisons it's no longer necessary.

2. Under some circumstances (not repeat offenders, seem like they are serious about not doing so again, feasible to monitor them after release).

3. How young are we talking? What are the circumstances. Was it premeditated, or spur of the moment?

4. Too harsh: Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Hobby Lobby (if they don't win their court case), my cousin (2 years probation for punching some lady).

5. Don't know.

1. Absolutely

2. I'm leaning more towards "no". However, the cost of keeping them locked up long-term is more detrimental towards the taxpayer (me), so maybe they should after they served their time.

3. I think children should be held accountable for their crimes the same as adults.

4. Yes - the OJ trial. It's obvious he did it, everyone knew it.

5. For the most heinous crimes, those criminals should be locked in a room for months with Justin Bieber's song "Baby" played over and over and over...

Because it's a natural bodily function. How would you be able to stop such a person from reproducing? Would you remove her ovaries, inject her with chemicals, tie her tubes?

there have always have been ignorant, despicable people. There always will be. You cannot remove all the weeds in a field without also damaging the crops.

I want you to really think that through. You're basically saying that because you think someone is stupid or don't like their opinions that they shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. Do you really want the right to reproduce to be decided by someone else? Because I bet we could find a pretty vocal group of people that think you're despicable and shouldn't raise children.

Thought this was going to be about the Dostoyevsky novel.

@lamprey263:

"Yet I find it strange that sex offenders are required to register yet other criminals who statistically stand a much better chance of recidivism aren't"

"Making people social pariahs through registries does nothing to help their integration"

You have a lot of sympathy for sex offenders, but IMO rape of a women molesting of children has to be right up there at the top of worst crimes possible to commit, taking away a child's innocents, a woman having to endure being raped, these things have lasting negative effects on the victims life. So even just committing a sex crime once is enough to damage a victims life forever.

These guys should not be aloud to go on and lead happy lives, because the victims are not left better off for the experience are they.

To many people think of the criminals rights. They should loose those rights once they have made a conscious decision to ruin someone else's life.

You should have to register for raping the English language

@indzman: "THAT DENMARK MASS MURDERER , KILLED 76 PEOPLE AND STILL ENJOYING PS 2 ON JAIL.SHOULD HAVE BEEN KILLED ASAP"

I heard that this guy even moaned that he has to play ps2 with only rayman to play on it while everyone else has a ps3 with call of duty which in itself is punishment but not punishment enough. This guy killed 76 young people and tarnished the lives of their families,

I can't even think of a suitable punishment to make up for all the physical and mental pain he has caused.

@lostrib: "I want you to really think that through. You're basically saying that because you think someone is stupid or don't like their opinions that they shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. Do you really want the right to reproduce to be decided by someone else? Because I bet we could find a pretty vocal group of people that think you're despicable and shouldn't raise children"

This woman is a fine example to her kids hey? Spreading her hatred to the kids, it should be a form of abuse passing such hateful opinions on to your kids, hopefully the kids in that video grow up and realise how pathetic their parents are, people who bring up someone's race into a situation are pathetic.

Once again, try and think that through, if you are capable

Uh, think about this practically, dude. Once their lives have been ruined and they can't get a job and quite possibly can't even legally live in their town (what with ordinances and whatnot), what the hell else do you think they're gonna do? This is why it's not uncommon for sex offenders to end up off the grid with a lot of time on their hands to think about doing more rape.

@lostrib: what re think the fact that it's wrong to instill hateful opinions into your kids and should be a form of mental abuse, nah I think I will stick with my opinion fanx.

what in the **** are you trying to say?

Child abuse is already illegal, and is potentially grounds for removing children from a parent's custody. Spreading hatred is not abuse, at least not in the general sense. Many people hate someone. By stating that teaching children to hate is grounds to be denied the right to reproduce, there's an implicit notion that it's unacceptable to hate CERTAIN PEOPLE.

Take you, for example. In another post, you publicly expressed your opinion that society is too cushy on sex offenders and that they deserve to suffer for what they did to their victims. Gee, that almost sounds like HATE. Not quite hate, but that's pushing it. Reword the statement in a slightly more forceful manner, state it in front of your kids, and it could be argued that you're teaching your children to hate sex offenders.

Are you starting to see one of the problems here? Public opinion on certain issues tends to sway. Anti-black sentiment used to be the norm, but has gone out of favor. Anti-gay sentiment is still here, but tolerance of homosexuals is becoming more widespread and anti-gay bigots are slowly going out of favor. Point being...the group who it is acceptable to hate today can easily become widely tolerated in the future. Now consider that the USA is already considered kind of backwards with its punitive approach to crime (as opposed to a rehabilitative approach). If the overall sentiment ever swings towards the rehabilitative aspect, then people clinging to the "they deserve to suffer" argument could easily be considered to be a dying breed of hateful bigots whose ideas are poisoning the minds of our children. Hey, time to go get forcibly sterilized!

Anyway, I want you to take note of how vague the forced steilization argument tends to be. The other dude initially said that stupid people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce, and offered up that video as evidence. Well...is there actually any evidence that the woman in the video is stupid? She's obviously a racist, sure, but STUPID? I didn't see her IQ score anywhere in the video, nor did I see any mention of her education. It'd be objectively pretty hard to prove that she is STUPID based solely on that video.

