What's the best punishment for first-time rape?
Offline What's the best punishment for rape?
Looking deeper, what's more important to you? How the punishment "pays back" the criminal, or how the punishment benefits society?
Should the convict's potential for rehabilitation have anything to do with the level of punishment she should get? Should the heart-surgeon be given more leniency than the gang-member?
Should the victim be given the right to decide her rapist's fate? How much importance should be attached to the victim's sense of loss and violation?
Most would agree nothing can be done to erase the violent experience from the victim's mind. Should the rapists therefore be punished for as long as the victim must live with the memory of that violent act?
And even deeper...most people agree that the punishment should also send a message to potential rapists. How important is it to you to make the rapist an example to help deter potential rapists? Would the need for this signal justify imposing a harsher punishment than he otherwise should get? Should his penis be cut off without anesthesia on national prime time tv?
I know many atheist ladies would like that solution, but i say it's the wrong one. Rape is not about sex, but about power. The man can still be violent against women even without a penis. A prick without a prick. As such, the punishment should cripple the rapists ability to be violent toward others, not just unable to have sex.
Lobotomy?
My own theory is that everybody convicted of non-consenting sex should be granted one appeal. If they lose that appeal, death penalty. Us tax payers don't' suffer the cost of storing that piece of shit, the problem is solved, and it sends a strong deterring message, especially if advertised properly.
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The laws against "cruel and unusual" punishment have always perplexed me. Many violent criminals are very cruel to their victims, why should we treat them any better?
The use of violence outside self defence or the defence of others is just a throw back to our pre civilization days, something most nations have moved passed.
That rules out the death penalty, it also rules out corporal punishment at schools parents hitting their kids (restraining is acceptable) and starting as opposed to finishing wars.
I couldnt care less if someone who eats children for a living 'deserves' death he shouldnt get it in a decent society. Give him a life sentence lock him in a cell and throw in a knife for 24 hours. If he hasnt killed himself after that period stun him remove the knife and leave him to rot.
Once you start saying its ok to kill bad people you are on very very slippery path to who is exactly is bad. Sure internally in a western country you have courts and a jury But what about externally?
Is a bad person a genocidal manaic probably
Is a bad person a democratically elected president who views are now supportive of your nation (The US has killed at least one of those)
Is a bad person someone who shoots and tries to kill your soldier who are occupying their nation (in my opinion no, I wish no harm on any Western soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan but that doesnt change the fact that the natives there are in quite justified in killing them).
The death penalty really isnt about the few 10's of people who get executed in the western world each year, they really arent that important in the big scheme of things (and neither are the vitcims) its the effect it has on society by saying violence is ok
"Slippery Slope" is considered a logical fallacy, just FYI.
Thinking oneself civilized while advocating slicing pieces from peoples' bodies, poisoning them, running massive charges of electricity through them, and generally engaging in sadism equal to or greater than that which they may or may not have exhibited is itself something of a logical fallacy, don't you think?
Just FYI
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope#Non-fallacious_arguments_presented_as_slippery_slopes
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God of the Gaps: As knowledge approaches infinity, God approaches zero. It's introductory calculus.
That link says ''slippery slope' 'may' be a logical fallacy not that it always is.
Now the public have been persuaded that we live in a time of war (we dont) pretty much every restriction on civil liberty is tolerated
Based on your slippery slope argument below, giving a knife to someone who is possibly suicidal is murder.
The slippery slope argument seems to be the battle cry for those who are afraid to commit to decisive action. What makes someone bad? How about any not taking reasonable actions to prevent grievous harm emotional, physical or financial to others? How about willfully and/or maliciously executing actions against others that cause grievous harm emotional, physical or financial? We all know what constitutes these actions even if we can't articulate them.
Yes.
Uhhh...what?
That's a part of war. In my opinion we were justified to invade Afghanistan for refusing to give up a particularly vile murderer. Some of our troops were bound to die. That sucks but that's how it goes.
In Iraq we had no such justification. Therefore when our soldiers die the only individual truly guilty of any crime is our president. And yes, he should be tried for war crimes and executed.
I totally disagree. The entire point is to illustrate that violence is NOT ok and depending on the, crime can carry the ultimate penalty. The world's major religions do more to justify violence than the death penalty ever could.
