What is a fair punishment for rape?

[The good world]

For all those saying death
The punishment doesnt fit the crime.

yes it does

[Geniasis]

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer." -- William Blackstone

Unfortunately, some people disagree.

I think the proportions are a bit off. Ten murderers for one innocent? I'd accept maybe two for one, but not more than that.

I'd only accept either one if there was a system by which the family of the executed innocent could demand some kind of substantial reparations from the government.

[Conserative Morality]

I'd only accept either one if there was a system by which the family of the executed innocent could demand some kind of substantial reparations from the government.

And if they could not?

[Geniasis]

And if they could not?

So then when the government does execute an innocent, they should just be able to say "whoops" and have that be the end of it?

[Sebytania]

Jail time (a long time) and a tattoo across the forehead that reads "RAPIST" when he gets out

You know, I think I might be willing to accept that tattoo option as an alternative to life imprisonment in some cases. Like, if a rapist agrees to receive such a tattoo, then he may become eligible for parole in 25 years or something. That would be fine with me, as long as a condition of his parole is that he may not cover the tattoo in any way.

The point there being? Ensuring that they can't get a legit job afterwards?

[The Congregationists]

Why not?

Two reasons.

First, the practical. The principle of retribution-as-justice devolves into escalating feuds. It's a terrible idea.
Second, the principle. Justice, most appropriately considered, is about creating a greater good. It's not about emotional fury, but rational response. What can come the closest to making things right?

Some people might think that there's an implicit social contract to have sex with someone who takes you out and shows you around. Some people might think that justice is in principle about revenge.

And I'll call them wrong.

I don't favor vengeance and draconian punativeness as a principle of justice either, but to say that retribution has no place in justice has, I think, the capacity to render the concept of justice moot and ultimately toothless. My response would not be as harsh as Bottle's, but I think she's essentially onto the right idea, especially in her first post in this thread. Let's make rapists and other violent offenders work in penal institutions and have the wages they'd be paid to do the same work as free men go instead to the victims of their crimes, or else to institutions that help victims recover from the crime in as far as this is possible.

This is a better idea, I think, then more physical and corporal punishments would be. If it later turns out that the defendant was falsely accused, then the wrongly convicted can be restored and compensated for it. This would not be possible in the event of capital punishment or surgical castration. Moreover, if guilty rapists must work to compensate their victims, that's ultimately better for the victims than having the rapist either dead or rotting in a cell for 23 hours a day at the taxpayer's expense. Financial compensation cannot obviously make things wholly right following so heinous an offense, but it's better than nothing.

[Bottle]

You know, I think I might be willing to accept that tattoo option as an alternative to life imprisonment in some cases. Like, if a rapist agrees to receive such a tattoo, then he may become eligible for parole in 25 years or something. That would be fine with me, as long as a condition of his parole is that he may not cover the tattoo in any way.

The point there being? Ensuring that they can't get a legit job afterwards?

The point being that I think it would be good for everyone to be able to identify rapists as simply as looking at the tattoo on their forehead.

Rapists would, of course, be free to remain in prison if they prefer. I would prefer they remain in prison, but I'm willing to compromise on this one and let them choose the option of parole-with-tattoo, in the interests of leniency.

[Miklesia]

Castration and branding would be good.

[Bottle]

I don't see that being necessarily true. If I lock somebody in prison for 25 years in retribution for a crime, why would they be any more or less likely to "feud" about it than if I locked them in prison for 25 years as a penalty for having committed a crime?

Prison isn't necessarily about retribution. See prior post.

I didn't say it was.

If you imprison somebody for "rehabilitation" for 25 years, why would they be any more or less likely to feud with you than if you put them in the exact same prison only you did it for "revenge"?

Emotional heat leads to irrational decisions that we will later regret.

I don't see why that is necessarily true at all. Some of the best decisions I've made have been in the heat of great emotion. I think emotion CAN lead to poor decisions, but that doesn't mean it necessarily WILL ALWAYS lead to poor decisions.

If we are wise, we don't remove emotion from justice. We simply don't trust emotions to give us truth, and we understand how emotions can mislead us or confuse us.

I quite agree, which is why I don't see any problem with paying attention to the importance of "emotional satisfaction" in our justice system.

