Eye for an Eye
 

I read about Iranian woman that was blinded by a stalker who thru acid in her eyes and convinced court to have the same done to her attacker. Do you agree or is this cruel and unusual punishment? I realize in other countries their laws allow this. I wish we would allow such things, such as castration for serial rapist and such. What do you think?

Iranian to be blinded with acid for doing same to woman - CNN.com TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Iranian to be blinded with acid for doing same to woman-- An Iranian woman, blinded by a jilted stalker who threw acid in her face, has persuaded a court to sentence him to be blinded with acid himself under Islamic law demanding an eye for an eye.

Ameneh Bahrami refused to accept "blood money." She insisted instead that her attacker suffer a fate similar to her own "so people like him would realize they do not have the right to throw acid in girls' faces," she told the Tehran Provincial Court.

Her attacker, a 27-year-old man identified in court papers as Majid, admitted throwing acid in her face in November 2004, blinding and disfiguring her. He said he loved her and insisted she loved him as well.

He has until early this week to appeal the sentence.

Doctors say there is no chance Bahrami will recover her vision, despite repeated operations, including medical care in Spain partially paid for by Iran's reformist former president, Mohammed Khatami, who was in power when the attack took place.

Majid said he was still willing to marry Bahrami, but she ruled out the possibility and urged that he remain locked up.

"I am not willing to get blood money from the defendant, who is still thinking about destroying me and wants to take my eyes out," she told the court. "How could he pretend to be in love? If they let this guy go free, he will definitely kill me."

Bahrami told the court that Majid's mother had repeatedly tried to arrange a marriage between the two after Majid met Bahrami at university.

She rejected the offer, not even sure at first who the suitor was. Her friends told her he was a man who had once harassed her in class, leading to an argument between them.

But he refused to accept her rejection, she said, going to her workplace and threatening her.

Finally, she lied and told him she had married someone else and that "it would be better all around if he would leave [her] alone."

She told the court that she reported the conversation to police, saying he had threatened her with "burning for the rest of my life" -- but they said they could not act until a crime had been committed.

Two days later, on November 2, 2004, as she was walking home from work, she became aware of a man following her. She slowed, then stopped to let him pass.

"When the person came close, I realized that it was Majid," she said. "Everything happened in a second. He was holding a red container in his hand. He looked into my eyes for a second and threw the contents of the red container into my face."

Bahrami knew exactly what was happening, she said.

"At that moment, I saw in my mind the face of two sisters who years ago had the same thing happen to them. I thought, 'Oh, my God -- acid.' "

Passers-by tried to wash the acid off Bahrami, then took her to Labafinejad Hospital.

"They did everything possible for me," she said of the doctors and nurses there.

Then, one day, they asked her to sign papers allowing them to operate on her.

"I said, 'Do you want to take my eyes out?' The doctor cried and left."

They did want to remove her eyes surgically, she learned, for fear they would become infected, potentially leading to a fatal infection of her brain.

But she refused to allow it, both because she was not sure she could handle it psychologically, and because she thought her death would be easier for her family to bear.

"If I had died, my family would probably be sad for a year and mourn my death, and then they would get used to it," she told the court. "But now every day they look at me and see that I am slowly wasting away."

The three-judge panel ruled unanimously on November 26 that Majid should be blinded with acid and forced to pay compensation for the injuries to Bahrami's face, hands and body caused by the acid.

That was what she had demanded earlier in the trial. But she did not ask for his face to be disfigured, as hers was.

"Of course, only blind him and take his eyes, because I cannot behave the way he did and ask for acid to be thrown in his face," she said. "Because that would be [a] savage, barbaric act. Only take away his sight so that his eyes will become like mine. I am not saying this from a selfish motive. This is what society demands."

Attacking women and girls by throwing acid in their faces is sufficiently common in countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia that groups have been formed to fight it. Human rights organizations have condemned the practice in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is not clear how often such attacks take place in Iran.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are the only countries that consider eye-gouging to be a legitimate judicial punishment, Human Rights Watch has said.

It's cruel, barbaric and wrong for reasons too obvious to explain.

It doesn't say, but I'm assuming based on the judgment that this decision was in a religious court. These are not too different than the Medieval trials which were based primarily on religious texts and tradition.

In many Muslim Countries there are both Secular and Religious Courts, sitting side by side. Often the people on trial decide which to go on, generally when it's an obscure ruling it tends to be on the Religious Courts. These are based in large part to the Qur'an and Hadith, very often on very obscure texts.