As for the efficacy of the death penalty as a deterrent, I would agree it's negligible. I think most people have the basic compassion not to do things that are obviously harmful to others (No, I'm not contradicting myself.). I used to be a thieving little bastard as a child, but after getting caught a few times and having to face the music I realized that it wasn't worth the trouble. As a teen I had a run in with the law that ended with me in handcuffs and performing community service. It sucked. Lesson learned. When I got older and had to earn my keep I began to see the reasons behind those punishments. I didn't want my belongings stolen or vandalized, therefore I shouldn't do it to others.
Unfortunately, not everyone is smart enough to learn the first, second or even third time. That's where the death penalty comes in. I see it as a means to an end. As I said before (under the tag Dick Buchwilder) some people are beyond reform and some crimes are beyond redemption. If an individual rapes another person and gets convicted they should serve some hard time. If upon their release they go out and rape again, and are again convicted, why are we on the hook financially to keep this person incarcerated indefinitely? It cost 60k annually on average per inmate. If they can't be trusted to show compassion to others or to control their urges then something has to be done with them. Frankly, I would much rather spend that 60k/year on things like education, health care, environmental protection,etc...
The same thing applies to murderers. There are varying degrees of homicide. I don't think killing someone accidentally in a fight is as bad as purposely killing someone in a fit of rage, and that's not as bad as planning ahead of time to kill someone for whatever reason.
In the first instance no one intended to kill anybody but shit happens. There should be some time served and restitution paid. That person will have to live the rest of their life with the consequences of their actions. To me that's punishment enough.
In the second instance the killer may not have gotten up that day looking to kill someone but when push came to shove they couldn't keep their cool. Perhaps on any ordinary day their own sense of compassion or rule of law and threat of punishment is enough to regulate their behavior, but this is a dangerous individual and must be dealt with severely. Some serious time needs to be spent in the absence of the freedoms that make life worth living. If this person kills again then we have to consider if they can be trusted to control their urges. Personally, I have a problem with paying the upkeep on unpredictable, unreliable people. I'd be willing to bet you do too. How many here would be willing to keep dumping money into repairing a vehicle that kept breaking down at inopportune moments thus threatening your safety and/or livelihood. At some point you just have to get rid of the defective unit. Yes, I mean people too. No, you're not special and neither am I.
In the third instance, you have someone who, if they are capable of planning to harm someone, they are capable of understanding the laws and the consequences of their actions (and probably do) and simply don't care or think they won't get caught. In this case the death penalty or any other punishment is clearly not going to stop these people from harming others. So again, why show these people the compassion and restraint that they are so clearly incapable of demonstrating themselves?
Coming back to rape and molestation, I've never heard of accidental rape. I'd be willing to bet that most rapists fit into my descriptions of killers two and three. The cost/benefit approach works for these people as well.
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but proof, proof is the bottom line for everyone."
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We don't have to approach it like the fucking Inquisition. Lethal injection and asphyxiation by various nerve agents are perfectly reasonable. We do it to our pets all the time. Would you claim that we are inflicting suffering rather than alleviating it?
And to the poster above regarding the cost of execution, a one time cost of execution will always be cheaper than 20+ years of maintenance. If you were referring to court costs due to the appeals process there are ways of streamlining the sentencing guidelines to allow slamdunk cases to move to the front of the line.
"Faith, Faith is an island in the setting sun,
but proof, proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Proof, Paul Simon
Nothing this hard should taste so beefy.
Wow.
I'm glad this question got asked, and I'm really surprised by some of the responses. For everyone in the thread who has advocated capital punishment, amputation, or other harsh retributive punishments, I'd like to encourage you (AGAIN) to read this book:
The Authoritarian Specter by Robert Altemeyer (Hardcover - Nov 15, 1996) The Authoritarian Specter by Robert Altemeyer (Hardcover - Nov 15, 1996)I'm not even remotely capable of adequately explaining the concept of authoritarianism in a simple web post. The research in this book is impeccable, and the sheer size of the data pool is amazing. Even though it's designed for people who have studied sociology, its main points can be easily understood. Even reading only the chapter summaries would be beneficial.
Now, on to a big point that I need to make. I think most everyone in this thread has realized that we aren't discussing rape. We're discussing crime and punishment. I'm somewhat distressed by the number of people who are advocating permanent (and very, very harsh) punishments as if they believe that threat of punishment is a deterrent. Any objective study of the effects of the death penalty will demonstrate that deterrence is simply not linked to the severity of the punishment. The U.S., despite being one of the only post-industrial first world countries to fully endorse and practice the death penalty, has one of the highest murder rates in the modern world.
