Why we should enforce the death penalty

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
The simple fact is, the state has said, "if you murder, the penalty for the life you took is your own life." That's the law. It hasn't changed yet, so the fact that it is law, and that it is WELL-KNOWN law, is its justification.

So laws are self-justified by their existance? That logic is a bit circular.

[Lady Sidhe]

Perhaps, but it doesn't change the fact that it IS the law. While it's the law, any infractions of it will result in the prescribed penalty.

Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

From Roy Hazelwood, who helped to create the FBI's Serial Crime Profiling unit:


"In my experience this climate of tolerance is having two important social consequences: First, as deviant behavior becomes more common in the material we read, hear, and see, parallel behaviors quickly appear in sexual crimes, particularly those acted out against strangers. Second, an increasing number of serious injuries and/or deaths are occurring during "rough sex." When criminal charges are filed, defense attorneys try to portray the injurious behavior as "consensual and accidental....In our "anything goes" society, it can be difficult to convince a judge or fury that any behavior is necessarily involuntary."

"Violent crimes committed by the severely disturbed tend to attract a disproportionate amount of attention from the press. In fact, the mentally ill are responsible for less than 3% of sexual crimes."


Here are two crimes that he worked on that are mentioned in his book:

A 14-year-old girl is kidnapped while hitchhiking with a young male companion. Her abductor immedietely kills the youth, then keeps the girl as his captive. He tortures her, binds her with chains, and forces her to pose for photographs in heavy makeup and suggestive clothing. After several days he strangles her with a bailing-wire garrote, then dumps her body in the loft of an abandoned barn.


Thre male children, ages seven, nine, and ten, take a female playmate to an isolated building where they forcibly undress her and demand that she perform oral sex on them. They insert sticks, rocks, and bottles into her vagina and rectum before releasing the little girl with a threat to kill her if she tells. The three are later identified and arrested after assaulting another young female playmate.

(these kids are already evidencing criminal behavior. The threats against the girl show that they know the difference between right and wrong and are trying to evade capture, and the second assault shows that they will keep doing it as long as they learn that they can get away with it. I wonder how many times they did it before they were caught? Deviant kids turn into deviant adults. They have to be stopped before they graduate to murder. Most sexually-motivated murders begin with things like flashing and window-peeping, and yet these crimes are misdemeanors --LS)



Source: Dark Dreams, by Roy Hazelwood and Stephen G. Michaud


Sidhe

[xoxoxoBruce]

Most sexually-motivated murders begin with things like flashing and window-peeping, and yet these crimes are misdemeanors --LS)

Hey now, I didn't kill anyone.

[Lady Sidhe]

Here's more from Hazelwood that I thought bore passing on. Bear in mind that this man has interviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of murderers and sexual deviants, and helped to create the FBI's BSU, better known as the serial crime profiling unit.


The following are direct quotes, from the same book I cited earlier.


"Any purported explanation for why an individual commits violence is incomplete if it ignores the most important variable, the criminal himself. Each person is a unique product of nature and nurture, genetic destiny, and environmental influences....so while a number of factors seem to contribute to the genesis of an offender, no single element is the cause of deviant behavior."

Here are some of his thoughts on the more common theories:

POVERTY: A great number of offenders come from poor families, and a great number of them don't. For every criminal raised in a poverty-stricken environment, we can find countless law-abiding citizens who overcome that disadvantage to lead honest lives.

CHILDHOOD ABUSE: My research on serial rape supports the view that a large number of sexual criminals have been childhood victims of physical, sexual, or psychological abuse. Yet, as is true with poverty, there are many more abused kids who do not become violent as adults.

VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA: Movies and television often are blamed for glamorizing violence. In 1977, a 15-year-old Florida youth named Ronny Zamora claimed in court that he killed an elderly female neighbor because of "television intoxication." Zamora's attorney said his client had become addicted to violence by watching television. Fortunately for society, the jurors didn't buy into that theory.

Books, magazines, and music have also been faulted for promoting violence. Rap music, especially, has been accused of objectifying women and using gender-demeaning terminology in the lyrics. While I might not personally appreciate certain kinds of music or films, behavioral studies do not suggest that men who watch or listen to them are, as a result, driven to commit crimes. Certainly offenders with preexisting fantasiesmight seek out such stimulation and even attempt to incorporate some of its elements into future crimes. But to say that a cause-and-effect relationship exists is simply not supported by scientific inquiry.

