Prince

No, because you're killing the wife, not the man. In the case being discussed in this thread he blinded her intentionally. It's not his wife, mother, sister, cousin, or mailman that should be punished for his actions.

This is a man who blinded a woman for the hell of it. She isn't looking for money or prison time, she just wants him to suffer the same fate. Considering the circumstances, I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask. What other punishment is there that would fit the crime?

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Baraka_Guru

But I thought we were talking an action for an action, in all fairness.

First: it wasn't "for the hell of it." Don't downplay this as tomfoolery gone wrong.

Second: It's not up to the victim to decide what is a suitable punishment, and there is a reason for that. The reason is that it should be in a society's best interest to favour reasonable justice over revenge. Revenge and retribution are not synonymous.

Remove some rights and privileges, and make it mandatory for him do something useful for society—for a long time.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Prince

The dead wife's husband isn't the primary victim; the wife is. That's what capital punishment is for.A couple of years of jail time? Probation and civil service? His crime isn't against the society, it's against the individual. These aren't just punishments, they're slaps on the hand.

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Who is John Galt?

Baraka_Guru

I was using your logic. It was for demonstrative purposes only. If you look at intent, the man wished to cause suffering to the other man by killing the wife. As a "suitable" punishment, the offending man's wife should be killed also, so they both suffer the same thing: the loss of their wives. That's "fair."

I don't know about this case, but in many serious assault cases, I think you're looking at around 10 years or so. And although the victim is an individual, the crime itself is against the state (i.e. society). I don't think one can call 10 years a slap on the hand—not if you consider the kind of correctional facility one would typically go for this kind of thing here. This case is pretty serious, though, so maybe the sentence would be longer.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Prince

No, it isn't. The wife is murdered, not her husband. He may suffer as a consequence of the crime, but he's not the victim. I don't know whose logic you're following, but it isn't mine. Maybe his intent was to hurt the man by killing the wife, but the man is not the victim, and the punishment should not reflect his wishes. It should reflect the fate of the victim.

If you throw acid in someone's face to intentionally blind them, what's fair is to have acid thrown in yours. Yes, it's retribution. Is it the purpose of the justice system to deliver retribution? No, it isn't. I don't disagree with you there. Traditionally, such punishments are done courtesy of the victim's family or friends. I don't have a problem with that.

A prison sentence is fine and well for drug dealers or car thieves - in other words people who have committed crimes that are not, at least directly, irreversible by nature. Prison can be used as correctional means to try and rehabilitate these offenders and hopefully they will not return to a life of crime. That's the ideal situation anyway. For drug dealers and such there is no need for retribution for justice is sufficient. Although I don't agree with jailing drug dealers to begin with, but that's another story.

As for the crimes committed by murderers or rapists, or the likes of the asshole depicted in the OP's article, justice doesn't exist. That's where we come to "eye for an eye."

Permanently blinding someone or murdering them is not a reversible act. Retribution is, as far as I am concerned, a more pertinent solution here, because justice is simply out of reach. You lose eye sight for the rest of your life - let's say the next 70 years. The person responsible does ten years in prison, and is then free to do whatever they want. Even if he got raped in prison for every one of those days of those ten years, it doesn't fit the crime. It isn't the responsibility of the tax payers to foot the bill for feeding this guy and keeping him warm in his cell, watching cable for a decade. Put the eyes out and ship his ass back on the street. If justice can't be delivered, retribution is the bare minimum.

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Who is John Galt?

Baraka_Guru

Well, then, Prince, I suppose this means I should be considered immensely fortunate that I live in a far more just society than the vigilantism you have depicted here. (Though you have confused the term retribution with revenge.)

Enjoy dreaming of your acid-in-the-face fairness. Personally, it's too ghastly for me to think about at length. I'd rather think about the positive steps some societies have come this far up to the 21st century.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

mixedmedia

First off, Brewmaniac, let me say I am sorry that you and your daughter have gone through this. I know it affects your heart very deeply. Three women very close to me have also been the victims of sexual crime.

I'm curious though, and I don't intend to turn this into a point of debate, it's just something I think about now and then.

Do you believe that your personal experience has had a tremendous impact on your opinion vis a vis 'eye for an eye' justice or any other sort of corporal punishment for sexual or violent crimes? In other words, what do you suppose your opinion on this thread would have been if your daughter had not been victimized? Feel free to not answer, if you don't feel like it. But, at the same time, I don't think there is a wrong answer, so it's cool.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

ASU2003

I would probably be center to far left on some issues, but I have no problem with this punishment.

