analog

From CNN.com




I can't help but feel like this is supreme justice and justified revenge dispatched by a fellow inmate. This is not to say we don't treat the guy who did it as any other criminal performing a criminal act.... but damn, this revenge is just too sweet not to like. It's like when you hear about an inmate getting killed because they killed/molested a kid.

So what are your thoughts on this? Is there such a thing as justified revenge, such as tattooing "Katie's Revenge" on the murderer's forehead? Is there never such a thing as justified revenge? Or maybe there is such a thing as justified revenge, but this is a bit over the line?

NCB

Thats quite a tame revenge if you ask me. That said, yes, there is such thing as justified revenge. However, it should come from the victims loved ones for it to be true and valid.

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Kaliena

Actually, check CNN.com. From what I read either today or yesterday, the guy that did the tattoo was Katie's cousin, not a random inmate.

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JustJess

While I can't condone this as an actual punishment for the crime... I was very much amused. He better hope he's in prison for the rest of his life, since any life outside of prison is now over.

My mom used to teach in prisons - she said this sort of thing was pretty common. Not the tattooing, but that other prisoners wouldn't stand the presence of a child molester/killer. They were lower than any other type of crimimal.

Also... they "don't know" how the picture was circulated, and "don't know" how this happened? Bullshit. The guards probably helped. Not that I can blame them in this case... but just because it satisfies my ideal of revenge on the evil, doesn't make it right.

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feelgood

Didn't this same thing happened to Scott Petersen?

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Ustwo

Proper revenge would have been breaking his neck.

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goddess_otu

I"m not one to condone violence, but I have to say, when I read that article, I caught myself smiling a little. I think child molesters/killers bring out a saddistic asshole in most people. He deserves a thousand times worse, though.

Baraka_Guru

I agree with those who said that a lot worse could have happened to this man, but I think this is nothing other than pure vengeance. Moreover, I would suggest that justified revenge is an oxymoron.

Revenge is a discordant retaliation to something under the guise of justice. It doesn't work towards the restoration of harmony in society; instead, it creates further problems.

Tattooing this message to the face of this criminal did nothing good for society. And before you think that it did nothing bad either, consider that someone had to conduct this act of violence and that there are many who think it funny or justified.

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Lady Sage

Breaking his neck while a fabulous thought isnt nearly enough. He should suffer more. The tattoo is a good start IMHO. Start being the key word. (Enter insane laughter here)

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Toaster126

No no no no no.

This vigilante shit is bad. And that's what it is. Revenge is a petty emotion for people who need to put others in pain in order to get over theirs. The punishment was already decided on and is being carried out. The judge did not sentence him to getting forcibly tattooed, nor did the judge sentence him to the rape and assault he no doubt has experienced.

Also, due to the pictures being out on the internet and whatnot, I wouldn't be surprised if those entrusted to ensure his well-being decided not to do thier job in preventing the assault in the first place.

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FoolThemAll

Agreed 100% with Toaster and Baraka. Retributive justice is an oxymoron.

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Daniel_

Add me to the "NO!" camp, please.

He was sentenced under the rules that the democratic comunity have agreed upon. Regardless of our feelings, none of us have the right to personally decide that anybody's sentence was not enough and to add to it.

Imagine that you were stopped for speeding and paid your ticket/points on licence etc.

Say your neighbour hears about it and has a real problem with speeding drivers because one killed his kid.

He might decide that you should have had your car removed from you, or your ability to use a car removed. Would you defend his right to torch your car in the driveway?

Clearly, most people would say that this is nuts.

The problem with vigilanteism is that it says that the vigilante can overrule the democratic process and the courts.

It might well be that the killer in the OP "deserved" a worse sentence than he got in the eyes of many of us, but the way to achieve that MUST in a democratic society be to change the rules through the political process.

Our societies have gone to war repeatedly over the past 100 years to defend democracy all over the world (as the UK and US keep doing) precicely to prevent any thug with a problem to deal out violence whenever he fancies.

