> -----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,
Most people who have studied it say that rape is a crime of _violence_, and that the sexual assault is only the way in which it is carried out. I fail to see the legitimate need a would-be rapist has for committing violence against someone weaker than himself. Also, most pedophiles or others who molest children are not Catholic priests who have no legitimate way to engage in sexual activity. Most children who are victims of sexual abuse are abused by a family member, sometimes their own father or step-father, who presumably has access to a legitimate source of sexual activity (the child's mother) or if not, there's always other willing adult women.
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.
Again, most of men do not rape women or even consider it (sorry, feminists) and most men do not inflict themselves sexually on children, in both cases regardless of whether they have one or more regular adult sexual partners. What makes one man become a rapist or a pedophile when most men in similar situations do 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.
I agree that providing treatment to a rapist or pedophile should be part of the rehabilitation process. We touched on that a couple of weeks ago in the discussion about the pedophile who was found to have a brain tumor and who said he no longer felt attracted to children after the tumor was removed. What about all those who do not have such an easily-identifiable physical problem that may be causing their behavior? And even if there is a physical problem, is it just to force the rapist/pedophile to submit to medical treatment, particularly given that at the present time there is no guarantee that such treatment will "cure" him? And even if medical treatment is shown to work in a number of cases, where do we draw the line as to what is considered "legitimate medical treatment" to cure a sex offender and protect society? Electroshock? _Clockwork Orange_-type aversion therapy? What of the many who say that pedophilia is never truly cured? Do we lock up all those convicted of child molestation for the remainder of their natural lives (or say that it would be more merciful to execute them) to protect society?
> 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.
Exactly my point. Every time I have heard someone calling for the U.S. to be made a "more just" society, upon asking what is meant by that, it turns out that the person is saying that there is too big a gap between the "haves" and the "have nots", so I gave a few examples of serious crimes where the motivation was clearly not the perpetrator's economic poverty. Not do such people not know "right" from "wrong", as most of them would certainly use every available legal or illegal method to punish someone who stole from them or who rapes their womenfolk or molests their children.
-- Ronn! :)
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
