h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If he was doing that, it wouldn't be a very secure prison

It would be ok if he was raped by his fellow inmates. Quite often this happens, too.

Getting back to the earlier comments - I have every sympathy with victims whose opinions are coloured by feelings of revenge. Unfortunately there is no punishment that is going to undo the crime. (A castrated criminal can still be dangerous.)
That is not to say that criminals should not be punished, but I would like to see some good come of it e.g. work for the benefit of society, not necessarily detention (depends on the crime). The aim should also be rehabilitation if possible and protection of the general public. At present I don't think we succeed in this respect. In this particular case it sounds to me as if 55 years is not too long. Some people will always be dangerous and should be detained for life. Prison is no deterrent to these sort of criminals.
I am interested in the experimental scheme that brings offender & victim together. Surely what we want is to stop people re-offending if possible.

"I am interested in the experimental scheme that brings offender & victim together"

I believe that in the USA, they have that system for murderers. It's called the death penalty.

Seriously, though. I think bringing perpetrators and their victims together is a very bad move. Especially in rape cases. What possible good can it achieve?

I have to agree with Noname here. As another who has been victimised by this kind of scum, I don't think they could be locked up long enough.

I think it's important to remember that some (certainly not all) rapists can be under extreme emotional stress and temporarily unbalanced at the time of the crime. Putting a minimum of, say, 25 years on their sentence would be harsh considering the circumstances, especially if there was a minimum of violence.

These are the criminals who would benefit most from an enforced meeting with their victims. In the case of normally stable individuals, who have been driven to such an appalling level by their circumstances, there is no better way to induce remorse.

However, it remains that a fair amount of rape is committed with violence and without remorse. No amount of punishment is ever going to turn this over, as has been mentioned above. For these individuals, I certainly don't think a 50-year sentence is too harsh.

The difficulty then arises on how to distinguish between the types, and the large grey-area in between.

B

Just realised that I've posted in this thread and not answered the question in the subject line:

My opinion - for the offences described, I personally feel that 55 years sounds dangerously long, for the following reason. The NSW Opposition Leader welcomed the sentence and said it should act as a deterrent. I think the point has been made once, but it bears repeating - if a rapist thinks *at all* about the possibility of capture, the possibility of a 55 year sentence for the crime of rape is a strong deterrent against leaving the victim alive. The perpetrator in this case is 20. He will become eligible for parole at about 60, having spent his entire adult life in prison. If he'd killed the victim, realistically how much worse could his sentence have been? (given that Australia does not have the death penalty)

As has already been said, it's a tough call to say whether rape is worse than murder - they're not really comparable. But is it wise to set the system of justice up so that it's in the interests of rapists to kill their victims? Personally, I think not.

H.

Good point, Hoovooloo. I hadn't thought of that.

Here in Seattle there's a convicted rapist (now free) who has been chemically (not irreversibly) castrated. He wants the state to pay for Viagra so he can have sex with his wife.
I don't think giving an erection inducing drug on the taxpayers' tab to a man who has raped over a dozen little girls is a good idea. It's like using taxes to buy a machine gun for a convicted murderer.

Hoovooloo:
More than once I have thought that actually it would have been better if they had killed me.

Sometimes I am for death penalty. Jails are runned on taxes anyway.

I, too, have thought, on more than one occasion, that it would have been better had the perps killed me. I honestly believe that some people just cannot be rehabilitated, and need to be kept away from the general public.

I feel for anyone who honestly thinks they'd be better off dead, ever. But I believe very, very few people are truly better off dead (examples would be the terminally ill with no hope of recovery who are in constant pain). The past is not deterministic of the future, and there is always the potential for the good you can do for yourself and others with your life to transcend the evil that's been done to you.

I'm *never* for the death penalty, just in case the next Stefan Kiszko is me, or someone I love, or someone I know, or someone I don't. And yes, jails are run on taxes, but I'll pay that tax with a song in my heart if it means dangerous people are off the streets.

H.

If a murder is just a 'clean' murder, I can accept the penalty being less than for rape. If a rapist should kill his victim, I think he should get the sum of the sentences.
And as a deterrent: Bind him by hands and feet to the wall, and leave him alone with the victim for the time he had her alone...

The legal system is too much protecting the 'right' of the criminal and completely ignores the victim. They even prefere a dead victim, as it makes the case less complicated...

"The legal system is too much protecting the 'right' of the criminal"

That's because of that thing called "innocent until proven guilty", or put another way, until the jury come back, the guy in the dock is an innocent man. So the legal system is protecting the "right" of an innocent man, right up to the point he isn't an innocent man any more - then it locks him up. How else would you have it?

H.

"Bind him by hands and feet to the wall, and leave him alone with the victim for the time he had her alone..." - I wonder if I could use this chance.

Hoovooloo, if that was the reality, it might work. Nowadays it looks like both police and public have already convicted someone, even to explicitly excluding evidence that proves his innocence. And not all countries use juries, mine doesn't. Here both sides produce piles of paper and a few so-called experts and one or more judges decide. The public does not get to see the evidence, and the victim is at most a witness, usually for the defense as they cannot always be sure of recognising the defendant.

If there is a fine, it goes to the state and if the victim wants any compansation, he has to start a new trial in a civilian case.

And if they are put in jail, they go on strike if there are plans for more than one per cell, as they will have to quarrel over the tv-remote control


And noname, it may not really help, just one of those things that come to mind when seeing things like this.
But I think more must be done to let them feel themself what they did to another. Just jail is no real punishment.

Marjin:
Exactly my thoughts, I could not express them better.

I think 55 years is enough, if it's at the end of a rope.

Now I have that out of my system.

Most rapists, serial murders, and child molestors can not be rehabilitated. It's like their sexual preference. How easy would it be for you to change yours? Letting them out of prison is stupid. They're going to reoffend. The point at which they murder is going to be defined more by the stage they are in their criminal career than what they're thinking about down the line.

I do think that rape is a more serious crime than murder. The way the crime occurs is much more horrible. It's usually much more premeditated and intended to humiliate the victim.

Rape is also a much more difficult crime to prove. Most of the cases that I've seen have been unconvicing. It's a pity, but we get a lot of false complaints. We've been arresting a lot of alleged rape victims of late.

If the perp did murder the victim, it would be a much easier crime to solve. The evidence is all right there on the victim. The force element is also much easier to prove.

i think the americans have the answer the death sentence there is too much softly softly with these evil creeps . i mean some get parole so they can do the same again!!


andy

Thanks all for your replies so far, it's been interesting to hear different takes on the situation and it's given me some cause to review my own ideas on what is going on/ could be done.

The reason I asked in the first place was mainly because I was interested in hearing other people's opinions (after all, isn't that why most people post to the Ask H2G2 forum? ). Though I still find myself of two minds about the whole thing. I'm happy this guy's gotten 55 years...In my own mind, rapists and pedophiles I would love to see at least castrated, at worst executed. But then if one person is innocent, that opens a whole other can of worms...But then, also, 55 years is hardly going to deter other rapists, as has been said, and may even spur them on to murdering their victims in an effort to avoid a sentence of that magnitude.

I'm not a legal expert, I'm not pretending to be, but for me it's also satisfying to see someone who committed these crimes being given more than the token sentences that have been handed out in the past. I guess it also hits home for me...I've never been raped, so I can't even pretend to identify with the victims (or any victims of assault, really), but I have found myself in the area where these rapes occurred on more than one occasion...I guess it's a case of "There but for the grace of [Insert Deity here] go I". Different circumstances and it could have been myself in that situation.

Now I've lost the plot again. I'll be quiet for now. But again, thank you all for your input...