As far as what is morally right, I'm not morally opposed to it in perticular. The truth of history is the Law of Eye for an Eye was actually a system of restraint. By stipulating what a person may get or take in return, it prevents massive blood-feuds which would otherwise grow quickly out of control. Obviously we have progressed beyond these rules, however it has simply turned to the criminal paying in either money or time to the government as opposed to paying the person he/she committed the crime against.

wow, that seriously conflicts with the self-quote in your signature!

I do not agree with this, as the circumstances differ so much in each situation. Factors such as mental health or evidence or circumstance can skew the situation so much. Unless the person admits to being in good mental health and willingly committing the crime, it's hard to tell what's going on. The problem is, no one is going to admit to that if acid is going to be thrown in their eyes - so you'll never be able to tell if the person deserves the punishment.

I am pointing this out not necessarily because I truly feel an eye for an eye is something I believe in, I don't but more of a gauge of what is fair punishment for heinous crimes(of course every crime must be judged on it's own merits) but it seems in US so many get light sentences for horrible crimes.

This guy was a smart fellow who thought this out. He is getting what he deserves, IMO.
An example needs to be set. Marry this monster?

Part of me is horrified and part is like, "good, he deserves it the bastard"

We read so much about muslim cultures that kill a woman because she was raped, blaming her, etc. I'm surprised that the courts over there believed her actually and didn't buy into the idea that somehow she made him do it.

Maybe he should be given a choice, the acid bath, or life in prison in an Iranian prison (where life means the rest of your life.)

As far as castrating rapists goes, well, no, I don't agree with that one. You could say that he should be raped up the ass by a guy who starred in Monster Dicks 54 and having everything done to him that he did to his victim and I'd be good with that, but chopping off the balls is not a precident you would want to set.

I'm not sure I would trust any court - let alone an Iranian one - to get the verdict right 100% of the time. What if they make a mistake and a guy gets blinded wrongly?

It's the same as with the death penalty - any punishment that cannot be reversed if it is found that the inital judgment was wrong is inherently the wrong punishment.

You see, the problem I have with this is that courts are supposed to hand down justice. "Justice," even in a classical sense, aims to maintain equilibrium and harmony within a society. An eye for an eye, especially in a contemporary setting, does little work towards this, and would, in most cases, have the opposite effect. How does continuing a cycle of violence work towards a return to social harmony after a wrongdoing?

'An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." - Ghandi

I am not saying i agree with it (but the more i think about it, the more i think i agree with it, even though i know i shouldn't), but i can understand how this would be considered "justice." You reap what you sew, you get what you give, do unto others, etc, etc. If he blinded and scarred her, then it seems quite just, quite fair, that he too be blind and scarred. Would you suggest he be reprimanded harshly, taught that his actions were wrong, "rehabilitated" so he could go on with his life and she gets to live blind and scarred? How is that social harmony?
-----Added 15/12/2008 at 05 : 40 : 08-----
and crime will dwindle because no one will be able to see to commit any crimes.

How is it any less appropriate than locking the guy up at taxpayer expense for an extended period of time?

It's a punishment, and it definately punishes without a whole lot of unnecessary expense in order to be 'nice.'

If he doesn't like the punishment, he shouldn't go around throwing acid in peoples faces.

As far as it's value, I would certainly consider it to be more of a deterrent than a simple prison sentance. Also, it trumps rehabilitation as he isn't very likely to go around doing it to other women after he has his eyes burned out.

The polite, educated part of me says an eye for an eye is too harsh, & there must be a better way.

The hunter/gatherer part of me says not only gouge out his eys, but also disfigure him the same way he disfigured her.

Skizziks... your avatar, what does it mean to you?

I am truly curious to understand,
I am not being sarcastic or intentionally mean.

(please pardon my somewhat off topic slide)

It isn't quite so easy. It seems things were lost in your glossing. The punishment should fit the crime, of course--debt to society, and all that. Before I explain, let me put your thoughts a different way: If we blind and scar the criminal, the victim is still blind and scarred. But now there are two sets of families and friends who must bear the burden of having a loved one who has survived and must live after such a violent experience. This too fails to re-establish harmony, and has only increased suffering. (I will leave out, for the moment, the wider practical and ethical concerns in regard to a mode of social/governmental punishment that practices an eye for an eye.)

What is more just, then? In my opinion, it would be more just to punish the criminal in such a way that both attempts to rehabilitate him and forces him to improve the life of the victim and the well-being of his community. This can be done through payable damages, community service, etc. Payable damages can be sums of money (I don't know anyone who can't use money). Community service can include anything from picking up litter to helping the homeless find work and a place to live, helping feed the impoverished, or working with at-risk kids to prevent them from becoming criminals themselves...or a number of other important jobs that work to widely improve a community. We see this happening in Western courts. I'm not sure how this works in religious or other courts that may differ from ours.