Once we recognize that the penal system is not here to deter, we need to begin asking what kinds of things do deter crime. The most obvious way to answer that question is to examine countries that have very low crime rates and see what's different. The thing that stands out the most to me is that if you pick a kind of crime and then find the nations with the lowest rates, the most common feature is a very liberal social attitude towards the factors behind the crime.
Here's an example. If we're going to study burglary and various kinds of theft, we need to know the root issue with the crime. This is a simple example. People steal when they're poor. Outside of the occasional Hollywood kleptomaniac, virtually all of the petty theft in the U.S. is committed by people at or below the poverty line. As we look around the world at countries with high poverty rates, we notice that the severity of punishment for theft doesn't have a particularly significant impact on the rate of theft. However, we do notice that countries with very progressive government welfare programs (The U.S. welfare program is NOT progressive, by the way.) do have significantly lower rates of theft compared to their level of poverty.
So what about rape? Which countries have the most rape? The answer, again, is very simple. The most culturally conservative countries have the most rape. Where sexuality is repressed, rape is high. When women are of lower status than men, there is a lot of rape. In egalitarian countries where there is a culture of equality of the sexes, and where people have more individual freedoms, more free expression of their sexuality, and the ability to publicly display their gender preference, rape is much more rare.
So, to the people advocating draconic measures, I humbly suggest that you do some real reading about the REAL causes of crime in a population before you go off half cocked taking men's penises away from them.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Thank you.
I agree with you on this point. I work with a guy who is strongly conservative and his views hold almost no compassion for the origins of peoples actions. There was a recent article we were discussing in which the parents of a young boy were suing a baseball bat manufacturer and the Little League organization because an "illegal" bat slipped from a batters hands and struck their son in the chest, stopping his heart. Now he's pretty much a vegetable and the parents want someone to pay for it. My co-worker expressed sympathy for the family but condemnation as well for trying to pin their trouble on a party only circumstantially involved.
It occurred to me though that there was another side of the problem. Our backwards views towards euthanasia (see Terri Schiavo), and our health care system (It sucks.). These people would be ostracized if they wanted to put terminate the shell that was their child. So instead they're saddled with the burden of paying for the health care of a child who will never recover. They will likely not be able to acquire insurance for him, and will probably be bound to whatever job they currently have so as not to lose whatever insurance they do have, which will very likely only cover his expenses up to a certain extent.
What option do they have left besides trying to prove in court that this was the result of negligence and not just a freak accident?
These shortcomings are common here in the "Home of the Free". Our educational, welfare and health care systems are grossly inefficient and underfunded and their objectives poorly chosen. We live in a society whose attitude is "That's too bad, but it's not my problem." A friend of mine used to rail against public funds being used for after school programs, especially in the inner city. A favorite quote of his after having his car burglarized was "Don't break my $100 window to steal my $10 stereo", It took years to hammer home the connection for him.
Nevertheless once an individual is down a bad and particularly violent path we have to do something about it. Allowing them to drain the system and simultaneously have influence on impressionable minds serving time with them for less heinous crimes doesn't seem viable.
"Faith, Faith is an island in the setting sun,
but proof, proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Proof, Paul Simon
Nothing this hard should taste so beefy.
I'm not saying its wrong, or evil, I'm saying it is unconstitutional under the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause. I do think that it is cruel, because it involves abruptly ending the life of someone, and subjecting them to various types of physical torment until they die.
But in prison, you at least have the chance to be released if future evidence is found which proves you guilty. You know all of those guys who have been released from prison because of DNA evidence? They wouldn't have been released if they had gotten the death penalty.
I was pointing out that the death penalty in no way equates to "killing out of self-defense", because in order for it to be self-defense, the killer's life must be put into immediate danger by the person who is about to kill him.
The mob is not necessarily wrong, but it is much MUCH more apt to convict and give harsher sentences to people who might even be innocent. For example, in the South during the reconstruction period, vigilante justice was rampant, and was used as a tool to hang blacks for rapes and murders which they did not commit. It was a common sight to see a black man taken from his home by a drunken mob, accused of raping someone based on rumor alone, and hanged, with no trial and no review of evidence. This is the kind of "justice" that the mob brings.
No, it isn't. As an atheist and a skeptic, I hope you agree that anectdotal evidence can never be taken seriously unless it is backed up by hard evidence. The mother could easily be lying.
What the hell are you talking about? Are you now advocating misconstrued Darwinism to back up your claims that people should be killed and convicted based on hearsay and rumor? Please.
