The Godfather Says: (in part)
Don’t know if rape should result in death penalty. The large majority of child rapes take place in families and are committed by persons known to the victim. So the question is: How many survivors would refrain from accusing their daddy/mommy/brother or whomever due to the death penalty waiting who would indeed accuse them with the current statutory situation applying? And the other family members could put pressure on the victim, too.
Austin says
Well Godfather, unfortunately abusers have a lot of ammunition to use on kids. If you tell it’ll break up the family. If you tell it’ll kill your mother. If you tell they’ll take you away. I’ll go to jail. You’ll go to jail. They’ll do this, that and the other. There will always be something an abuser can use to silence a child. Family members that hurt their kids tell the same lies as strangers do. Somehow I doubt the reporting of such crimes would increase or decrease. As far as the death penalty goes, as I have read it doesn’t really deter criminals from committing crimes. Would the death penalty even work in these cases? I don’t know if they would but putting it on the books in more than three states would be a powerful statement.
Basically, in most cases rape is not seen as reason to spend life in prison. If it was viewed as a horrific crime that the citizens will not stand for then they (sex offenders) wouldn’t be let go on good behavior or let go early due to over crowding. They wouldn’t be given home detention or some pitiful plea bargain and a slap on the wrist. They wouldn’t have the privilege of reduced charges that allow them to go home after a few years or allow them to go home with “counseling.” How people, how lawmakers and voters view the victim is how harsh the sentencing will be. We all know children are basically property with few rights of their own. We all know that being female in a male dominated country means we will not be seen as equal when it comes to being hurt. It is my strong opinion that when the value of women and children rises, the penalties for hurting us will be harsher. Sorry to sound like a man basher or a feminist or anything along those lines but this is the truth, when we are seen at equal value then the punishment for harming us will be stronger and more effective.
Did you know that some drug crimes not involving death are being tossed around as a death penalty offense? Why not rape then? And if you don’t want the death penalty at all then why not just leave their asses in prison until they fall off their beds rotten? Get a mop and bucket and clean ‘em off the floor. That floor did nothing at all to deserve to be dressed with the blood of a pedophile.
Austin
Original conversation link.
i think you are quite right in this. the value of the victim sets the degree of severity of punishment.
i think how a people view sexual behavior has a part to play as well. in japan, pedophilia is excepted, for the men. in islamic countries, you get castrated. here, sex has become so casual, that people do not see the real effect it can have on an unwilling recipient. devient (meaning deviating from the natural) sex is becoming less shocking. sex is all over the advertising media in more blatant ways.
if you ask me, ‘casual sex’ is a misnomer.
True, but do you need to come up with death penatly in order to increase the punishment for rapists?
Don’t get me wrong, i welcome stiff punishment for rapists. It’s just that i don’t regard the death penalty as a solution to anything and no statistics indicate it was.
The only real man bashers are those who downplay rape and act as if men were some mindless creatures “taking advantage” of every “careless” woman. This is real hatred towards men (especially due to the fact that they generally don’t take notice of male victims).
True, would be very telling if they proposed death penalty for those drug crimes while not for rape.
Yes, i would welcome stiffer punishment.
Still i think it would be more helpful to listen to victims and investigate allegations thoroughly and not with predjudices. Though it became better, it’s still far from being satisfying.
What matters in such a case is, if the survivor’s telling the truth, not her clothing, life style, alcohol comsumption or possible promiscuitivity.
This sentence can probably be misinterpreted cause i wasn’t quite careful writing it. Sorry for that.
What i wanted to express was that only the facts count and nothing else. I didn’t want to call rape victims liars or something like this.
So in fact i criticized those ones who try to find excuses for rapists by verbally attacking the survivors and acting as if lifestyle, etc. had led to the crime and the survivor therefore had some kind of joint guilt. This is something i highly disapprove of.
In fact, i’m also opposed to the imagination rape accusations were quite often false. I rather do think that false accusations in rape cases are more unlikely than in all other crimes. The “high percentage” of false rape accusations is merely a myth in my eyes, repeated by MRAs over and over again but something wrong doesn’t become true by repeating it.
So i want to do a short summarize of my views regarding this topic:
1. In rape cases (the same with all other crimes) only one thing matters: The truth. Nothing else. Sadly, the rapists are still being favoured. A clear grievance.
2. Rapists and their sympathisers hype alleged “false accusations” to create a false impression. So it’s just a myth.