So, what? Are we really saying that RACISTS shouldn't be allowed to have kids? Are we saying that confrontational jackasses shouldn't be allowed to have kids? What exactly are the criteria here? The guy later clarified her as being ignorant and despicable. That's problematic too. Ignorant? Ignorant of WHAT? Everyone is ignorant of a shitload of things, so who gets to decide exactly which ignorances are worthy of forcible sterilization? I suck ass when dealing with money, and that ignorance is probably gonna rub off on my kids. Is that worthy of forcible sterilization? How about people who are ignorant of basic scientific or political knowledge? Again, that also could be seen as detrimental, so let's sterilize those parents too.

And "despicable"? Well, shit, what does that even mean? People and actions that are despised change over time, and the fact is that deeming things despicable is often the vestige of ignorant-ass people clinging to their bigotry. Interracial marriages used to be despicable. Homosecuality used to be despicable. "Despicable" refers to "things that people despise", and that is so freaking vague that it's worthless. I find it likely that most people despise SOMETHING, so who the hell is in charge of determining which despicable things are grounds for sterilizing people against their will?

But notice how there are never any concrete criteria given. "Because they're stupid". "Because they're ignorant". "Because they're racist." "Because they're despicable." That's all vague as shit, and could be used to as ammunition to deny reproductive rights to nearly anyone. Then you added on "teaching hatred to her kids" and "Not being a fine example to her kids". Holy shit, dude, that doesn't help matters. It almost seems like you guys don't have any fucking idea what should be grounds for sterilizing people against their will, but that you merely pick out people who you hate and then make up justifications after the fact.

@MrGeezer: yeh so, just lock em up for life let them rape each other, **** em **** their rights, for committing such a heinous crime they should loose their rights, and their freedom to live like a normal person.

Uh...can you please reword that in a way that is actually understandable?

Lock WHO up for life?

WHICH crimes are you referring to?

Wtf are you trying to say here?

@lostrib: hey dude calm down let's take a deep breath and start again.

What is it you wanted me to try and re think be specific please.

@MrGeezer: "Uh, think about this practically, dude. Once their lives have been ruined and they can't get a job and quite possibly can't even legally live in their town (what with ordinances and whatnot), what the hell else do you think they're gonna do? This is why it's not uncommon for sex offenders to end up off the grid with a lot of time on their hands to think about doing more rape"

yeh so, just lock em up for life let them rape each other, **** em **** their rights, for committing such a heinous crime they should loose their rights, and their freedom to live like a normal person.

Sorry I should have done it like this the first time.

Unfortunately or fortunately, that's not a realistic option. Proposing that as a solution is like me saying "everyone would be be better off if they just gave me all the money." Being a sex offender (usually) doesn't allow for them to be locked up for life, and that's not likely to happen any time in the foreseeable future. Granted, societies change and I'm sure there was a point when Jews in Germany couldn't have imagined the possibility of them being rounded up and exterminated. So yeah...maybe your proposal will be plausible one day. Right now it's not. When that's actually a plausible scenario, feel free to get back with me on that.

@MrGeezer: "Unfortunately or fortunately, that's not a realistic option. Proposing that as a solution is like me saying "everyone would be be better off if they just gave me all the money"

WTF how is that similar to "lock up rapist for life"

I'm really loving all this support love and understanding for rapist and racist.

Going back to the racist mother subject, the fact that she is out in public with her young children screaming out racist abuse and being threatening to a person and causing a scene is surely reason enough for child services to get involved maybe get her some parenting classes, make sure everything is ok at home.

I get that people have the right to not like or hate people but that's not the way to express that, and you shouldn't teach your children to hate people and carry on like that in public.

It's a whole heap different to teaching your children to hate sex offenders, and you don't learn to dislike/hate sex offenders I'm sure it just comes naturally sex offenders deserve to be hated but a guy does not deserve to be hated abused and threatened just because of his race.

Teaching your child your racist hateful views should be a form of mental abuse, and parents should be punished for doing so.

I'm talking about letting logic be at the core of the criminal justice system, not emotion. It's not better for the greater society of non-offenders to treat offenders the way they do. Many will eventually get released and be back on the streets with non-criminals, and unless they've been rehabilitated properly they're going to be a risk to the general population. You're argument against sex offenders not deserving rehabilitation is only going to make it more likely that they'll re-offend. If anything, you like rape, since you're wholeheartedly against policy that would lower the rate of future occurrences of sex-offender recidivism..

I'm not just talking about rapists though, this same attitude should apply to all criminals that serve time and are released.

@lamprey263: I get what you're saying, but I don't understand how your logic draws you to the conclusion that I like rape because I'm saying these guys should be locked up for good, I mean how can they rape if they are banged up?

Anyway if rehabilitation was guaranteed to work then yeh maybe, but how can you judge if someone is successfully rehabilitated, I don't think you can and you just have to hope for the best, but the fact that these kind of criminals are largely not being rehabilitated at present and are just serving a couple years and being released is not good, vulnerable women and children's safety is at risk with guys like this on the streets.

And like I said it's all good for the sex offender to be rehabilitated and aloud to live life happily ever after, but what about the victims who may never recover, and may never be able to have an intimate relationship, or a descent nights sleep.

I get that it's probably not possible to lock up these guys forever so yeh the next logical step is to try and rehabilitate them.

Denmark law is shitty.

Just see the jails for criminals :P