PORNOGRAPHY: Speaking as a professional, I have to say that I don't believe that it causes sexual violence.
In my experience, education, and training led me to believe that pornography contributes, both passively and actively, to sexual violence in some individuals, in that it it may play an important role in the process that leads to violent sexual assault by providing offenders with a continuous source of new ideas.
From my interviews with rapists, sexual killers, child molesters, sexual sadists, and the wives and companions of these sexually violent men, I know that ritualistic sexual offenders not only own pornography, but they typically collect it. They pore over it, spending endless hours with a favorite picture or video, all the while reinforcing the aberrant fantasy.

GENETICS: Some years ago, a new theory connected the presence of an extra "Y" chromosome in a male's genetic material to a superabundance of testosterone, which was believed to result in violent behavior. No one has ever developed scientific evidence to support this theory, and it is largely discounted today.
A more recent, and also unsubstantiated, hypothesis holds that individuals can inherit a gene that predisposes them to commit criminal acts. This genetic explanation of criminality poses an interesting dilemma for sociologists, psychologists, criminologists, and penologists.
If such behaviors are determined from birth, professionals could do little to prevent them; rehabilitation would be a hopeless task. I believe that this theory will prove to be another false lead in the quest to understand violence in our society.
Still another theory, recently advanced by so-called Evolutionary Psychologists, takes the radical view that rape is a natural biological phenomenon. To paraphrase one adherent, rape is an unfortunate but nonetheless adaptive strategy for passing on one's genes. In my view, this reasoning will go the way of the extra Y chromosome theory.

INSANITY: It's all too easy to dismiss the offender as being "sick," "perverted," or "deranged." However, this assumption does not explain the 97% of crimes committed by individuals who are not psychotic (insane).
One of the more esoteric explanations for criminal behavior I have heard is brain shrinkage. This theory says that one should not be held responsible for one's acts because the brain has shrunk, thus affecting the ability to discern right from wrong. (it was used in a case of embezzlement, and was not accepted by the jury--LS)

BLOOD SUGAR IMBALANCE: Even junk food has been blamed for causing violence. In San Francisco in November of 1978, Supvr. Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were gunned down at city hall by Supvr. Dan White. At the trial, the attorney for White blamed his client's violent behavior in part on the inordinate number of twinkies that White had consumed.


"I'm confident that no single factor of any sort will ever suffice to explain the millions of variations that occur among individuals. No two peole are alike, and the factors that combine to cause people to turn to violence will always be unique.

Perhaps the most obvious (and most frightening) explanation of all is that some offenders commit crimes simply because they want to! They like it! And they have no regard for what the rest of society thinks.

This is the dark mind's most disturbing corner of all."



Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
Hey now, I didn't kill anyone.

That we know of.

Yet.



Sidhe

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by sycamore


Not necessarily...you've been on a jury before.

Yeah but it was grand jury...indictments.

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by Catwoman
If one can reject immediate emotional gratification in favour of rational, objective, effective action, then maybe we can begin to evolve from our inhumanity.

The only "problem" I have with that is this: how long will you wait for that to happen? Some people hold grudges (yeah petty, but real), and personally, it would take a v.e.r.y long time for me to calm down and think "rationally".

However, as I said before, because *I* would not be the one to issue the final punishment, then why should it matter in the long run? Shouldn't these non-emotional suggestions be put to someone who would be on a jury regarding a murder case?

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by glatt


The more you write, the less sense you are making.

Should we put murderers to death, or give them medals?

If you look into the history of most people in prison for murder, you will see that mostly they come from horrible backgrounds filled with abuse and neglect.

Some could easily bring up the argument that many people come from dysfunctional homes and are just fine. With that being the case, then maybe society should focus on trying to educate people to not procreate so quickly (or even at all) if the home isn't as stable as it can possibly be. That's just my take on a possible "solution", because after the damage is done and the crime has been committed, in many cases, it's just too late after that to do much of anything about it except to punish the person for the crime committed.

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
To everyone else:

I don't think the majority of people understand the constant terror abusers cause. Those who have been abused, in whatever way, DO know.

