> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Behalf Of Ronn!Blankenship
...
> How would making our (I presume you mean the U.S.?) society "more just"
> stop a would-be rapist from ever committing his first rape? Or a
> pedophile
> from molesting his first young victim? Or an already well-paid company
> official from embezzling funds from his company or profiting by
> manipulating the market (think Enron or Wordcom, frex.)?
Why do people do those things? Each act is an inappropriate and harmful way
to try to satisfy a legitimate need, so I don't think one can even begin to
address such problems without some grasp of what legitimate needs are not
being met and why not. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude, especially
for sexual crimes, seems to be to lock people up and don't even try to
understand, even in a general sense, what's going on for a person who does
that kind of thing. It is crazy to simply imprison a person for a crime
that clearly reflects an inability to establish or maintain intimate
relationships, then release them with no treatment at all, which is what
generally happens. I have little doubt that such attitudes make the
problems worse, not better. The attitude is unjust, IMO.
> On the
> flip side,
> why are there so many people in our present ("unjust"? "insufficiently
> just"?) society who live in poverty or near-poverty who would never dream
> of stealing, dealing drugs, or engaging in some other criminal
> activity in
> order to improve their situation?
Goodness, what a loaded question. Economic poverty is not the only kind of
poverty. I don't think any of the Enron executives were living in poverty.
Nor are many rapists and child molesters.
Nick
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