Death Penalty for Child Molestors?

It seems that South Carolina is considering a law to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for repeat offenses of sexually assaulting a child (under 11).

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/8335069/detail.html

I'm all for this. I just hope that they cut a deal with the GRU, though... but I won't object if this bill passes - or if other states take it up.

 

I think it odd that repeated sexual assault on children should be worth the death penalty but repeated sexual assault on adults should not.

That said, I think both kinds of sexual assault should have worse punishments then drug use or drug traficking.

I've never been murdered or raped; but I'm not certain I'd call rape as bad as murder. Then again, I don't believe in an afterlife, so that makes murder a pretty bad thing. On the other hand, some rapes seem to inflict life long trauma - so perhaps in some cases you really are "murdering" someone by putting them through.. And another though, some assaults and tortures are probably worse than sexual assault or rape.

Is kidnapping someone and locking them in a dungeon for a year somehow better than raping someone?

This is a good thread about figuring out just where each criminal act belongs...

 

One of the worries is, if both murder and rae have the same penalty there is in fact not penalty for killign someone after you rape them.

 

No. Nobody should get the death penalty. And murderers are worse than child molesters. Molested children can go on to live happy lives but dead people can not.

Why does this come up every few weeks? I'd rather see executioners and death-penalty sentencers killed than child molesters. But then, I don't believe in killing people for revenge, so I don't need to choose now, do I?

 

The penalty for raping someone and then killing them? Cut off their testicles a year before they're set to die.

 

I'd agree that I'm not sure the death penalty is warranted here, but my opinion is more in line with what Farraday pointed out.

I certainly have no problem with the death penalty, but it has to fit within the heiarchy of penalties. If rape becomes just as severe as murder in sentencing, why wouldn't a rapist simply kill all of their vicitms as well? Its a dangerous game of poltical brinksmanship. Of course, those who repeatedly engage in such behavior should be subject to stricter consequences of their actions.

I believe California experienced a similiar phenomenon when it adopted its three strikes policy. If someone knows they are going to jail for life for their third offense, no matter how serious, that person was more likely to go out in a "blaze of glory." What did they have to loose?

Probably more effective would be to increase enforcement of the lifelong monitoring and/or treatment programs that those who serial molest are subject to.

 

Teach these people how to halo jump and drop them over our enemies.

 

just..no to that law

 

I'm continually flabergasted that there are people serving life sentences for drugs when there are pedo's living free.

A drug offender can be rehabilitated, a sex offender simply cannot. There's a chance that they won't offend again though I don't think they as people are worth it. Not one bit.

I'm going to describe my point of view and I'm sure that it will offend some. Keep in mind that my sister has worked in CPS for the last 5 years and I've had my fill of horror stories.

I'm all for it, as long as it's the electric chair or firing squad. I don't feel like paying a million bucks a pop.


EDIT:

How about justice?

 

Justice is important to be sure. Like you said, it does not seem just that consenting adults selling drugs to other consenting adults should go to prison while some malicious child rapist may get parole. Still, I think that is a problem with drug laws, NOT a problem with laws against child molestation. There needs to be room for a jury to decide what is just in cases of child molestation as not every act of child molestation is going to have the same impact or be executed with the same malice. One concept that is disconcerting to me is that consent is all or nothing - i.e. someone at 15 has 0 consent in sexual acts and someone 16 has 100% (unless you are in a state that allows marriage at a younger age with a parent's consent, in which case in NM a 14 year old miraculously can give 100% consent). I would certainly be against saying that all inappropriate touches are worth the death penalty!

 

Yeah, why does this kind of thing come up? That is what we really should be investigating. I think it is because our country has never grasped the concept of redemption and rehabilitation. Does anyone think that the stigmatism that comes from having committed a crime can contribute to the repeat offense factor? There's little hope for someone who has been convicted of something inn this country of re-entering normal society, because this country rewards concepts of vengenace and lifelong stigmatism of human error. There's absolutely no "corrections" to be made in this country. "Justice" is achieved more when someone repents and changes and is truly sorry, than when they are strapped into a chair and executed. That's justice.