And those of us who have had to help the abused know as well. I told the story in another thread about how I had to beat the living fuck out of the man who was abusing my best friend. Long story short: she had dated him for 2 years. One night, she decides she was going to leave him, and asked me to help her move her things out of his apt. Ok fine. Ended up being a big old throwdown...him hiting her, and me hiting him to get him off of her. I beat him down then, and I'd sure as fuck beat him the hell down now if I ever saw his punk ass again.

IMO, they're as bad as murderers. They destroy something in you, and you never REALLY trust again, not like you used to. And that's for the people who, for whatever reason, are better able to deal with the memories. For those who are more traumatized, and can't deal very well, the abuser has destroyed their lives. And those are just the ones who get through the ordeal with their lives.

I saw that in the eyes of the second person I had to help get out of an abusive situation. She had been through so much with this particular man (and even before she met him), that there were times that you could tell that she had just given up on life, and here she was with a 6 year old daughter to raise. Oh yeah: he beat her while she was pregnant with that daughter too. Lovely. I say death to him just for that alone, I don't give a flying fuck WHO doesn't like it!

Even if kevin HAD been abused as a kid, I wouldn't feel sorry for him. He was a grown man, and he made his choice to do what he did, over and over, to more than one person. He'd been in jail for it before (I spoke at length with his ex-wife), and apparantly he wasn't able to learn from his experience.

Ah hm...repeat offender. Yeah, jail really rehabilitated him.

It seems to me that these criminals who are blaming abuse for the way they act, wouldn't want to treat someone the same way, because they know how awful it is. Like someone who was beaten as a child choosing to use other methods to discipline their own children, because they don't want to repeat the pattern. Many people are abused as kids. They don't all grow up to kill or abuse, because they make the CHOICE not to. It's all about power. Murder is about power. Rape is about power. Abuse is about power.

Choices we make as adults (and as children) should have consequences. When they don't, all that is shown is that one can get away with bad behavior. The DP is all about consequences for the ultimate in unacceptable behavior. If we're going to start somewhere, start with rewarding good choices, and punishing the bad ones. We learn as children what is and is not acceptable social behavior. When these little juvenile delinquents get slap on the wrist after slap on the wrist, they learn that bad choices don't have consequences that outweigh the pleasure of the bad behavior.

I, personally, think we should bring back public humiliation for lesser crimes and first offenses (this is in reference to non-violent crimes, property crimes, and the like, not for murderers, rapists, abusers or child molesters).

Bring back the stocks and the canes.

Don't put a thief in jail, put him in the stocks in the public square for a couple of days and sell rotten fruit to throw at him (that'll pay for his food and water); don't stick the little gangsta wannabe in jail for robbery--cane his ass in front of his friends (I say this because a few years back, when the caning issue came up because of the American delinquent who got caned...there was a town in the states--I can't remember the name of it offhand--in which they had a problem with defacing public property. The Elders of the town suggested caning instead of jail time. When reporters interviewed some of the gang members in jail, the gang members said that they'd rather have jail time than be caned.) It hurts like a bitch, but it does no lasting damage and doesn't cost the state a thing. I'm sure someone would do the caning for free. People are very sensitive to humiliation. I think public humiliation would do some good. All that's hurt is pride, and maybe someone's butt, and it would keep our jails and prisons free for the murderers, rapists, abusers and other violent criminals.


Sidhe

Couldn't snip a word of that. Glad to see that you made it out of that hell (and to everyone else that had to come through hell).

[lumberjim]

Originally posted by ladysycamore


With that being the case, then maybe society should focus on trying to educate people to not procreate so quickly (or even at all) if the home isn't as stable as it can possibly be.

Lsyc,

who would be deciding when a home is stable enough? I agree that the overpopulation of underprivelaged portions of our society is troubling, and I understand that you do not want kids for yourself. You say it all the time. I wonder, though, how much of that is brought about by your unfortunate health situation and the fact that childbirth, for you, may not be an option. I repeatedly get the sense that you actually DO want kids, and are telling yourself that you CHOOSE not to. I'm sorry to be so direct about this, but this is not the first time this has occured to me, and i thought I should ask you.
feel free to ignore me, i mean no offense, but CAN you have kids if you change your mind?

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Yeah, genetics is ugly, even if only from the perspective of how many things can go wrong.

Ah well, best to be childfree. No genetics, no problem!