I would say that in many situations it is right and healthy to be furious, and I don't see why having those emotions necessarily invalidates one's actions.

It doesn't.

But the fury doesn't align to the real injury caused, and your emotional state post facto does not retroactively create or alter the circumstances of the crime.

I couldn't disagree more with your claim that "the fury doesn't align to the real injury caused," particularly in cases of rape and sexual abuse.

I don't see why demanding an emotionally satisfactory punishment for a crime is necessarily unjust. Obviously it COULD be, but why does it HAVE to be?

"Me me me me me!"

Justice isn't just about you. Even so, your immediate emotional gratification should take second fiddle to your long term emotional health,

It's bizarre that you assume emotional satisfaction to be selfish, while your form of justice would not be selfish. I don't see why either is necessarily true. Further, I don't see why we can't have BOTH emotional satisfaction AND pragmatic justice.

People who don't realize that their principles are askew are why the practical concerns are a useful way of communicating the consequences of your principles.

Demand 25 year mandatory sentences for rape cases and you can expect to see convictions drop through the floor. Encourage prisoners to abuse each other and you can expect that fewer of them will be rehabilitated. Persecute people with felonies on their record and they may return to crime out of desperation.

Given how low the conviction rates for rape are, I don't see that as remotely threatening. Given that I have made it clear that I support prison reforms to prevent abuse and rape in prison, I don't see that as relevant. And finally, I don't see the relevance of the "persecution" comment. To what are you referring?

[The Norwegian Blue]

It wasn't my sister, girlfriend, or mother. It was me. And I'm still against the death penalty. In fact, I'm not only against it in general, but I am explicitly against it for the guy who assaulted me. I don't want him to be killed. That would not make me feel even a tiny bit better. I want him to be kept from ever doing to anyone else what he did to me. I want him to spend the rest of his life trying to atone for his actions. I do not want to sink to his level and take pleasure in hurting someone else, even if he "deserves" it.

Does that answer your question?

I am sorry that happened to you, and I do thank you for sharing yoyr honest thoughts with us.

No, I was not asking any question, I expressed my point of view, on what I deeply believe. Sadly, I have seen to many cases when they do attack others again, and where life-in-jail means just a couple of years in jail and the guy back on street again, ruining other´s lives. I don´t think I am going to his level by doing what I proprosse: I believe in a fair trial, where that guy will have a chance to defend himself, a chance that most criminals never give to their victims. THAT makes the difference.

Again, I have no idea what you went through, and if you are against death penalty for rapist, I respect that. However, I would be quite concern if on behalf of "humanitarian reasons", your rapist is back on street.


You may surely be a better person than me for not wanting him to be executed..

I don't really think I am, honestly. I'm a pretty average person. There's a nasty little corner of me that would really enjoy sending the guy in question, who happens to be an arachnophobe, boxes of live spiders every day for the rest of his life. The reasons I don't do that have a lot more to do with potential legal consequences for me - and boxes of spiders being expensive - than any halo over my head.

The thing is, I respect the position of wanting rapists to pay harshly for what they did. I don't doubt for a second that a lot of rape and assault survivors would gleefully see their attackers beaten to death, and that's as valid an emotional response as mine. I just dislike the idea that opposition to the death penalty is somehow a function of simply "not getting it," and that my position would be changed by a traumatic experience, since it wasn't - if anything, going through what I went through made me that much stronger in my anti-death-penalty principles, since I literally do set my moral compass by "what WOULDN'T the son of a bitch who assaulted me do?" Since I know from experience that what he would do to people who upset him or pissed him off is commit violent acts against them, I'm pretty big on the non-violence at this point.

Also, of course, there's a big difference between me kinda wanting personally to punish the fuck out of the bastard, and me thinking the government should have the authority to do so. I know the guy in my case is guilty, for obvious reasons, but as with any crime, there will always be a few false convictions (albeit, I suspect, significantly fewer falsely convicted rapists, given how hard it is to get a rape conviction in the first place), and I'm really not okay with the notion of the government torturing or killing someone who turns out just to look a whole lot like the guy who actually committed the crime.