What goes for apartheid, naziism, ba'athism, expansionist communism, and all the other enemies of the past century must in my opinion go for a gang of nutters in a town or prison.

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Coppertop

I don't condone the tattooers behaviour, but I understand where they're coming from.

Ustwo

If someone were to rape and murder my child, I would not consider jail time justice.

There can really BE no justice, so all that is left is revenge, and oddly 'tatoo the forehead' would not be on my first list of revenge.

I would make him feel physical pain to equal the emotional pain he inflicted on my wife and I, and I would then kill whats left of him, slowly.

That would be as close to justice as I could muster.

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stevie667

Personally i consider it an apt punishment. It in itself will cause him far more trouble over the remainder of his life than anything else.

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ASU2003

Wow, I actually agree with you.

We need to get rid of the cruel and unusual punishment for criminals thing. If it is proven 100%, tattooing their victims name would be a start, maybe cutting off something between his legs would be next.

Yes, it is Halloween and I am evil.

longbough

I work with maximum security inmates in California, and I must say the tattooing seems relatively tame.

In California the "code" of conduct among prison inmates determine that child molesters (and certain deviant sexual acts) receive a permanent facial scar cut with a shiv deep across the victim's cheek. The facial scar is a permanent brand to identify the person for life. I had assumed this "protocol" was true for other state prisons - not just in California.

Most folks who receive the mark end up in a "sensitive needs" yard where they'd be safer.

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"I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence." - Mahatma Ghandi

Intense1

I would say that there is an element of "honor among thieves" here. If the roughest of the rough in our society see child molestation/killing as something "beyond the pale" for them, then they are dispensing their own prison form of justice.

But I wonder about this - are these murderers, thieves and rapists only looking for a situation in which they have a patsy, and they know that it will be overlooked if they do engage in this type of violence? Are they looking for a free pass?

Loungbough, you might have a good deal of insight into this - what say?

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Uncle Pony

I'm a corrections officer in a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania. I've been at it for 11 years now, so not only do I take offense to some of the comments, I actually know a little of what I'm talking about.

The guards most likely didn't have anything to do with it. Not one prison on the face of the planet has enough COs to watch every inmate for every minute of the day. It's not like that tat was a work of art. I'm willing to bet the whole thing happened within 10 minutes without any COs actually knowing until after the fact.

As far as the pictures getting circulated, look toward the medical department or middle management (lieutenant or captain) in the security department. The pic(s) are most likely photographic evidence by the security department for pressing charges against the assailant, or photo documentation for the inmate's medical file taken during the initial report. Someone in one of these two departments leaked them for whatever reason.

Cameras are a sort of restricted item in prison so inmates can't get a hold of one to plan an escape and other various security reasons. Regular ol' COs don't have them laying around for convenient use in case something funny happens and we want to take pics to show everyone on the internet.

Yes, no doubt. No proof offered, no mention of rape or assault (except the tattooing) in the article, yet there's absolutely no doubt it happened.

Addressed above.

It doesn't happen here.

longbough

Agreed. Often times I'd encounter suicide victims who had hung themselves in their cell. Usually their condition they'd been hanging for about 10 minutes at least without anyone knowing.

As a matter of fact the last suicide I recall was someone in administrative segregation falsely accused of being a child molester by his malicious "cellie." "Chesters" in "ad seg" aren't worth crap.

Oh please don't blame medical.
Photos taken are the responsibility and property of custody NOT medical. The medical department does not take photos and are not allowed access to photos taken. The only photos you might see in a medical file are colonoscopy photos or pictures of ulcers.

It's custody - pure and simple. If you want to blame middle management that's your prerogative.

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"I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence." - Mahatma Ghandi

Bill O'Rights

Oh...I don't know...
I'd say that the judge did just that. And, for the rest of his miserable useless life to boot.
Or...I suppose the judge could have been naive as to the workings of inmate justice.

Nah.

Sorry. It's a tad hard for me to feel even just a little bit bad for poor Mr. Stockelman.

