To those who support murder and/or rape in prison: What's the rest of your plan?

The BBQ Pit
1

In the omnibus thread about miscarriage of justice, yet again, someone posted this nonsense:

I say gen-pop for that motherfucker.

This was brought up in regard to a cop who injured someone and said cop has a history of misconduct. Mind you, he that cop does not have a history of murder.

I responded to the stupid comment thus:

This asinine meme needs to disappear.

&

Think about what it says about your morality.

A third poster advised the one who posted the asinine meme:

It appears as though you are calling for extra-judicial punishment for this individual.

Which brought the memer to say:

Oh. Okay, sure. My morality is fine with him getting killed in prison. If you seek authority, and then you misuse that authority to enrich yourself or to play out your violent or hateful fantasies, then you deserve a taste of your own medicine on top of whatever judicial punishment is meted out.

Not saying that the guy ought to be killed or even shanked. But he should live in fear of it happening. Seems just and right to me.

And my final response to the memer in that thread was:

And that is not right. As I’ve said a gazillion times on this site, the idea is to be better than the monster you condemn.

Now that I have that out of the way, I have long been against vigilantism and “extrajudicial” punishment, including being against so-called “prison justice”. I also do not find it funny, humorous, or acceptable at all to insinuate and especially hope someone becomes the victim of rape while in prison.

I really have two questions for those who make these asinine comments:

  1. What is wrong with you?

  2. What’s the rest of your plan?

My late father was fond of saying about criminals, “They didn’t have the rest of the plan”. They just went with what they thought was the immediate goal: getting the diamonds, robbing the bank, etc.; however, they had no viable plan fleshed out for after the immediate thing.

So, here’s your chance (again, since nobody took the opportunity to answer the other times I’ve asked this on this site):

What’s the rest of your plan? How are you going to reward or otherwise compensate the prisoner who commits your hoped-for murder? Are you fine with releasing that killer into society since they just “did society a favor”? What’s your plan if the killer you like happens to be in prison for a crime you also despise? And especially, what the fuck is wrong with you for hoping for a murder to occur in response to a non-lethal attack? I already know what the fuck is wrong with you if you’re hoping for a rape to occur. Oh, another one just came to mind: are you fine with the massive loss of government funds to the prisoner who got what you hoped for happen to him or her?

If you didn’t mean what you posted, then go back into those threads where you posted that bullshit and publicly apologize. If you did mean it, your morality is fucked up and you need to do some serious soul searching.

Last year, a group of vigilantes tried to take over the United States government. I know where my morality on this reaches: that was wrong. And my morality is not fine with vigilantism. My morality is fine with lawful treatment of the accused, fair trial, and if convicted, lawful incarceration which, of course, does not, nor ever will, include rape or death as part of the punishment.

2

I think this isn’t quite getting at the root of the problem.

Punishment for the sake of punishment is morally repugnant. The primary use of prison should simply be to separate dangerous people from the rest of us. And to an extent, using prison as a disincentive for committing crimes is morally acceptable (though of questionable value). But punishment as a means of vengeance is horrific.

Frankly, the entire idea of “deserves” is disgusting. Society reserves the right to lock up dangerous people, but extending that to the idea that people “deserve” prison (let alone extrajudicial punishment) is immoral. It sucks that prison is one of the few solutions we have, but that’s the state of technology and our understanding of the brain. If we had some reliable means of preventing criminals from committing more crimes without prison, it would be immoral not to use that. And yet I suspect a large fraction of the population would demand punishment anyway, because their view of justice is not really any different from “an eye for an eye”. Bronze-age bullshit as far as I’m concerned.

3

It’s also foolish on a purely practical level.

It’s a hard number to pin down with precision, but the last time I dug into it something like 90% of incarcerated people are going to come out again. They’re going to rejoin us in society.

So I think making incarceration a hell on earth is among the stupidest things we do. Nobody should be in physical danger, nobody should fear not getting enough to eat, nobody should need to find protection in a gang, nobody should feel humiliated. How can we expect anyone who goes through that to rejoin us and have any chance of living normally again?

That we call incarceration “corrections” programs is right up there with “right to work states” as the most Orwellian terms we use.

I’m fine with the concept of prison, and the only punishment should be the loss of freedom. Period, the end. Prisoners should be well housed, fed, safe, have things to do and hopefully better themselves as they prepare to be with us again.