[Dempublicents1]

It wasn't my sister, girlfriend, or mother. It was me. And I'm still against the death penalty. In fact, I'm not only against it in general, but I am explicitly against it for the guy who assaulted me. I don't want him to be killed. That would not make me feel even a tiny bit better. I want him to be kept from ever doing to anyone else what he did to me. I want him to spend the rest of his life trying to atone for his actions. I do not want to sink to his level and take pleasure in hurting someone else, even if he "deserves" it.

Does that answer your question?

In my case, I'd be perfectly fine with seeing my attacker killed. I certainly would feel that the world is a slightly safer and more joyful place if he were removed from it. I think I would probably take pleasure in knowing that he was hurt, too, and I don't think I can consider that "sinking to his level" because I am already on the level of being able to experience pleasure at seeing bad people get hurt, so I wouldn't have to sink to get there. I do not pretend to have any moral superiority in that regard. I am not "better" than my attacker in terms of desire to hurt people, although at least I only seek to hurt people who I feel have hurt somebody else first. The reason I'm better than my attacker is that I control myself and do not act on my desire to hurt certain people even if I might enjoy doing so. (Also I'm not a fuckwad who rapes their friends. That's enough moral superiority for me. )

With all that said, I still oppose the use of the death penalty in the American legal system because I do not believe my government is willing or able to apply it in a fair and reasonable manner. I also don't see any benefit in adding the death penalty for rapists, since (as I said before) my attacker wouldn't have even been arrested in the first place, so he wouldn't have faced the death penalty anyhow.

I think part of the problem with the way our society views rape is that they expect every victim to react in the same manner. So a victim who tries to just go on afterward and still associates with her attacker must be lying, right? Any victim who doesn't wish to see her attacker punished must be lying, right? Any victim who wishes to see her attacker punished harshly must just be vindictive and lying, right? Wrong. I think this conversation highlights that fact.

My experience is rather different from either of you, but I can honestly say that I don't really want the person who assaulted me to be punished. From a purely rational standpoint, I think he should be. If it were any other person and any other victim, I'd probably be calling for a very harsh punishment. And I can honestly say that I would never be comfortable leaving a child alone with him. The rational side of me knows all of that. But the emotional side of me says it's not really that big a deal. It says it was a long time ago, so why should I worry about it? It says that dredging it up - even if there was a guarantee of a guilty verdict - simply isn't worth the time, effort, and emotional turmoil. Emotionally, I can't even make myself confront him about it, much less take any action to see him punished.

[Tahar Joblis]

I didn't say it was.

If you imprison somebody for "rehabilitation" for 25 years, why would they be any more or less likely to feud with you than if you put them in the exact same prison only you did it for "revenge"?

Because in the latter case, you are trying to better them? Not that you're really talking about the same thing that I'm talking about. Feuds are fueled by acts of vengeance - small, large, what have you. We're talking about two entirely different things.

You're talking about a long prison term, specifically, and trying to figure out what kind of "justice" it might be. I'm talking about how justifications fuel systems of responses. If you believe that revenge is justice, then you're buying into a value that has fueled feuds within and well outside of the law for thousands of years of documented history.

I don't see why that is necessarily true at all. Some of the best decisions I've made have been in the heat of great emotion. I think emotion CAN lead to poor decisions, but that doesn't mean it necessarily WILL ALWAYS lead to poor decisions.

You understand what I'm saying here, even if you are loathe to agree with it.

Emotions are, to use a trite and overused turn of phrase, a little like Richard Nixon. You may want to trust, but you have to verify.

I couldn't disagree more with your claim that "the fury doesn't align to the real injury caused," particularly in cases of rape and sexual abuse.

Ah, because all rape victims respond with anger, rather than sadness, depression, fear, anxiety, and a host of other negative emotions.

And because all rape victims display emotions the exact same way, in a manner that we can easily compare across people. Just look at the "EMOTE_O_INDICATOR" unit plugged in their arm, right? And the strength of emotional response doesn't increase with rehearsal of the memory. And memories don't change over time. We're just all perfect responding robots with open source code. (Is my sarcasm apparent enough there?) It's bloody hard to tell how strongly someone feels about something compared to someone else. That's a practical fact for you.

We do have a measure of how upset someone is in the law. It's called "upset enough to press charges." It's not terribly precise, but the hard and fast rule of law doesn't really need more than a binary distinction.