*only half-joking folks...well, maybe...*

[Lady Sidhe]

Here's something interesting I found. It's from Confessions, by St. Augustine, and concerns sin. Replace the word sin with the word crime, and it describes exactly the process that profilers have found is used by the criminal. Comments in parentheses refer to the criminal, non-parentheticals are from St. Augustine:

1. The mind conceives of an action... (fantasizing, for the criminal)

2. ...which is referred to the senses (perhaps videotaping or photographing possible victims)

3. The individual considers the possible consequences ("What I'm doing is illegal, and blah, blah, blah)

4. He decides to commit the sin (crime) ("It may not work, but I want to try it anyway")

5. He then rationalizes the act. ("I did this because I was abused as a kid")




Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Here are some more reasons I support the dp. Again, gleaned from observations made by profilers:


"The sexual offender is never fully inactive. He may not be acting out against a specific victim, but he will be making plans, selecting new targets, acting out against other victims, or gathering materials. He is never dormant."

SOCIOPATHS do not feel remorse or shame, guilt or appropriate fear. THEY DO NOT LEARN FROM PUNISHMENT. They are easily bored. They like excitement. They find it difficult to delay gratification, no matter where their self-interest may lie. They are chronic liars, even when they have no need or reason to lie. They have no understanding of, or concern for, the harm they cause others. The only concern they have is for their own gratification.

Billy Lee Chad, a rapist, sexual sadist, and murderer, wrote a manuscript while in jail called "Dark Secrets." In this manuscript, he blames the criminal justice system for making him a sexual predator, but contradicts this claim when he says of his crimes, "I never had experienced such sexual pleasure." he also said, "I knew what I had done was wrong, but where was [sic] the feelings of guilt that were supposed to accompany such a deed? What was it that caused me to feel such elation? What was it that allowed me to take another human's life with no feeling of remorse?"
When describing an attack he made on his pregnant wife when she refused him sex, he said, "The fear she showed would fire me even more. I couldn't see her face, just those eyes, afraid and pleading. I felt myself slipping into the feeling of supremacy again. I wanted to kill." Describing his second rape-murder, he said, "she was writhing in pain, and I loved it. I was now combining my sexual high of rape and my power high of fear to make a total sum that is beyond explaining. I was alive for the sole purpose of causing pain and receiving sexual gratification. I have never experienced a high like this from any drug."
He described laughing on the way home in his car. Neither afraid nor sorry for committing the brutal act, he said he'd never felt more satisfied in his life, like a "supreme ruler." He even said that he relived the rape-murder in a wet dream that night.
Commenting on another murder, one that he masturbated in the midst of, he said, after he had "sanitized" the apartment of forensic evidence, that "I started to giggle as I walked away from the place. By the time I got to the corner, I was laughing hysterically. I calmed myself, and still smiling, hailed a cab."


According to profilers, peeping, obscene calls, and exposure, considered nusiance offenses, can be precursors to violent behavior.

Also according to profilers, the two types of sexual offenders with the most characteristics in common are sexual sadists and pedophiles.

--Both are ritualistic sexual criminals, with highly developed fantasy lives. They tend to carry out their crimes according to a script.

--Both are highly motivated (their crimes give them deep satisfaction) and they invest great amounts of time, money, and energy to their criminal behavior.

--Neither experiences remorse or guilt. The sexual sadist believes that his victims deserve to suffer, and the pedophile doesn't believe that he's caused harm to the child.

--Both are highly practiced at rationalizing their behavior and consequently are poorly motivated to change.

--Both recognize that society abhors them, and they take steps to study their deviant desires and behaviors to better understand them and evade arrest.

--Both collect theme-oriented pornography and/or erotica that serves to compliment their preexisting fantasies.

--They possess average or better-than-average intelligence and social skills. They mesh well in society.

--Both are likely to commit incest with their natural children and will molest stepchildren or other minor relatives.

--They record their criminal sexual acts. This provides them with means of reliving and improving on their criminal acts.

--Their rate of recidivism is much greater than for other sexual offenders. They tend to be model prisoners and consequently are released more quickly and, having learned nothing from their punishment, quickly begin practicing sexual deviance again.

--Both are highly narcissistic.

--Both have low threshold for sexual boredom and involve their victims in progressively offensive and demeaning behaviors.

--Most sexual criminals slow down with age. There is no known burn out age for these two offenders. Unless stopped, such men will offend well into their sixties or seventies.