4

I agree completely with what both of the posters above have said. It also occurs to me that as currently practiced “victim impact statements” are nothing but an opportunity to abuse the defendant before the sentence is pronounced and, IMHO, really should be good fodder for getting the pronounced sentence reduced on appeal.

Now, I have no problem with the idea of victim impact statements, but those statements should undergo the same rigor any other statement to the jury or judge in the case does or the pre-sentencing report does.

p.s. to Llama_Logophile: Not only should the prisoners have that experience, they should also have competent and effective mental health treatment, especially if it was mental health issues that led them to offend in the first place.

5

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

(My brother, who has mental health and addiction issues, is in jail again.)

6

Well, I’m glad we’re all in agreement so far.

A related point:
I’ve made similar arguments in the past, here and other places. And one of the shittiest counter-arguments that always gets trotted out is you wouldn’t think that if it was your loved one that was murdered.

It’s just such an unbelievably stupid argument. Of course I wouldn’t be thinking clearly if a loved one was harmed. The whole point to a justice system is that vigilantism is no kind of justice at all. Our moral and ethical rules have to apply to everyone equally or they are meaningless. People who have had harm done to them or their loved ones are the least reliable people for determining which rules apply to who. I can say with complete confidence now that no one should listen to my shouts for vengeance or otherwise if there ever comes a point where a loved one is harmed. That future me isn’t thinking clearly. Listen to a neutral third party instead.

That applies to “gut instinct”, too. Yeah, every time I read of some horrific crime, a small part of me wants the person to have the same harm done to them. I can’t make that part of my instinct go away, but I can ignore it. And I can sure as hell not take it into account when constructing my own moral framework.

7

That’s not the only reason it’s a shitty argument. I’ve known people who’ve had family members become victims or have themselves become victims of crimes, yet those people are not out demanding vigilantism in response.

8

Indeed. Many people manage to hold onto their humanity in spite of horror. However, if someone that had a loved one harmed was calling for vengeance, I could at least understand where it was coming from. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.

9

I’m not interested in your current dumbassery, @Monty, any more than I’ve been interested in any of your previous dumbassery. I understand that you feel that your morality is the morality, but in the end, you’re just fapping off on your high-horse.

I’ll answer two of your questions, though.

  1. The person who shanks the useless cop wouldn’t be rewarded. They’d be subject to further charges. So there is no “rest of the plan” to consider.
  2. The fact that the useless cop isn’t a murderer is irrelevant. He sought authority, obtained that authority, then abused that authority to knock out a man’s teeth, to put an ER patient’s health in jeopardy, and to terrorize an EMT. To me, such abuses are a worse crime than murder.

Facing the consequences of your actions don’t end just because you received a prison sentence. Ask any ex-con who can’t get a job. If he didn’t want to be a cop in gen-pop, then maybe he shouldn’t have become a cop and then hurt people needlessly and maliciously.

If you had an ounce of guts, you’d have linked to the posts or quoted me without trimming off the attribution. Chickenshit.

And I’ll now be muting this thread.

10

Well, of course you will be, you cretin.What you have described is not a high horse. Hell, compared to that pathetic morality you tout, a snail’s slime trail is higher.

And you’re not the only piece of shit who’s touted that nonsense here. But, hey, go ahead and feel special and on your own high horse.

11

I think that’s been accomplished, because revenge fantasies don’t hurt people, and corrupt cops do. Revenge fantasies allow people to vent their frustration without actually hurting anyone.

Sure, it’s mean spirited, but maybe we can reserve the term Monster for people who actually harm other people in a definable way.

12

I would also include those who cheer them on.
(Sexual) violence in prisons isn’t a good thing, not for those involved nor for society.

To gleefully wish somebody to come to harm while in custody of the state is to create a environment where people like the cop talked about thrive.

13

I don’t disagree with the loss of liberty being a punishment to disincentivize some crimes, even if I think it gets overused. But that’s the punishment, the fact that you are no longer allowed to go about your normal life the way you would like to. The punishment is not to endure terror, torture or death.

Our judicial system kinda sucks. There are people who get punishments far harsher than I think they should, and there are those who get punishments far more lenient than I think they should. And that disparity is often not due to the nature of the crime, but due to immutable characteristics of the defendant that society continues to discriminate upon.