So you have a choice:

1. Eye for an eye...make the criminal suffer as did his victim.
   
2. A punishment that forces the criminal to pay assets to the victim and to perform a certain requirement of community service (even if it is while incarcerated). Also, if it is fitting, make him take courses or enter programs to help change his negative behaviour.

Tell me, what would serve best to restore harmony to the community?

in a euro-modern legal system, the state substitutes itself for the victim of a crime. once that happens, "an eye for an eye" stops making sense--in it's place comes the system(s) of equivalents that functions as justice. this does several things--one of which is to route thinking about injury or criminal action through a sense of a social form rather than allowing that thinking to remain locked into one's skull. it puts the state in a position of effectively regulating an overall sense of harmony or well-being.

the other logic, the one enacted by this court, is in comparison maybe intuitively gratifying (judging by the comments above that by=pass the whole basis for modern law and substitute for it the idea that the victim of a crime is the individual upon whom an action was visited) is pretty problematic.

i guess the distinction comes down to how one feels about revenge instead of justice. first there is the problem of error. second there is the problem that barak guru pointed out concerning the effects of revenge. third, there is an ethical matter, which is that the state itself becomes criminal by duplicating the actions of someone convicted of a crime. i don't see the up side of that. if you think about recent events on the order of extraordinary rendition or gitmo, the consequences of criminal action on the part of the state far outweigh any fred and barney "yay revenge" sentiments.

there are a few things that have come along with capitalism that i like--i like indoor plumbing, i like electricity. i like the undercutting of vigilante action in the context of modern law.
i don't see revenge and justice as having much to do with each other.

If it's decided that this brutal individual gets to keep his eyes ( and for the record, i'm for making him blind), then this individual should be made her financial caretaker, meaning every dime he makes should go to her.

I think this is an odd thing to wish for.

And the state takes care of him?

It's probably no surprise that I think the question posed by the OP is totally ridiculous and anyone who says they support state-sanctioned barbarism hasn't a clue what they are endorsing and if they did live in such a place they would be terrified. That's what I think. It's all good until it's your little Bobby or Billy Sue is being strapped to a piece of wood and caned.

Do you not consider the implications at all of a society that endorses brutal violence as a means of justice? Or do you suppose we will stay just as we are only with a system that carries out maiming and torture as a means of doling out justice? Who is going to carry out these punishments? Do you suppose that they will be sane, reasonable people?

Get a grip people.

You're using our current faulty system to justify an even faultier method of dealing with crime?

If the deterrent method of crime control actually worked then we'd see the lowest crime rates in the countries with the most draconian laws, and this is certainly not the case. Deterrence, for the most part, does not work particularly well; a great number of criminals are not rational actors, and they do not perform a cost-benefit analysis before they kill someone, mug someone, etc. I'm of the opinion that the retribution handed down for crimes should be repairative - directly to the victim, if possible (not likely so in this case) or at least to society in general. If we do not have a reliable method of preventing crime through the way we deal with offenders, then we may as well attempt to counter some of the social negativity of these acts with the sentence given to those who have been convicted.

If you rehabilitate him and he does community service, the victim is still blind and scarred, you cant change the victims circumstances, so i dont see that as a factor. if we blind and scar the criminal, there ARE two sets of families who have to deal with it, it HAS increased the suffering of mankind overall, but i think it would deter future similar attacks and would definately keep him from doing it again.



the vicitm said she didnt want the money, i dont think the criminal could do anything to satisfy the victim (which is her issue to deal with, another whole topic), so i dont count the victim as part of my decision.

of the two options you offer, the second one definately sounds a lot nicer and better. its what western courts are doing now. i just dont beleive in it, i dont think rehabilitation works 90% of the time. And so, since it hasnt really worked for so many years, why dont we try the extreme approach, make the criminal suffer a similar fate as the crime. perhaps if criminals knew what could happen to them, they would not commit the crime as quickly, and THAT would help restore harmony to the community.

i base my decision off of what an afghani told me once. he had shot up and killed some folks, when i confronted him, he told me he knew the americans couldnt hurt him, we coulndt do anything to him but put him in a cell with his friends and feed him and take care of him, so he wasnt afraid, didnt care, and would wait to be released to do it again.

funny thing, a somali told me the same thing in somalia back in 92.

same thing was told to me by an iraqi. but then we told the iraqi we would turn him over to the iraqis, and he freaked out and was quite cooperative. he knew the iraqis would fuck him up if they got thier hands on him.