--They have greater numbers of victims than other sexual offenders. Once these men begin to act out criminally, they will assault until they are caught.

--They are predominately middle-class offenders.

--They are determined.



Scary.


Sidhe

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by lumberjim
Lsyc,
who would be deciding when a home is stable enough? I agree that the overpopulation of underprivelaged portions of our society is troubling, and I understand that you do not want kids for yourself. You say it all the time.

As far as who would decide...truthfully, I don't have an answer for that right now. However, as far as *what* will determine stable, then I would say the things that are obvious: excessive drug and alchohol abuse, violence in the home (against another person or witnessing abuse), mental, physical, emotional abuse, etc. As far as me stating my childfree status "all of the time"...ah, that may be a result of speaking with several "militant" childfree members on "alt.support.childfree". They can get a person amped up sometimes... My bad...

I wonder, though, how much of that is brought about by your unfortunate health situation and the fact that childbirth, for you, may not be an option. I repeatedly get the sense that you actually DO want kids, and are telling yourself that you CHOOSE not to. I'm sorry to be so direct about this, but this is not the first time this has occured to me, and i thought I should ask you.
feel free to ignore me, i mean no offense, but CAN you have kids if you change your mind?

Let me break some things down (you may get more than you bargained for): :p

1) I have never had an overwhelming desire to have kids...not even to be married. This would be the "main" reason, but I do have a few others.

As a young child, I didn't have dreams and fantasies about the man who would sweep me off of my feet, marry and have a family with (as society assumes all little girls do) and live happily ever after. I would hear various horror stories about pregnancy, birth, labor, etc. and truth be told: it turned me off completely about having kids. Everytime someone would even suggest that I have kids one day, I'd cringe and say, "no thanks" thinking of all of the various problems I might have being pregnant, and never mind the hours of labor and pain. I just saw an episode of "Starting Over" today where a young gal gave birth and I was practically on the floor writhing everytime she shrieked in pain. And then, they gave her an epidural...not pretty. A big old needle in the back...nah, not for me (*maybe* if I had to for some other reason such as life saving surgery..maybe).

I've always said that one should have at least 4 things in place before considering starting a family: stable finances, relatively good health, time and patience. I had none of those when I was a teen, in my 20s, or now. As a teenager, I didn't want to find myself a possible single mother, relying on my parents to help me out, and struggling to support myself and my child (plus, I didn't want to give up my swanky lifestyle...that's sort of a joke, but I really didn't want to give up my youth to become a mother).

Marriage I'm more receptive to, but that also takes some planning, and I do have to weight the pros and cons of that as well.


2) My health situation does make it somewhat dangerous to have kids, but again, because the desire isn't there, there *is* no danger for me. Why have a kid if I have no desire to be a parent? I strongly feel this is where some people "fail" as parents, because they just "follow the script" (as some CF people say), and deep down they are not willing to actually be parents (but what would the family say???). Family and social pressure can be pretty strong to fight for some, but not for me. Thank goodness my parents aren't hounding me to be grandparents. Many people have kids for all the wrong reasons, and it shows many times in the parenting.

I *do* know of some who have kidney failure and have had kids...My mind boggles over this, because not only would it complicate the pregnancy, but to know that you may have possibly passed that along to the child...unless they did some genetic testing, and I highly doubt many people are even doing this, much less know about it. Kidney failure, diabetes and other things run in my family to some degree, so I sure wouldn't want any child of mine to live like I am right now...many aspects of it sucks ass royally (remember how much trouble I was having trying to walk around at the car convention? One of the sucky aspects...). However, my choice to not have kids came way before I discovered my kidneys failing, as I pointed out in point #1.


3) To answer you question: No. There is no changing my mind because of the reasons stated above. So no, I am not secretly harboring thoughts of having kids, but choosing to not have them because of my chronic illness. In fact, that just put the nail in the coffin about not having kids (not that the nail *really* needed to be hammered in more).

4) Having kids is not something I feel I "have" to do in order to be a well rounded, decent person. Some people have said that children makes them complete and so on, and that's swell..for them, but not for me (and Syc).

So actually, you were right in saying that childbirth may not be an option, but it was an option that I chose before I became ill.

Hope that cleared things up for you.


PS: Didn't want to necessarily hijack the thread folks, but he asked.