But then there's the victim factor. I agree that if anyone ever hurt anyone I loved, I would not rest until that person was held accountable and made safe from society. Some victims can not rest until the person who committed a crime against them is killed. Someone should do a study to see if these people are sane, or just running on some post traumatic stress disorder side effect. Chances are, if nothing can make you happy except the death of someone who has hurt you, then you will not be happy for very long once they are executed.

 

Anyone who can become sexually aroused from a child is very very sick. There is no rehabilitation for that sickness. We have learned this time and time again when repeat-pedofiles go back into society and repeat their crimes. Sorry... they need to be destroyed.

Perhaps some people are not exposed to it enough. I live in Florida where we have seen more than our fair share of these disgusting crimes. In addition, I am a parent. I have ZERO tolerance for these sickos. In my opinion...not only should they get the death penalty, we should put in a fast lane and execute them within the week they are sentenced.

 

Well, there's the obvious issue of guilt or not. Without photographic evidence (which sadly there is in some cases), it's difficult to completely 100% prove guilt, hence you could be executing an innocent person. (Remember person because women are guilty of it too).

However, as Farrie points out, why stop at rape if the punishment is the same as murder? I'd suggest that many sex offenders would then kill their victim as it won't alter the sentence, and prevents the victim giving evidence.



I'd like to touch on another point :-

Anyone who can become sexually aroused from a child is very very sick. There is no rehabilitation for that sickness.

Assuming they have some chemical imbalance that prevents them from controling their sexual desire, and promotes sexual feelings towards children. (Say a form of schizophrenia for example). Then imagine that science came up with a cure for this "sickness", ie a drug which corrected the imbalance. The drug could be given sub****aneously, meaning the offender wouldn't actually have to take a pill each day.

So, say this "sickness" could be treated - what then ?

(note, I'm not stating opinion, I'm just promoting discussion).

 

"So, say this "sickness" could be treated - what then ? "

I dont see the point in wasting money and energy in trying to cure these people. Sorry. Why? Put that time and effort into curing diseases of non-criminals. Keep in mind... a pedophile is different than a normal rapist. In my opinion, they are a genetic mistake. Erase them and keep them out of the gene pool.

 

Sorry... they need to be destroyed.

So on the one hand, you're saying one type of person is a monster, while at the same time saying that you want to kill 400,000 people who could just be prevented from doing damage. I'm sorry, but it's just silly to say that with a straight face and expect to be taken seriously by anyone with a clear head. Teri Hatcher just revealed that she had been abused by her uncle. Do you think that she'd be better of dead? She's a relatively happy person with a great career. I'm sure it is awful, but nowhere near as bad as being murdered. We can't just turn into killers because we're disgusted by people who are sick. I was going to check to see if there was any hope for pedophiles to recover, and I did find this New York Times article. It certainly does humanize the problem. I'm sure you don't like to see people as human beings when they're destructive to innocence, but they are humans, regardless of whatever monsterous sides may reside within them.

Link
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/magazine/23PEDO.html?pagewanted=10&ei=5070&en=498eebb208bcd549&ex=1143954000

Excerpt:
''I think,'' she [the pedophile's wife] said on the couch, ''I know Roy well enough'' to be sure that he won't ever do again what he did. ''I think with Roy things just got out of hand.'' She talked of hoping still to take the course for family members who wish to act as supervisors, so she could learn how to be on guard, how to save him. ''People can stumble,'' she said. ''I want to be able to recognize the signs, to know what to look for.''

Then, for a few seconds, her voice sharpened severely. ''To this day'' -- she spoke partly to me but partly to her husband -- ''I can't understand how he could write crap like that to a little girl.'' She said she told him this frequently. ''She does,'' he mumbled, looking stricken.

One night, shortly before his privileges were taken away, Roy and his wife launched a vast, luminous gold-and-red kite at the town beach. Usually after dusk the beach was empty. But a group of kids came running toward them, boys and girls who looked, in his eyes, to be between 4 and 12. By his agreement with Liddle and the probation department, he was simply supposed to tell the kids to keep their distance, to tell them they might get tangled in the heavy lines. The mere presence of minors didn't mean he had to leave the waterfront. But he panicked, and whether fleeing some imagined legal transgression or terrified by something within himself, he left the unwieldy lines to his wife. He raced away.

