Poll: How would you punish a rapist?

[Baron_Rouge]

I don't know...I think even for rape, which pretty much everyone would agree is never justifiable, a death sentence isn't the right means of punishment. I mean, I am, for all intents and purposes, a well adjusted person. However, I don't think that's really my choice. How much of who we are is really choice? What if I'd been subject to the sort of environment that could have caused me to be a rapist? Or the sort of genes?

I dunno. I'm certainly not defending rape, nothing could be further from the truth. It's a reprehensible act, and I don't believe it can ever be justified. But at the same time, none of us have the same background, and none of us know what influences caused a rapist to commit rape. I think they'd have to be very messed up people, people who, through genetics or environment, have deviated so catastrophically from the norm. We make a choice to commit rape, but I don't think we really make a choice to be the sort of person who might commit rape. I think influences largely beyond our control do that, and as a result, I think to give them the death penalty would be wrong, and I believe torture is always wrong. In my opinion, imprisonment and rehabilitation is the only option. Just my two cents though. It certainly is a divisive issue. Hope I haven't offended anyone!

EDIT: In regards to the castration suggestion, I really don't think that'd solve anything. Rape isn't generally a sexual thing, from what I gather, more of a power thing. I think castration might humiliate the person, which would in turn make them bitter, resentful, and more likely to do it again in whatever way they can.

 

[LukOMar]

So, I'm just going to throw this out here and we'll see how people react:

How about castration?

Thoughts?

You know, I actually had this exact conversation with a couple of friends not too long ago. We came to the conclusion that public castration with rusty hedge-trimmers would definitely be one the best incentives against rape, despite being in equal part absolutely ludicrous.

The trouble with these solutions is that despite being viable on a scientific level (i.e. there are scientific reasons to believe that they will work), they will never be accepted in the current society: rapists (unlike their victims, apparently; though I am speaking out of the blue here) have rights.

Personally, I believe that having rights should be both a right and a privilege, one that you forfeit once you cross a certain line, like confirmed rapists do. Why should we treat them as people, while they think and act like animals?

 

[putowtin]

Sterilization
It?s proven that convicted rapist/ sex offenders who accept sterilization are 99% less likely to offend again.

(However I would just like to point out that most rapist/ sex offenders are treated like dirt in prison, even more so if their offence had anything to do with children, so maybe there is ?justice? in a jail sentence)

 

[Dirge Eterna]

You are making the assumption that they care, think they will get caught or are coherent enough mentally to think about the consequences of their action afterwards when they were not able to do it before they committed the crime. A lot of rapes are not reported as it is, maybe with harsher punishment the victims will feel like they are actually accomplishing something by getting this monster off the streets for good. They already know that getting convicted for rape is a prison term yet that doesn't stop them. I don't think it would prevent all rape but it will make some of them think twice and at the very least prevent that person from doing it anymore.

Perhaps it might embolden some victims, but it might have the opposite effect on others. Imagine you're little Suzie, who's being molested by her Dad and wishes he would stop but still loves him anyway. Would you think that knowing he would die if she reported him would make her more likely to report the abuse, or less? It would very likely increase families trying to hide abuse or rape and erroneously try to deal with it themselves rather than report a loved one to the authorities, as few people want to see a family member die, even if they are a scumbag.

I can see your point and admittedly I am biased but most people already know that there is a Prison hierarchy and the rapists and child molesters are the lowest of the low. So for a great deal of them if they are not segregated in with their own kind they will be abused at minimum and murdered often. If the thoughts of that don't stop them what chance will therapy and rehab have to stop them? There are already great swaths of places and areas in America that they can not live or visit. Soon at the rate we are going there will be separate towns or areas that are inhabited by sex offenders. While this may help us to keep a better eye on some of them it won't stop them from learning better ways to commit crimes and to embolden them. Wasting millions of dollars on imprisoning them for life is no better. Capital punishment may not be the only answer but we must do better than we are right now. The stigma of being a rape or molestation victim must be removed if we are to catch these predators.

 

[Cry Wolf]

The one thing to remember whenever you discuss punishment is that the law isn't prefect - and it likely never will be. There is no way to be certain that every person who is sentenced was actually the perpetrator. Thus capital punishment, while potentially an efficient way to protect society, should not be used. You need to be able to revisit a situation to protect the innocent. So, in my world the rapist gets to live.