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JustJess

I mean no offense to those who do their jobs to the best of their ability. I'm basing my comments on my mother's experience teaching in a med-security prison. She always said that plenty of the CO's were great, and helpful, and kept things running smoothly. But there were several CO's that were only different from the inmates because of the color of their uniform. I was making the - perhaps rather poor - assumption that this guy had more of the bad apples around him than the good when all this went down.

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Toaster126

I'm not saying judges are ignorant to how things work. Nor am I saying we should feel sorry for this scumbag. What I am saying is that we are supposed to be better than this guy, and endorsing vigilantism isn't doing it.

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stevo

Endorsing vigilantism doesn't put anyone on the same level as a child molester, so don't even go there. They should have tattood his eyeballs while they were at it.

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monkeysugar

I haven't seen that here in WA. Most of the child molesters here are in medium security, so for the most part they don't run into any problems when they are among their own. If they're in close custody, they don't walk mainline for long.

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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?

FoolThemAll

Well, commence the count. Here's one, with a caveat: rehabilitation AND deterrence/public safety.

If a punishment exceeds what is needed to acheive those goals, the excess is revenge. Useless, useless revenge. Feels good, accomplishes nothing positive.

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Uncle Pony

Different state, different rules/laws I guess. If pictures are taken during medical treatment they're added to the inmate's medical record here.

ngdawg

I will say, when I read the report, I said "should have been more". A tattoo across his face is the least of his problems and I hope he has more problems than he can handle. I don't pity these scumbags, I don't care if they EVER get rehabilitated and I sure as hell don't ever want them paroled.
Democracy? That right ended when they broke the law, it ended when that scum took that child and left her dead.
Prison guard must be the toughest job-having to deal with the lowest losers and be able to contain any disgust. A young man I know liked the job, until some idiot prisoner punched his face so hard, he lost his peripheral vision in one eye-he's still out on disability,they don't know if he'll ever get his sight back. Democracy? Bullshit...once inside, you're fair game.

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longbough

I agree.
But then that "different state, different rules/laws" argument should then have to apply to COs from other states as well. COs would then be just as culpable.

I'm a little defensive about the issue because it's a common presumption that the medical staff in prisons are completely ignorant of responsibilities and issues related to custody. After all, the medical department can supply inmates with medications - even narcotics for common low back pain, administer medical mandates that allow everything from daily showers to special mattresses or extra privileges that put an extra burden on custody ...

Medical staff and custody in my yard have an excellent relationship - we work together to make things run smoothly. I worked hard to foster this understanding and it took us a while to get there, but this takes an appropriate attitude on both sides - custody and medical.

Generalizations about the lack of professionalism on the part of medical staff by someone from custody just demonstrates the kind of destructive mindset that fosters suspicion and distrust between the departments. What would you think if my response was that custody was the obvious culprit because they're the only ones capable of taking that photo? If I said that you'd probably tell me that I didn't know shit about custody ... and you'd be right. See where I'm coming from?



As a physician in a state prison I do recognize that security comes first and foremost. IMO a released photo is a security breach. In my experience the medical staff have a good deal of discipline in this regard. If anything a physician recognizes the importance of professionalism and protocol. Admittedly, I can't speak for the nursing staff, the LVNs or the MTAs.

I'm not saying it's the COs because it's just too stupid to walk around with a personal camera (even if you could) snapping pictures. But photos taken, for documentation, are usually digital nowadays - all it takes is one person in the chain to make a copy for themselves to take home ... then for that image to be leaked to the press somehow.

..... then again, as I give the issue more thought let us not forget psychological services ... which is a completely separate entity from medicine. Psychs (admittedly my personal predjudice) tend to "act in a vacuum" and do ridiculous breaches of protocol - including snapping photos.

I'll give you middle management - and, perhaps psych.

__________________
"I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence." - Mahatma Ghandi

FoolThemAll

Sure. Let's just replace the judges with prison guards, then, since ideally the sentences judges hand down are just polite suggestions to be ignored.

