# Serious question: Why not mandatory life sentences for murderers, rapists, and child predators? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2013, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-question-why-not-mandatory-life-sentences-for-murderers-rapists-and-child-predators/661260 "2013-06-18T09:41:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-question-why-not-mandatory-life-sentences-for-murderers-rapists-and-child-predators/661260/41 "2013-06-20T14:57:54Z")
> [@Mdcastle](#): > > 1. I’m not sure why just dispensing with locking people up forever and executing them for rape was not cruel and unusual for the first 200 years of our country but suddenly became so during the soft on crime era. Good point. We got this far with execution, wife-beating and slavery, it can’t be that bad, can it? > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > the fact is too many death penalty opponents are moralistic whiners who go against people’s natural sense of justice by implying the state’s diposing of a murderer is morally equivalent to the murderer taking an innocent’s life rather than sensible nuts and bolts arguments regarding relative costs of executing a man versus imprisoning him for life (how many know that the latter is actually cheaper?) or the risk that an innocent man be executed? The fact is, too many death penalty proponents are bloodthirsty amoralists… See how unhelpful this is? You may have an opinion but it’s not the only valid one. There are also far more stances to be taken than either “execution is the same as murder” or “kill 'em if it’s cheap”. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-question-why-not-mandatory-life-sentences-for-murderers-rapists-and-child-predators/661260/42 "2013-06-20T15:28:31Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > the fact is too many death penalty opponents are moralistic whiners who go against people’s natural sense of justice Ah, I see you’ve figured out why human beings have societies: to leave the state of nature entirely unchanged except to dress it up in legalistic bullshit so we can assuage our consciences. What a triumph this is. > [@](#): > > rather than sensible nuts and bolts arguments regarding relative costs of executing a man versus imprisoning him for life (how many know that the latter is actually cheaper?) or the risk that an innocent man be executed? Death penalty opponents regularly employ all of these arguments. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-question-why-not-mandatory-life-sentences-for-murderers-rapists-and-child-predators/661260/43 "2013-06-20T15:34:12Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Maybe because the death penalty is a trivial issue compared to whether a country actually is a democracy or not? To you, perhaps. To others, the way a society treats its dregs is more important than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-question-why-not-mandatory-life-sentences-for-murderers-rapists-and-child-predators/661260/44 "2013-06-21T10:35:22Z")
> [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](#): > > This is the aspect of the plan I want to discuss. Frankly, I can’t understand why we don’t do this already. As far as I’m concerned, murderers, rapists, and violent pedophiles have basically chosen to evict themselves from the human race. Or they got drunk or desperate and did something very stupid which they go on to regret for the rest of their lives. > [@](#): > > In the case of rapists and pedophiles, their crimes are crimes of compulsion, and since modern medicine has a truly abysmal record of ameliorating those compulsions, it makes sense to keep rapists and child predators in jail for life as the risk of recidivism is simply so high. Of course, I don’t mean to neglect the point that their crimes are reprehensible and deserving of very long sentences. Except that often, crimes of compulsion are brought on by extraneous circumstances - drunk at a party and can’t tell just how passed-out the girl is, miserable in an abusive relationship, et cetera. The risk of recidivism among first-time rapists [is very low](http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/res/cor/rep/2004-03-se-off-eng.aspx). As for child molesters, I think it’d be far more simple to just mandate chemical castration - hard to molest a child when your sex drive is effectively gone. > [@](#): > > 1. Mandatory life sentences would send a message that such crimes are not tolerated by society. …A message that is already sent quite effectively, thank you very much. Or maybe they changed that murder and rape have typical sentences of a few decades while I wasn’t looking. > [@](#): > > 1. The recidivism rate would be extremely low indeed. It already is. I’d definitely support this for repeat offenders, but they’re already generally going away for life, so not much of a change there. > [@](#): > > The pool of potential victims would be narrowed to basically just other inmates and, frankly, no great loss there. “What are you here for?” “I raped and killed 5 guys and feasted on their entrails. You?” “…Tax fraud…” “…Mmm. You smell nice.” 😃 > [@](#): > > So, yeah. What do you make of my ‘One Strike And You’re Out’ rule for first degree murderers, rapists, and violent child molesters? It’s stupid, draconian, and completely removes any hope of rehabilitation from the system. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-question-why-not-mandatory-life-sentences-for-murderers-rapists-and-child-predators/661260/45 "2013-06-21T13:44:52Z")
It also rewards false accusations by utterly destroying the person convicted. If you can’t guarantee me that we will only ever send guilty people to prison, then mandatory life sentences are the stupidest goddamned thing on the face of the Earth. ---
**Author:** ![tralfamidor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@tralfamidor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tralfamidor)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-question-why-not-mandatory-life-sentences-for-murderers-rapists-and-child-predators/661260/46 "2013-06-25T04:18:15Z")
To treat all murders and rapes as equally heinous would be to ignore the circumstances of the crimes, the motivations of the perpetrators, and the nature/histories of the convicted. To punish all such crimes the same way would be to simplistically ignore the fact that some moral/criminal offenses are more serious than others, even though the offenses in question may be identical on the surface. Doing so would also ignore the existence of mitigating circumstances, which puts us back about forty centuries in the realm of criminal justice. Would you similarly punish all instances of theft the same way, thereby giving (say) five years to the guy who stole your BMW **and** the kid who lifted a candy bar from the 7-11? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-question-why-not-mandatory-life-sentences-for-murderers-rapists-and-child-predators/661260.md?page=2)