He rushed for the waist-high fence that divides the sand from the parking lot. He couldn't get his bearlike body over it cleanly; he wound up stuck, sitting on it and crushing it. Sometime later he showed me the place of his flight, where the fence remained bent. It wasn't hard for me to picture him caught there, between the safe and the terrifying.

I mean, this is seriously sad. Really sad. I feel sorry for everyone involved, because I can't help but still see what human there is in everyone. When I was 21, I found out my girlfriend's best friend father had been in prison for luring and touching a 15 year old boy. Although it was disturbing news, I felt compassion for him. I did not just forget all the good I had seen in him and grab a hatchet to go chop his head off.

 

Anyone who can become sexually aroused from a child is very very sick.

I wonder then what you think about the VH1 "remember the 80's" when the woman who had played "Six" on "Blossom" confessed she had been inappropriately attracted to much younger Jonathan T. Thomas from "Home Improvement". This was presented as comedy. One has to persecute criminal threat, not play thought police. Let's be honest. There are attractive 15 year old girls. The problem is in the compulsion to do something about it. Ever hear a friend's mom call a high school guy "hot"? So let's not play "mind police" here.

 

15 is a lot different than 10.

This is a law that's been drawn pretty well, I think. It limits capital punishment to people who have raped children 11 or under twice (and there is a very good question asked about whether or not it should be "one-strike-and-you're-out").

 

DNA evidence could be useful in this regard.

 

Wouldn't you agree that someone who has sexual thoughts about a ten year old is sick?

I agree that there is a great difference in oppinion over male/female child molesters and I think that's wrong. The law should be universal and not based upon the offenders sexual orientation. I wonder what they'd do about a transgender person?

When I think of a true child molestor, I don't think of a statutory rape case involving a teenager and a 21 year old man.

I'm talking about hardened criminals who purposely pray on children. When I say 'children' I mean kids under the age of 13.


Now that's sick wouldn't you say?

If someone finds a 10 year old attractive there is something wrong with them. Period and they must be dealt with in the harshest terms. Call it thought police or any Orwellian phrase you like but they'll never change and they fester on society's lineancy.

 

First of all Im not talking about teenage girls or boys. Im referring to small children. Those pediphiles who repeatedly lore and rape children...babies.... Jessica for example was 8. SO many of these pedophiles repeat their crimes after "rehabilitation".
As far as Teri Hatcher goes... the weight of the crime should not depend on the long term effects on the victim. "Look she survived with minimal impact on her life...so it cant be all that bad...lets be all cuddley wuddley and compassionate with the poor helpless pedophile". Sorry. I disagree. But again... Im a parent of a 9 year old girl and I live on the west coast of Florida within a few hour drive of where Jessica was raped, and buried alive under a house and left for dead.By a repeat offender. Should we show compassion to that man? Feel sorry for him? What about the enumerous other repeat pedophiles? They repeat for a reason... rehab does not work. These types of crimes are to be compared to serial killers.... like Jeffrey Dahmer. IMO, their is no comparing it to drug crimes, etc. Pedophiles are troubled by genetically rooted psychosis.

 

That's a valid point as well.

How can the state help someone who isn't interested in being helped? If someone is convicted of sexually assaulting a child, and during treatment, goes out and gets charged with the exact same offense, somewhere along the way, the system failed more than one person. How many traumatized children equal failed treatment.

I'm not convinced that the death penalty is the answer for this case, but certainly public safety concerns begin to trump an individual's request to be rehabilitated.

 

15 is a lot different than 10.

I agree, but my point was that Jonathan T. Thomas was younger than 10 or when a much older "Six" confessed she was lusting after him. My point was that the crime is the act, not the thought. Somebody here said that anyone with the thought and arousal should be punished with death.

 

Absolutely, monsters like this don't deserve another chance. Lock them up and throw away the key if you don't have the heart to end their life. I certainly do. : )


Bendu: I agree. Though as soon as they put those thoughts into action, I believe they should be shot. I think that's where we differ. heh

 

"Look she survived with minimal impact on her life...so it cant be all that bad...lets be all cuddley wuddley and compassionate with the poor helpless pedophile".

I did not say that. Do not quote me on saying that. My point was that she would not be better off dead, so murder is surely worse.

 

South Carolina, I think, has gotten it right by saying repeat offenders get the death penalty. That means either lethal injection or the electric chair, which is, I think the only choice a repeat offender should have.