If you want revenge, elect like-minded judges. Don't support the usurping of democracy just because it suits your agenda. That's not just an attack on incarcerated criminals, that's an attack on the right of everyone to have a say in the judicial system.

Prison guards have NO right to alter a prisoner's sentence through dereliction of duty. If it's a matter of limited resources and an incident innocently slipping past the guards' watch, fine, but intentionally looking the other way deserves disciplinary action, if not loss of job.

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ngdawg

Who said a word about guards altering anything? I'm not sure where you're getting that idea or that judges should be replaced with prison guards....funny how we cull something when not a word was said about it.
What I said was they are fair game once inside. Being tattooed on the forehead by other inmates clearly shows that. To think that democracy is at work once inside prison walls is wishful thinking when it comes to the hierarchy of prison life for these guys and so be it. The judges are more aware than any layperson would be of what goes on and sentences accordingly. Do you think for a minute that Robert Downey, when sent to serve his drug sentence, got put in the same block as rapists and child killers? Or that white collar criminals do? If you read newspaper articles about people being held in custody for various crimes, there are times when it's prudent that certain people be isolated for their own protection-child molesters, crooked cops, etc.-because of the hierarchy/code of behavior that goes on.
Guards are the only law they have and I know I for one couldn't do that job; they don't have one guard/one prisoner ratios anywhere that I ever heard of and while we are certainly lightyears removed from the 'Turkish prison' mentality, to think for a minute that there's democracy at work inside is altruistic. Democracy ends when the gavel comes down for the one it came down for.

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Ustwo

If the Pentagon can't keep classified documents out of the NY Times how do you think photos like this will say out of public circulation. The internet means ANYONE with any access can get anything out there.

Whining about this aspect is just silly.

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Seer666

While i have to say, I get a giggle out if it. it's to tame. they should have branded it.

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FoolThemAll

I apologize, I read too much into your words.

My response is that they shouldn't be fair game, we should have a better incarceration system than that. I'm not talking a 1:1 ratio of guards to prisoners, just enough guards to keep groups of prisoners under control. But perhaps I have a fair amount of ignorance in regards to the logistics of such a goal. *shrug*

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Strange Famous

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.

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.

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longbough

I don't understand what you're asking.

Maximum security in California is mostly comprised of gang members. As such there exists a complex social structure among the prison inmates ... Organized crime exists to support activities centered around drugs, stolen good, weapons and money ...

Those vices do not include sexual crimes against children. Therefore convicted pedophiles are not likely to be recognized as bretheren by gangsters. And, in prison, if you haven't affiliated yourself with one of the prison gangs then your life isn't worth much.

Custody tries to recognize when a pedophile has been "outed" in the population and try to place him where the risk of harm is lessened.

I don't know if that answers your question but I hope it helps.

__________________
"I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence." - Mahatma Ghandi

Strange Famous

the reason that child sex offenders are so often targeted in prison is (I would say) because it is the only way and the only action possible by which the prisoner can show themselves as a good parents (when on the whole they are by the very fact of getting themselves locked up rather bad parents on often). Slashing a paedophile with a razor, throwing boiling water mixed with washing up liquid over a nonce, these are ways to show you are a good dad and you love your kids.

btw - Firefox has some kind of spell checker, which advised me to change the word paedophile to "pedophile"... is this not the most philistine thing you have ever heard of? Ridiculous.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

analog

Um no, it's not. You spell it "paedophile" because you write/speak UK english. That is chiefly the British form of the spelling. "Pedophile" is the spelling found in american dictionaries, with "paedophile" listed as a variant chiefly of British use. I'm not saying either is the "correct" one, i'm noting the differences.

So no, it's not ridiculous, it's a cultural difference. That would be like me saying it's ridiculous that you spell "color" as "colour". It's not ridiculous, it's just one of the many nuances between "UK English" and "US English".

So if you don't like it doing that, consider that the program is written in America, and therefore is going to have some differences in the use of the language, before you subject it to your indignation.

PassionFish

Responding to the OP: Good job, inmate.