There is a massive difference between not tolerating crime and being an oppressive society.
I don't disagree. But there is also a massive difference between not tolerating crime and creating "penalties harsh enough to preclude the risk of committing the crime," as Leo suggests. Penalties that don't fit the crime, such as the death penalty for spammers and for kids who steal a Snickers bar from a 7-Eleven, is oppressive. In a civilized society, the punishment fits the crime.
Locking up child molesters, for one example, until the dust comes home, in no way equates to murdering 25 million people like the Soviet Union did.
While agree that the punishment for child molestation should be severe, I don't agree that everything that happens in this world is cast in the light of the Soviet Union.
When a person commits a crime, there SHOULD be a consequence. The worse a crime is, the harder the punishment. It is also the responsibility of the "state" to insure that what they are calling a crime really is one. Locking up people for "invented" crimes, does nothing more than increase crime rates. Child molestation is NOT an "invented" crime. It is real.
I agree with that, as well.
Our society has decided that the "state" should handle the safety of the People. It then becomes the responsibility of that "state" to insure the safe of all it's law abiding citizens. Our "state" is not doing that job. Our streets are not safe.
Agreed.
Now, we can argue the reasons for that till the sky turns green, BUT, crime needs to be cut down, drastically.
As history shows, increasing penalties does not drastically cut down on crime (except in oppressive societies like, you know the Soviet Union). We used to have public executions. You'd think such a gruesome and harsh penalty would have solved the murder problem, huh. Even the Gary Gilmore execution, the first one ten years after the Supreme Court had reversed it's ruling that capitol punishment was cruel and inhumane, resulted in reduced violent crimes around the country for about 2 weeks, then things went back to normal.
Punishments for crimes walk the fine line between deterrence and incapacitation. For the really heinous crimes, you want incapacitation - just lock 'em up and throw away the key - to keep them out of society. Child molestation would be one of those, particularly considering the recidivism rate. There isn't a penalty harsh enough that will deter a child molester. Well, at least the first time they do it. The stats show that even really harsh penalties for any crime (not just child molesters) rarely results in reduced crime initially. However, really harsh penalties for repeat offenders do, in fact, result in reduced recidivism. If you do 5 years for some crime, and you get out and know that if you do it again it's only 5 more years, the risk might be worth it. But, if you get out and do it again and know that it'll be 25 years for the second offense, you are gonna think twice.
It's like when people get banned here. Usually it's for a short time the first time, and if they don't learn their lesson, the next time it's months, and after that it's a really, really long time. Some people just never learn.
I don't care how you do it. Just find a way to put an end to it. We do know that children who are molested often go on to molest others. That cycle needs broken. Do not allow it to continue.
Yes. The experts agree, and the real history shows, the majority of child molesters cannot be rehabilitated. Why those two guys were ever given bracelets a second time, I can only imagine.
Had those two child molesters been keep where it was not possible for them to repeat, those 4 women would be alive today. The "state" did not do it's job.
I agree, except those two didn't repeat, they did something altogether different. It's very rare for child molesters to later move on up to adults. Which makes me wonder if they were even child molesters at all, in the normal sense, and not just degenerate molesters in general. In any case, once they cut their bracelets off in the first place, that should have been the clue that they couldn't be trusted out in society, and they should have gone right back to prison.