the true threat of personal harm, no matter how unpleasant and cruel it seems, to me has proven effective, so i am in favor of it.

strange that you would refer to situations involving not only war but occupation to support your claim regarding vigilante-style action (not justice) in such situations---these are exceptional circumstances in which most of the rules that shape regular life are suspended. and even in that context, efficiency is not the same as equitability, not to mention fairness or justice.

writing while at work is a problem, but fortunately ms media filled in the part i skipped over above---justice in a modern--not stone age (read war) context is shaped by procedures--you know, like a trial--and the substitution of state for victim is what enables trials to unfold as they do in the states. while there are obvious problems with the american legal system--most of which have to do with the effects of socio-economic class---even with them, this system is preferable to it's cruder, though maybe in some cases more "efficient" counterpart.

so i really don't understand the arguments in support of this style of law or of punishment, except that it appeals to one's inner flinstone.

In a world of an eye for an eye, the one eyed man is king.


I guess it would have been the Iranians or some nutjob tribe in the middle east that would have done this, so i am not suprised, is that a bad thing?:confused:

saudi arabia, where folks are executed almost every friday after prayers in the square, has VERY little crime, and is extremely safe. its a boring shitty police state with a whole lotta human rights violations that no one seems to notice or care about. it is as draconian as you can get. so yeah, it is the case. but who would want to live in that environment?
-----Added 16/12/2008 at 06 : 38 : 15-----
in this instance, my inner unevolved caveman is attracted to this idea, yes. i dont see how throwing acid in someone's face is acting in accordance with rules for regular life. its not like he snaked her parking spot.

if someone could be brutal enough to throw acid into a girls face, i can be brutal enough to throw acid in his face because he threw acid in her face.

(no, "I" couldnt do it. by "I" i mean someone else. but just because i lack the stones to do it doesn't mean i don't think it should happen. go ahead, i know i just opened myself up for all sorts of ridicule and i wont be able to justify it.)

So, let me get this straight, you are using Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq as your models of an effective criminal justice system? Are you under the impression that rape and murder and other violent crimes are under control in these places? Because I can send you some links.

And aren't the gentlemen you are referring to in your anecdotes above probably referring to abuse and torture in prison before the implementation of any "justice system"? Do you support that, as well?

What, exactly, do you see going on around you in the US that is worse than in places like present day Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia?

I can't help but think you haven't really given thought to this.

What sort of influence do you suppose the open approval of brutality has on a society? Are you harboring the opinion that humans need to be dominated? Corralled? Subjected? Punished? Because such a system does not only affect those who commit crimes. It affects everyone in the society and it implies extreme distinctions between government and society that I don't think you're taking into account.

are you under the impression that i don't realize what goes on in those countires and are you under the impression that i am confusing war with a viable justice system?

no, i have given this some thought, and no you misunderstood my point entirely.

the point of my examples was: the only guy who was actually concerned was the guy facing the threat of bodily harm. if the criminals have nothing to fear, they will do what they want knowing nothing bad (direct bodily harm) will happen to them. if they think they will be harmed in some way, they react a whole lot differently. war or not, they were humans and reacted humanly. i can only assume that the threat of direct bodily harm in response to bodily harm would deter a whole lot more criminals.

i also dont see specific punishement for a specific crime as "open approval of brutality." when you commit a certain level of crime, e.g. rape, murder, irrevocable bodily harm caused by acid thrown to the face, you pretty much have decided you are no longer part of society, and so you dont get the benefits of belonging to the society.

I take it you are not aware of Dr Phils sister in law, cindi?

Dr. Phil.com - Shows - Moments of Crisis

Um, don't confuse causation. The areas with the worst crime rates tend to enact the most draconian laws. Those with lower rates don't typically need to resort to such extremes.

Deterrence definitely works, despite criminals not being a particularly rational bunch. All in all stricter penalties have been shown to discourage criminals.

