At 11:27 AM 06/02/2001, you wrote:
>> Life without parole is barbaric too.
>
>I don't agree. Sexual abuse is barbaric and leaves horiffic and permanent
scars.
People who commit such acts, if convicted, should never be allowed the
opportunity to do so again. <
Are you saying that it is *not* inhumane to lock someone in an 8x8 foot cell
for life, or that its cruelty is justified? Are you wanting to punish the
person, or protect society? Neither has been proven to be achieved through
punishment.
mags <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> when a person is raped, there is nothing left.
I was raped, by three people for eight hours. I am a changed person, though
healthier as the years go on, but there has always been something left of me.
And still, I feel for the humanity of my rapists--I wouldn't want them
tortured as I was--and I feel that a societal solution is what we need to
look for. Prisoners, even lifers, have "conjugal visits," children,
familles, parents, cultures (not to mention prison culture itself) that
breeds further violence. Locking someone away is not only just as inhumane
as the act the person committed (why is it ok for the government to be
inhumane?), but does nothing to stop *all* the people who will grow up to be
criminals. Treating people inhumanely instigates and propagates further
violence. We have more and more prisoners and more and more criminals every
year. Prison doesn't work. There are experimental prisons that have had
some good results - surprisingly, the military style prisons have a very huge
success rate. Imo, we need to work to eradicate the problem and not lock
away the "undesirable" people, only to turn them, their familles and culture
into more angry and more violent people. Take a violent person and treat him
like an animal, deprive all his senses and you will get a "worse," more
violent, person. And his contact with his family and culture magnifies the
very problem you are trying to eradicate. Plus, it is downright cruel - and
we have no more right to be cruel to another person than he has to be to us.
I think that having been raped, I am less likely to want to see another
person suffer. Something turned these people into this and I'd hate to
support a program that makes them worse (feel subjectively worse and behave
objectively more violent). I want to see improvement - and on a far greater
scale than the person above wrote about saving the person the convicted
rapist may rape. I want to see an end to criminal behavior and mental
illness, and locking up the caught/convicted rapist will not do this. Also,
remember that "treatment" (like punishment) isn't only for that individual
but for future generations. The goal is far more global than protecting one
possible victim.