That's exactly my point. This is a very VERY good thing, because it prevents people from simply accusing someone of raping someone else without any evidence. Imagine if someone, say, the lady next door, falsely accused you of raping her daughter. Now tell me which you would like more, a fair trial in which her claims are examined against the evidence, or a mob of people breaking into your home and hanging you?
Of course, that's the point I'm trying to make. The victim is in no position to examine the evidence because they are overcome with irrational emotions, and extremely prone to error. Like your analogy, they are intoxicated by prejudice and anger. Having a neutral party examine the evidence makes for a much fairer trial.
The law decides what is a minor infraction and what is a major infraction. That is the point of justice. That is the point of the government itself. Without rule of law, not only morals, but the laws themselves, are relative. What you end up with is not a nation at all, but a collection of criminals. To use the words of Hobbes, it would make life nasty, brutish and short for everyone in the nation. We do make laws out of democratic majority, but the rule of law is also very important. Democracy without rule of law is anarchy.
Until someone accuses someone else of burglary, when in fact the person had merely lost something.
Person one: "You stole my lawnmower, I know it!"
Person two: "No I didn't!"
Person one: "Yes you did!" *BANG*
Person two's brother: "You killed my brother, now I shall have revenge!" *BANG*
Person one's sister: "You killed my brother, now I shall have revenge!" *BANG*
*Continue until everyone is dead*
This is a common pattern in places where the rule of law has turned into vigilante justice and anarchy.
Well, I simply implore you to look at places like Nigeria or Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, or even the South after the civil war or Lousiana after hurricane Katrina to see what life is like when there is no rule of law. Of course, all of these places have other problems, but lack of rule of law did not make it any better.
It shouldn't be about suffering. It should be about the criminal breaking the state's law, and the state prosecuting the criminal. If the victim wants vendetta or compensation for his/her problems, then the victim should file a civil suit.
Again, severe punishments are not very good deterrents. When someone commits such a crime, punishment is usually the last thing on their minds. Statistically, anyway, in places like California when the death penalty was banned, rape and homicide rates did not spike at all, and high rates of death penalty cases do not correlate with low rates of murder and rape in most states.
Even if in some cases, deterrence was the goal of the prosecution and the jury, it should not be the overall goal of the justice system. The justice system exists, constitutionally, to punish crime and rehabilitate criminals. Other social programs are designed to deter crime.
How awful would that be? You steal a bicycle and you get killed? What is this, the 17th century? I fail to see how such a system is better at all. Like I said, severity of punishment does not result in deterrence, so all this system would be doing would be unjustly punishing people.
Justice does not work by emotions but by law. A criminal breaks the law, he gets the law's punishment. If emotions need to be repaired, they should be repaired in civil court, not criminal court.
You raise an interesting point which was debated at the constitutional convention itself when you say that justice should be provided by majority vote. The current system is actually a sort of compromise between democratic ideals and the idea of a neutral, blind justice system. If the majority provides justices and punishments, who is to stop them from punishing minorities more harshly? Who is to stop them from killing off political rivals? Who is to stop them from eradicating opposition, suppressing liberty, and promoting a reign of terror? This is why the justice system is to remain neutral to politics. It is why judges are not elected, and why jury members are appointed. The democratic process in the judicial system is the jury, but the jury is selected from among the criminal's "peers", rather than being a sample of the population. This prevents juries from convicting a man simply because he is black or say, atheist. (It still happens, but not nearly as much as it would if all justice was carried out by majority vote)
Depending on the state of the victim and the severity of the individual case, I'd say very humane and relatively painless lethal injection... which is better than many rapists deserve (something along the lines of a Clockwork Orange treatment, for that matter).
However, I think exceptions would have to be made for the under-age offenders who might have some chance at reforming. I'm not trying to make light of something like date rape, it's not a light matter, but I still think the relative severity of the individual case and the state of the victim should be taken into account when considering if a humane death penalty (and I do think the death penalty can be humane in theory) is justified.
“It is true that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It is equally true that in the land of the blind, the two-eyed man is an enemy of the state, the people, and domestic tranquility… and necessarily so. Someone has to rearrange the furniture.”
What about letting the punishment fit the crime? Maybe sending them to prison but announce that they are guilty of rape and that the guard will not prevent any inmate who wants to rape them from doing so. Or letting the most hideous morbidly obese women in the country (any who volunteer) to do whatever they want to them.
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You're not referring to underage offenders, are you?