It's harsh but fair. And I don't have much say in how they should live their lives over there anyway. But hopefully it will prevent others from repeating this type of crime.

mixedmedia

It seems that the efficacy of the punishment is predicated on the idea that those who rape, murder, throw acid in the face of other people, etc. are motivated and demotivated by the same things that keep other people from doing them. When that is obviously not true.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

smooth

This conclusion confuses me because it seems you're using an example of someone who was not deterred as evidence of a system that would produce deterrence...

In other words, you are saying that a guy telling you he was more concerned with being tortured by some people led him to be concerned about being in their custody and that his lack of concern with being in someone else's custody led him to think being held by US officials would be less dangerous to his personal health.

But neither of those considerations seems to have had any effect on his killing other people before you talked to him.

So you're taking the discussions these people had about their considerations of their personal safety and thinking it should deter them from doing something that would jeopardize their safety...but it didn't in actuality based off what they told you (i.e., they still did the act).


Interestingly, this is what the empirical data support (despite some claims in this thread that deterrence works and rehabilitation does not).

In criminology we have two types of deterrence:
general and specific
specific deterrence is the idea that when we blind this guy he will be so affected that he'll never blind someone else
general deterrence is the idea that when we blind this guy, other people will be so affected they will never blind someone

when these theories are tested (and a ton of work has been done in the area of death penalties, and more importantly to some people's thoughts in this thread--publicized death penalties) we find that shortly before the punishment is enacted crime drops. After the punishment is enacted, crime drops even further. This is the point where severe, public punishment advocates can cheer for being right...such punishments do in fact reduce crime so long as the saliency of the punishment is operating on the potential offenders.

The problem is that shortly afterwards, usually around a few weeks to a month, the crime rate not only approaches its previous rate but it actually rises higher and stays that way for a bit before dropping down to a rate similar to the one before the punishment.

Of course, specific deterrence for capital crimes has a high rate of success...the offender is not allowed to reoffend. The irony is that if left alone, completely alone, nearly all murderers never murder again or commit even lower crimes, for that matter. Statistically, murders occur in fits of rage or emotionality. Rapists and robbers do have a higher rate of recidivism, but we don't execute or maim for those crimes anyway. As we go down the list of seriousness of offenses, the amount of specific deterrence necessary to effect a change in behavior becomes exceedingly improbable to implement (i.e., chopping hands off thieves).

So in actuality, deterrence theory has very little traction among professionals as a solution to violent crime in the US. We actually have some of the most stringent punishment policies in the developed world and we also have THE (not one of) highest rates of violent crime and incarceration. Those two facts have to be addressed in any viable crime theory and if you pick up any book that seriously engages these issues it will lead off with what criminologists refer to as the true American "exceptionalism." There was a time where we were just barely trailing Russia in it's incarceration rate, but I believe we've surpassed them as the last data came from around 10 years ago and a lot has changed in Russia within the past decade.


So we turn to the claim that rehabilitation has failed in the US.
The data actually support the opposite conclusion, but at the same time are careful to point out that long-term rehabilitation has never been tried in the US justice system. The reasons for this usually boil down to lack of social and funding support. So what generally happens is that a bill is passed called something like, "The Prisoner Rehabilitation Bill" and everyone wonders about it...some support and others think it's a poor idea. But it goes into effect and maybe some of it will include things like job education, cognitive restructuring, and programming while in prison. But after some budget cuts and in some cases public outcry from both groups concerned about prisoners getting education and employment benefits that citizens don't have access to, and groups concerned over prisoners' labor being abused for 10 cents per day operating commercial call centers...

...what you get is a program that is usually eviscerated that leaves prisoners wandering around the prison working 40 hour work weeks for little to no pay and learning no trade skill since the work one can do around a prison consists of wiping floors and tables and cooking cafeteria food. The same kinds of jobs they can get if they didn't have a criminal record, which don't do much to keep them from using drugs and stealing/robbing/dealing for their habits (which comprise the vast majority of our prison population).

Then you get a bunch of people who haven't been rehabilitated in any sense of the word back out from prison and a population that believes the prisoners were in an environment trying as hard as it could to rehabilitate them yet failed.

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Jadast

I find it repugnent. That said, it would be a greater deterent for me then a stint in jail.