a somewhat garbled comment...dorktasticOctober 28 2005, 02:05:07 UTC
I disagree. I have yet to see convincing evidence that longer jail sentences (or the risk of the death penalty) are significant deterrents to any crime, including rape. No one thinks they are going to get caught. Furthermore (at least this is the case in the US and Canada), sexual offenders are unlikely to receive any kind of treatment or therapy while imprisoned. Prisons are violent, brutal environments. Most people who are sent to jail get out of jail - probably not better off from having spent time in a place where violence is the norm. There is also not very much available in terms of reintegration into society and long-term supports to help make sure people don't reoffend.
Sorry if this doesn't make sense - I've taken lots of pain killers...
Ideally, I'd like to see rapists be imprisoned for life. No, I don't believe they can be rehabilitated, and no, I don't think they deserve a second chance. Ever.
But someone brought up a problem with this, and I fear she's probably right. What she said was that if rape was punishable by death, then no one would ever be convicted of rape. Look at how rape victims are treated. They get treated like crap, like liars, their entire lives are put under a microscope, and it's very hard to get a conviction. Making the punishment worse would make it even harder to get convictions. Because people just keep feeling sorry for these "poor, unfortunate men."
Harsher penalties, after a certain point, do not increase deterrence. What they inspire instead is disbelief in their reality. This is perfectly reasonable as the threat of drastic prison terms persuades offenders to plea-bargain to a lesser offence and, because guilty pleas are gold from a prosecutorial point of view, encourages prosecutors to offer plea-bargains.
After a certain point, as well, rapists, far from being deterred from committing rape, will be increasingly motivated to kill their victims to make sure they can't testify. I'm fairly sure that this isn't the desired effect.
Another problem is that simply offering harsher punishments in the form of longer jail terms, as a deterrence strategy, assumes that the offender is acting rationally and balancing risks versus rewards. This assumption doesn't hold for a great many rapists, who rape in response to impulses that are anything but rational.
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Sorry if this doesn't make sense - I've taken lots of pain killers...
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But someone brought up a problem with this, and I fear she's probably right. What she said was that if rape was punishable by death, then no one would ever be convicted of rape. Look at how rape victims are treated. They get treated like crap, like liars, their entire lives are put under a microscope, and it's very hard to get a conviction. Making the punishment worse would make it even harder to get convictions. Because people just keep feeling sorry for these "poor, unfortunate men."
Reply
After a certain point, as well, rapists, far from being deterred from committing rape, will be increasingly motivated to kill their victims to make sure they can't testify. I'm fairly sure that this isn't the desired effect.
Another problem is that simply offering harsher punishments in the form of longer jail terms, as a deterrence strategy, assumes that the offender is acting rationally and balancing risks versus rewards. This assumption doesn't hold for a great many rapists, who rape in response to impulses that are anything but rational.
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