Anyway, that kind of experience doesn't necessarily curb the tendencies of a rapist. That would probably embitter the inmate toward society and probably women even more, and could possibly make him more dangerous if he gets out. I don't think justice should attempt to simulate Karma in any way. Justice should be distributive instead of retributive (ideally... Sometimes vigilantism is justified).
“It is true that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It is equally true that in the land of the blind, the two-eyed man is an enemy of the state, the people, and domestic tranquility… and necessarily so. Someone has to rearrange the furniture.”
So, here's the thing, and where I think Mr. Altemeyer danced around an issue:
There are too many Goddamn people.
Yes, libertarian policies that assist in undermining poverty will cut crimes rates dramatically. That should come as little surprise (if I have a lot to lose, I don't want to lose it, so I'll play the game fair. I have have very little to lose, I'll play against the rules in order to keep-up, because I'm not going to win by playing fairly anyway - so who cares if I get caught cheating? See: Game Theory).
The thing is, there's just no freaking way the United States could implement hardcore libertarian practice. You'd have to be on crack to think that. Subsidize ALL the impoverished people? Clean-up ALL the ghettos? Get EVERYONE hovering around the same ludicrous standard North Americans have set for their 'middle class'?
Let me know when you and Mr. Altemeyer have found the extra planetoids necessary to extract the raw materials from.
Altemeyer also skirts around the issue of sociopathism, a real mental disorder that is highly prevalent in North America that contributes a great deal to the crime rates here, and the issue of becoming indoctrinated to crime (people who have indulged in crime most of their lives do not very often successfully adjust to societal norms even after being rid of their impoverished circumstances). My stance on both of these issues, and the issue of violent crime in general, is very simple:
You can't kill people if you're fertilizing my lawn.
Altemeyer can use whatever statistics he wants: there is no modern society that has taken a very genuine 'no-nonsense' approach to euthanizing violent criminals, and any number of models will demonstrate exactly (behavioral deterrent or not) why such a measure would be effective. One offense, you're toast. No chance to re-offend, no extra tax money going to pay for jail cells, no chance for gang members to regroup and re-organize later. Society as a whole benefits not only from the elimination of the criminals, but the reduced strain created by overpopulation. We can afford to care care of more people, eliminating more poverty, and thus attack the problem from two directions at once (again, even though deterrence is not a factor. Eliminationp is the factor).
Of course, people don't like this idea, because there's a cultural (and instinctive) stigma attached to death. We don't want to die or put people to death.
Personally, I think that stigma is part of the problem. Once we can beat the 'life is so scared' myth, and come to terms with the inconsequentiality of life, I think we'll take our largest strides forward.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Of course, people don't like this idea, because there's a cultural (and instinctive) stigma attached to death. We don't want to die or put people to death.
Personally, I think that stigma is part of the problem. Once we can beat the 'life is so scared' myth, and come to terms with the inconsequentiality of life, I think we'll take our largest strides forward.
Personally I condider that being human and would not like to see it removed. Evolution has given us empathy with others (the real basis of all morality not religion) including those we don't like and I'm quite happy that way and would not like to lose it
My life is not inconsquential to me, it isnt of course important to most other people but to me its the most important thing in the universe
Kevin, to be fair, I don't think Altemeyer intended to address population or euthanasia. All he was trying to do was describe a personality type in detail. It's a well made point that overpopulation and crime tend to go hand in hand, and that wide distribution of limited resources causes discontent. However, the point I was trying to address that hinges on the authoritarian personality is the tendency of authoritarians to want to solve problems by force or coercion. Secondarily, I was going around the long way to try to hint at what you're talking about -- it's not really any one individual's fault that they were born in a society that promotes crime by shunning public welfare and encouraging rampant reproduction at the same time.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Thanks man, now I'm stuck with a mental image of an infinite line of Al Capones queueing up to crap on your petunias.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Castration.
No, no looking deeper.
Uhh, ten to twenty years and a life time warning label as a sexual preditor.
Isn't that kinda what it is now?
Then second time rape proves they don't learn anything, so life in prison.
No cutting dicks off or anything, like many members on this site suggest (even if it's just jokingly). Because that's cruel and unusual punishment, and although we can all agree that rape is one of the most horrible crimes, we SHOULD all agree that there is a constitution for a reason.
Besides, law isn't perfect and if evidence comes out they didn't commit the rape, you can't just release them from prison, they would already have been multilated by the baboons who want to feed their barbaric emotions of rage rather than doing anything rational.