Aside from deterrence, most criminals in the United States are caught and locked up multiple times. Iran's 'one strike and your out' approach definitely deters future crimes...it's hard to rape and pillage when you don't have any eyes.

wow. so you don't see it as open approval of brutality because you see the people who commit a crime as less than human. you also presuppose guilt, in that kind of mideval "the law is drawn to the guilty" kinda way. if you understand that someone accused of a crime is still a human being, then what you propose is brutality and you approve of it. if you are not worried--seemingly--about questions of actual guilt, then procedure doesn't really matter either--and besides, if the accused is more or less guilty anyway because otherwise the law wouldn't be drawn in that direction, and if guilt (without proof, with proof, what difference does it make?) means less than human...wow. just wow. it's a good thing you have no power.

but there's more. you use experience in military occupier status as your point of departure for a conception of what this kind of barbaric non-justice does and you rely on anecdote only. one of the things that this kind of "thinking results in is a continued spiral of opposition--you replace one form of brutality with another one. way to fucking go. because from a policy viewpoint, none of these situations you allude to--somalia, iraq, afghanistan---have exactly worked out, despite the "efficiency" of this mideval viewpoint translated into action.

sometimes simple is just simple.

edit: if you want to see what the perception created by this kind of attitude translated into policy can result in during peace time, you might take a look at what's been happening in greece this past week and why it got started.

Uh, no from what you've gone on to say here I don't think I misunderstood your point at all. It's my point that I think is being missed here. Either missed or ignored.

It's cruel

No, it's daytime TV and thus needs to be purged with fire.:)

roachboy and mixedmedia - my bad. my opinions and beliefs, shaped by what i have seen, done, and experienced, are wrong. you are both right. you win.

Maybe not in this case, but sometimes its hard to draw the line. What if its a repeated incident and the criminal prove that s/he won't change then I wouldn't stray from being barbaric just to maintain some humanity in me, self preservation. But everyone deserve a second chance and playing fire with fire is a poor life choice.

Either way the guy should have known that something horrendous could happen to him because of his actions. You live within the rules of that country, don't like them get out IMO.

I know that if I kill someone here I'll go to jail for 25+ years. I should not be all that surprised to find myself in the slammer if I kill someone. common sense, in that country they have harsh penalties too bad for him. not.

I think I'll just turn a blind eye to this subject and walk away....

skiz: that is an absurd conclusion to draw from either the posts i made or mixedmedia has made here. that there is a distinction between what might make sense intuitively and what makes sense on a macro-scale is not an attack on the legitimacy of the experience that you have had intuitively--what's at issue is whether that experience can be extended into claims about a legal system as a whole, made into a way of thinking about how such a system can work. and there are arguments to be made both ways about this matter. you could have made arguments. this is a discussion that can veer toward debate. you know, an exchange of differing views. given that, you have to expect from time to time that you'll be called out on things. i happens to everyone sooner or later.

i suppose getting all huffy and deciding in a drama queen moment to pack up your toys and leave is a response.
it's just not one that i would have expected.

The only positive that I could find with the punishment in this case(a far reach at that) is that it would be a move for justice over the many injustices that women face over there. I in no way am supporting this type of punishment, it is cruel and inhumane regardless.

I find it amusing to see right wing Americans finding Shariaa Law to be worthy of praise, even if in a single situation.

I was hoping to start a debate and you guy's never fail to amaze me with intelligent and honest opinions without getting ugly with each other, you make me proud!

Would sentencing him to a life time of chopping wood, breaking coal, raising animals etc. to provide for this woman and her family be to harsh?

The castration for a rapist, is only coming from my daughter's recent forced rough sex incident that started out reluctant & ended with vaginal tearing (from a guy that pick her up and manipulated her into a perceived love, at the wake of her boyfriend, who committed suicide). Then dumped her when she thought she was pregnant!
I wanted much worse, I wanted him dead, It's a blessing that I'm a quad, because I would be in jail right now!

And yes, she sees a shrink and therapist regularly.

I don't think the punishment she is seeking is at all unfair. I don't know if eye for an eye would apply to all scenarios by default, but it seems fair in this case. What are the alternatives? Money can't return her sight, nothing can. Jail time isn't going to do anything to help the victim.

As for castration for serial rapists... It's not eye for an eye. Psychological torture of some kind would probably be closer to target, but I'm not suggesting that.

I think these cases should be judged based on individual merits and circumstances. This guy knew what he was doing, he knew it would blind her. I don't see any punishment for his crime more suitable than for him to lose his sight as well.

Prince, as was indicated in other posts in this thread, there are moral issues of suggesting such a "fair" punishment.

Taking out the big picture, as that's been handled somewhat already, let's parse your own suggestion: you say that it's fair to blind someone who had blinded another. What you have done to another will be done unto you, in all "fairness."

Does this mean it would be proper to teach a child to hit their sibling back to make things "fair"? On a more serious note, if a man murders another's wife in jealousy, is it "fair" to put the first man's wife to death? That sounds "fair," doesn't it?

I want to add, generally, that I'm a bit disturbed that there's yet another person here who's taken the same side of moral legal "justice" on this issue as the minority Iran and Saudi Arabia.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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.

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