Torture isn't much better either. While reparations can be made in the event that the punished is innocent, you end up causing more harm by releasing deranged people back into the general population. These people won?t be rehabilitated or scared of breaking the law - just angry. In my world, the rapist isn't tortured.

So, out of the three I can only recommend imprisonment. The question we now must ask is, how long? While the answer actually requires some nuance, I'll keep it simple. Forever. Most crimes are committed due to unfortunate socio-economic circumstances of the offender, but one rapes simply because they value their own sexual pleasure over the horrendous psychological damage to the victim. Fuck these people, let them rot.

I've also heard some interesting suggestions over the years I figure are worth sharing. I don't necessarily endorse these methods, just food for thought.

* Brand rapists. Facial brands. Let everybody know exactly who they are dealing with - and if it turns out they are innocent, remove the brand + the usual reparations.

* Sterilize them and freeze a sample of their sperm/eggs. Give it to them if innocent. Bonus points if sterilization is actually reversible.

 

[BrotherRool]

I'm not going to lie, I think there's something a little sick about even considering the torture. There's definitely meant to be a hint of satisfaction and justice done there which is very schadenfreud-ey. People who feel they're righteousness enough to be able to not just punish someone but absolutely make them suffer is really only a small step away from committing atrocities in the name of justice. (In that, in the name of justice, you have already decided to commit an atrocity)

 

[Thomas Hirst]

A special sign attached to them that says "Attention public, I am a rapist, It is legal to kick me in the crotch." After their allotted jail period. If it doesn't reform them at least they will never be able to use it again.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I dunno. I'm certainly not defending rape, nothing could be further from the truth. It's a reprehensible act, and I don't believe it can ever be justified. But at the same time, none of us have the same background, and none of us know what influences caused a rapist to commit rape. I think they'd have to be very messed up people, people who, through genetics or environment, have deviated so catastrophically from the norm. We make a choice to commit rape, but I don't think we really make a choice to be the sort of person who might commit rape. I think influences largely beyond our control do that, and as a result, I think to give them the death penalty would be wrong, and I believe torture is always wrong. In my opinion, imprisonment and rehabilitation is the only option. Just my two cents though. It certainly is a divisive issue. Hope I haven't offended anyone!

Agreed. These people are messed up psychologically, and we really should seek to figure out what causes the problem and try to rehabilitate them so that they can be normal, productive members of society. Torture and capital punishment just seems like an overly emotional response to a heinous crime when you take into consideration how we better understand the psychology of criminals than ever before and our ability to rehabilitate them keeps getting better. Even if they aren't rehabilitated before they die, we at least would have a better understanding of their condition and possible treatments so that we are better capable of helping future criminals, and we at least can go away knowing we treated them humanely rather than lowering ourselves to their level.

I will say, though, that my personal beliefs make me about as hardline against torture and capital punishment as you can possibly get, but it does seem that our ability to deal with this situation in a reasonable manner is also getting better.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Why is exile not an option? Drop them off on a deserted island, let them fend for them selves. You fail to behave like a civilised being, you don't get to live in civilised society.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

Honestly it entirely depends IMHO on whether the guilty can be judged to be 100% - without a single shadow of any form of doubt guilty. If that could (in some imaginary universe) be made possible so that it was absolutely certain that the right people were being punished I would goto town.

In my life I have known 3 women who have been raped - one who was in an abusive relationship where she was raped or beaten on a several-times-a-week basis for several years.

Ive seen first hand the life destroying pain that rape can cause and so I wouldn't have any problem in being utterly and totally barbaric to the perpetrators of sex crimes. Along the lines of lifetime imprisonment in solitary confinement with nothing but bread, water, a bucket and four walls.

You forum people have a thing for punishing others dont'cha? Cut off hiss wee wee or plug her woo woo with sand? dunno... sounds right... or not.. who knows.. yey... violence with more violence is violent.

The main problem being that imho "the punishment fitting the crime" is a load of bullshit for sex crimes - at least here in the UK. Vigilante justice isn't recomended and isn't good as a social tool BUT when the justice system is ineffective its better than nothing.

Assuming of course that the right person is punished - which is what I started with but is at the crux of the issue with rape and sex assault.

How can you give a criminal the justice that is desvered, both for the criminal and for society, when the justice system is so incredibly flawed?