It's bizarre that you assume emotional satisfaction to be selfish, while your form of justice would not be selfish. I don't see why either is necessarily true. Further, I don't see why we can't have BOTH emotional satisfaction AND pragmatic justice.

Selfish doesn't mean bad, but self is not the end of the story.

Why can't we have emotional satisfaction and pragmatic justice? Because people often want disproportionate reactions. Chemical castration. Execution. Punishments that are expensive, irreversible, cruel, and/or unusual.

Given how low the conviction rates for rape are, I don't see that as remotely threatening. Given that I have made it clear that I support prison reforms to prevent abuse and rape in prison, I don't see that as relevant. And finally, I don't see the relevance of the "persecution" comment. To what are you referring?

Can I get a fact check there? Specifically, I'm trying to find figures that would compare reports to convictions for other crimes, like, oh, theft. Right now, if you actually bring rape to trial, you have a pretty good chance of a conviction.

Up the ante and the stakes get higher. Juries know quite well what sort of punishment they're setting the defendant up for. What's the better method of approaching teaching people not to do something? Wham the ones you can't avoid catching, or make sure that people know that if they do the crime, they will be punished for it?

...if you can't see advocacy of persecution in this thread, you're not reading. Tattooing foreheads? Seriously?

[Free-Beings]

Soldiers ain't punished for murder,

They deserve to be if they kill civilians. In fact, they deserve it anyway.

executioners ain't punished for murder (etc etc).

They AREN'T, but they deserve to be.

Do prison guards/wardens deserve to tried for kidnapping?

[Zetion]

They deserve to be if they kill civilians. In fact, they deserve it anyway.



They AREN'T, but they deserve to be.

Do prison guards/wardens deserve to tried for kidnapping?

Keeping someone in jail isnt the same as state sponserd execution.
You cant compare the two.

[Free-Beings]

Do prison guards/wardens deserve to tried for kidnapping?

Keeping someone in jail isnt the same as state sponserd execution.
You cant compare the two.

The stae is empowering and commiting it's employees to commit an act that would otherwise be unlawfull, one is just to a subjectivly higher magnitude.

[Zetion]

Keeping someone in jail isnt the same as state sponserd execution.
You cant compare the two.

The stae is empowering and commiting it's employees to commit an act that would otherwise be unlawfull, one is just to a subjectivly higher magnitude.

Im sorry, my regard for human life isn`t letting me allow the state to do what it wants just because its the fucking state.

[Capitalist Arcadia]

Death. Slow and painful.

[Free-Beings]

The stae is empowering and commiting it's employees to commit an act that would otherwise be unlawfull, one is just to a subjectivly higher magnitude.

Im sorry, my regard for human life isn`t letting me allow the state to do what it wants just because its the fucking state.

Than who decides how to deal with convicted criminals?

[Laos Refugees]

Prison or Rehabilitation, if it is just rape.
If the one getting raped was killed, Death.

[Zetion]

Im sorry, my regard for human life isn`t letting me allow the state to do what it wants just because its the fucking state.

Than who decides how to deal with convicted criminals?

Its not that I dont support prison time. i just think that killing people is wrong.
Is that really so unwarrented and immoral?

[Norstal]

For all those who says rape entails the death sentence, I urge you to go support the death sentence as punishment for traffic violations too.

Honestly, you can't kill people for inappropriate touchings. I nudge someone's boobs once, because she had gigantic knockers and I was trying to open the door. That's classified as rape. Rape doesn't have to be penetrative.

Jesus, its like the internet is Qatar on some days.

[Dom Isles]

Get raped.

[Layarteb]

Rape is a horrible crime and should be met with capital punishment, whether it was done to a child or an adult. Murder is less despicable and it too should be punished by capital punishment.

[Free-Beings]

Than who decides how to deal with convicted criminals?

Its not that I dont support prison time. i just think that killing people is wrong.
Is that really so unwarrented and immoral?

No, and I respect that and wish it were possible to follow all the time, IMO there are some people who are to dangerous to be left alive, even in a place like Gitmo.

[Lauchlin]

I nudge someone's boobs once, because she had gigantic knockers and I was trying to open the door. That's classified as rape.

Where do you live?