This isnt justice, its the out-sourcing of inhumanity.
We place these people in situations that are violent and cruel; so that the dark urges of humanity can be inflicted on them, while the common population and keep their hands clean from the blood.
Does a person who murders and tortures a ten year old child deserve sympathy? Perhaps not.
Does this kind of violence and torture demean those who carry it out, those who allow it, those who celebrate it... in my opinion yes.
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Originally Posted by analog
Incarceration IS revenge. It is the state-sponsered and judicially approved form of revenge for crimes in modern society.
In the past, if someone was convicted of murder, a common sentence was hanging. I doubt many would argue against the basic core of such a sentence being revenge, retribution, whatever you want to call it.
You do x crime, and x happens to you as a result. The defining line between where it goes from a "sentence" to "revenge", is the emotion of the person carrying it out. If a man is sentenced and put to death because he beats, rapes, and kills a busload of female middle schoolers, that is "his sentence"- if he steps off of the bus, and a man nearby dispatches him forthwith, shotgun-to-the-face style, that is revenge (though it would surely be seen as justice to many, many people). This is a farce of a distinction.
Regardless of the fact that prison is "officially" supposed to be for rehabilitation- how many actually see it that way, use it that way, and feel that it's enough, especially in cases like this?
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most people would say the purpose of imprisonment is protection of society from a criminal element, an example to serve as a deterrent to other anti social individuals, and as a place of rehabilition of crminal people.
Few people ever admit that the desire for revenge, to inflict pain on those who cause pain, to take an eye for an eye is just as powerful a motivation and justification for many... I dont agree with you (I dont agree that taking an eye for an eye is a good or valid thing), but at least you are more honest than a lot of people are.