Answer - you cant. Hence why most people convicted of sex crimes are not given punishments that align with the evil they have committed. Such is the way of the world.

 

[Wainamoinen]

As a nice side note, it always makes me laugh that people in western civilizations tend to mock for example middle-east for its harsh laws, beatings, whippings, basically institutionalized rape (and other things) but when asked about what to do to a) rapists or b) pedophiles, everyone just completely loses their mind and become blood-thirsty idiots who have no regard towards law, rules or decent human behaviour.

Nope, someone can penetrate another guy in a bar fight with a knife and the majority of people think that he should just be locked up, from 10 to 100 years, depending on who's asked. But someone penetrates another with a penis and it's either castration, whippings, torture, rape, a freaking sex-change operation or tens of other idiotic, barbaric, cruel, sadistic (and to be honest, ten times more sick than raping) ways of making the guilty repent their sins, or something as idiotic as that.
It's actually funny that our society is somehow concentrated on talking, making news and committing rape all the time, but still we make two huge, idiotic assumings (I hope that's the right word, I'm not English native speaker) about it. Firstly, there's the whole slut shaming -thing, where men who are unable to keep their pants on, try to blame the victim. Fortunately, after couple of years of active.. ... activism people seem to finally understand that actually it's not the victims fault (IF the rapists aren't high school footballers, then the whole country mourns that they just had to, HAD TO stick their cocks into a drugged girl).
The second idiotic thing our society has about rape (and especially about child molestation) are the consequences. According to most people who talk about child molesting or raping on online forums rarely have any studies they have read, haven't read interviews or talked to anyone who has been raped/molested/etc., or spent any time getting to know the subject better. They spew nonsense like "if you're molested, your whole life is miserable and you're _COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DESTROYED FOREVER AND EVER_ until end of times. Nope, not really. Some people get over it after seeing a therapist (and possibly medication) for some time, some people don't and have to battle with it for the rest of their life. But this does not in any way mean that for everyone it's somekind of life sentence which you can't get over of. People can and people do. For some, it's not a question at all and there have been cases where the victim has been okay within a week or a few months, because it's not the same for everyone. Some people don't see the sexual part of it at all, because (well, as everyone should) they understand that rape isn't that sexual every time, sometimes it's just means to an end, used for the violence's sake, not for the sexual pleasure. It's idiotic of everyone on the internet using the whole "you can't get over it ever"-thing as a sound argument to justify their own sick views and torture porn.


The jailing system in our civilization is _NOT_ to punish people. It's to keep those people away from everyone else, until they are deemed fit to serve and live amongst others. It's not to make them pay for what they did, it's to give them a place where they can both physically, emotionally and mentally get themselves (with therapy, school, work placement etc.) to a place where they no longer are a threat to the society.
IF you really promote castration, rape or something else along the same lines to any person who has committed just about any "realistic" crime, I'd rather sleep next to the rapist, because atleast when it comes to him/her, I know how to handle it. Against you, I'm not that sure because I don't know wether you actually are just stupid, uncivilized and barbaric enough to want to harm another being for "justice" or wether you're just a barbaric, sadistic torture fanatic who tries to justify his/her needs by using the code of Hammurabi.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

The first one, imprisonment and rehabilitation. To me, it's the only appropriate method in a civilised country. It also fits within my own personal morals and beliefs. Revenge and justice make great stories in fiction, but I despise them in reality.

Edit: Would be nice if you'd share your own opinion as well.

I second this.

I doubt I'm the only one who sees the irony in wanting to harm someone who has perpetrated a crime, once they're incarcerated.

You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Fun story the other day in the UK a family murdered an innocent teenager they thought violated their sister. They executed him and left him for dead because "Rapists deserve it". Turns out he wasnt a rapist, he was a 19 year old boy. You cant take back a death.

Also on "killing people" im not one of these "small government" types by any means. But i want a government thats not so large it can decide to take lives for whatever reason. The government shouldnt be allowed to mutilate, torture or kill its citizens under ANY circumstances because thats too much power. Those things cannot be undone.

I also take a Ned Stark attitude. If you think a punishment is justified you should be able to carry it out yourself. If you could look a person in the eye with even the tiniest doubt they are innocent and torture them, suppresing the empathy to cease hurting a screaming pleading weeping human, then youre showing the same psychopathic tendencies as them. Hurting other people makes us feel bad. Always. If you can repress that, if you can hurt someone horrifically without feeling shame or guilt, thats the best way to start considering life as a serial killer. If youre for execution you should be able to look a guilty man in the eyes and kill him. If you cant you should ask yourself why you couldnt.

Id be fine looking a man in the eye and saying his crimes deserve a life prison scentence. I wouldnt be ok looking a helpless man in the eye and killing him. If i can turn off empathy, remove my ability to care for others at will i share that "super power" with him. Its the same ability he used to hurt random people. It isnt impressive. Or good.

 

[JoJo]

Sterilization
It?s proven that convicted rapist/ sex offenders who accept sterilization are 99% less likely to offend again.

Could you provide a source for that? I support the idea of voluntary chemical castration for certain offenders (and possibly as a treatment for unconvicted people with certain paraphilic disorders too) and having such a clear statistic would be a great help for that position

I can see your point and admittedly I am biased but most people already know that there is a Prison hierarchy and the rapists and child molesters are the lowest of the low. So for a great deal of them if they are not segregated in with their own kind they will be abused at minimum and murdered often. If the thoughts of that don't stop them what chance will therapy and rehab have to stop them? There are already great swaths of places and areas in America that they can not live or visit. Soon at the rate we are going there will be separate towns or areas that are inhabited by sex offenders. While this may help us to keep a better eye on some of them it won't stop them from learning better ways to commit crimes and to embolden them. Wasting millions of dollars on imprisoning them for life is no better. Capital punishment may not be the only answer but we must do better than we are right now. The stigma of being a rape or molestation victim must be removed if we are to catch these predators.

I agree to an extent, there certainly is no clear solution to this problem, I'm wary at the idea that further increasing the punishment of offenders would have any noticeable effect on crime rates though, especially as statistically it's believed as little as 1 in 10 sex offenders are actually even caught and convicted. Better education about more typical abuse or rape situations in schools (rather than "stranger danger") would be a good start, paired with research into treating people with an inclination towards sex crimes before they act. Rehab is edgier since they've already crossed that line at-least once but I believe it can be effective if the offender recognises what they did was wrong and is willing to change.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Jail then rehabilitation.

Everything else and we will never make developpment in the moral department. Eye for an Eye is archaic bullshit that doesn't get you anywhere.

 

[Tom Neilson]

Chemical castration.

 

[Will Hektor]

I voted in the humiliation/torture option, but I only agree with the humiliation option. Racism is a symptom of small mindnedness and ingrained beliefs, if you show these beliefs to be half baked then either the person will see this and change, or will announce to the world that they are a bigot. In theory at least.

Plus who wouldn't line up for Custard Pie the Racist?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I think it depends. I don't think any terminal punishment, or even a long prison sentence, should be put upon anyone for any crime I've heard of. Except maybe animal cruelty where the animal is a pomeranian. But as for rape, it ranges from what I consider mild rape - raping another adult once while intoxicated and not using violence and regretting it afterwards - to severe rape, consisting of raping a minor regularly over an extended period without regrets (call a mysogynist and get it out of the way if you're thinking "what scum, rape is never mild"). In the first case, they probably realise once they've done it. Financial compensation and therapy. In the second case, there's clearly no helping them, they should be segregated (not necessarily prison) from the rest of society and allowed to have productive lives in circumstances where they cannot reoffend if rehabilitation fails.

Then again, I've heard going to jail for rape in the US is practically an unsanctioned eye for an eye anyway.

 

[farbrorbla]

Same as above poster. Chemical castration.

Rape is in no way the same as murder and should be taken so much more serious in it's punishment. A murder can sometimes be right depending on the situation but one can not rape in selfdefence or rape to avenge something. And most importantly no sane person can rape someone because of the heat of the moment.

A friend of mine murdered another man in a barfight when we where 25. His right hook simply hit at the wrong place and to hard. His verdict was 4 times the amount a rapist would have gotten (the few that actually get sentenced).

I would go so far as to say that rape is a sexual orientation since it doesnt really have much to do with being horny. Most rapists need the rush of power and just like pedophiles there is no way of rehabilitating a mindset like that just as little as i could get rehabilitated out of getting turned on by a set of big tits.....

 

[Arfonious]

The only civiliced and sane option is rehabilitation.

I do however feel that a longer prison sentence is in order, a few years at least.