But what sucks far more is arbitrary punishment meted out by individuals. If our judicial system includes rape and torture as punishments, then if I am against that (which I am), I can speak out against that, I can campaign, advocate, and vote accordingly. If some violent criminal is encouraged to perform a punishment that is not called for in the sentence, I have no one to redress my grievances to.

Yes, unfortunately, many see the justice system as being there to extract vengeance upon criminals. It’s not about protecting society from crime, it’s about hurting people who “deserve” to be hurt.

I’m reminded of a Babylon 5 episode, where a violent criminal had been brain wiped and sent to a monastery. Personally, I think that such a punishment is about the worst thing you can do to someone, worse than killing them. But that wasn’t enough for the victim’s friends and family, who felt the need to torture and kill a now innocent individual in order to try to sate their bloodlust.

This example is of course, fictional, but it isn’t far fetched (except the brain wipe part), it is exactly how many feel and act. The poster quoted in the OP as an example of that.

And it’s worse than that. The code of “eye for an eye” was meant to limit punishment, not to set it. Prior to that, if someone stepped on your foot, you killed them and their family in retaliation. The point was to limit it to proportional punishment, “If they hurt you, you may hurt them back as much as they hurt you, but no more.”

I’d like to think that our morality has advanced to be even more enlightened than bronze-age bullshit, but as we can see, we have trouble meeting even that seemingly low bar.

14

This is a malevolently stupid viewpoint, for ethical and practical reasons previously stated.

Prison time should be (especially for violent criminals about separating offenders from society. If they can’t be sufficiently rehabilitated, at least innocent people are protected from them until they’re released. In the meantime they’re entitled to good nutrition and medical care and protection from abuse and mayhem because that’s what a decent society demands.

Otherwise you wind up with a situation like Ohio has had with inmate Casey Pigge, who’s racked up murders of two fellow inmates (including a convicted sex offender he managed to strangle to death on a medical transport bus). Later he and another inmate shanked a prison guard, stabbing him multiple times. But they tacked on another 32 years to his existing life sentence(s) so he’s deterred now. :thinking:

As for victim impact statements, I always thought they were instituted to provide a form of release for relatives of murder victims, and don’t typically affect sentencing or parole. Convicted killers don’t seem to care one way or another.

15

My plan is quite simple: Those people deserve to be raped and murdered in prison, so that the people who rape and murder them can be raped and murdered in turn, so that the people who commit this deed of justice can be raped and murdered themselves, and so on until the problem is well and truly solved. If that is not well thought through and reasoned I don’t know what is.
Or, as the great late Franquin drew it: The LAW stipulates that every person who willingly kills another will be beheaded. Let the executioner fulfill his job! (1st panel)
Well that is a job well done (5th panel)
Sorry, but the LAW stipulates… (7th panel)

16

So, not only do you want this cop to receive extrajudicial punishment, you are wishing for another individual to receive extra punishment in order for you to get your vengence.

Then advocate that cops who abuse their positions get harsher punishments. Go through the actual legislative process to have them drawn and quartered for their crimes. Be above board with your desire for vengeance, put it in the public square where society can decide if that’s the direction it wants to go.

There are some states where prior convictions are not allowed to be considered in hiring decisions. It’s got a way to go, but some of us are working towards ends that would allow those who have paid their debt to society to rejoin it productively.

It is people with your sort of attitude about how the consequences of your actions should follow you past the legal system who stand in the way of that.

Heh.

17

Revenge fantasies don’t hurt people. If someone harmed someone I cared about, I’m sure that I’d think of all sorts of terrible things that I would like to befall them.

Sharing revenge fantasies can hurt people, as it creates an atmosphere where arbitrary punishment thought of by the most offended individual becomes acceptable.

This is especially the case if the one sharing their fantasy isn’t even connected to the victims of the crime.

The subject of the OP was not called a monster, the subject of the OP was warned to be better than the monsters.

18

I don’t agree that anyone should get raped or murdered in prison.

I do, however, agree that police criminals should be in the general population with all the other criminals. If anyone else did these things, they’d go into the general population, and so that’s what should happen to a cop who does these things. Their status as a (former) cop shouldn’t give them special treatment.

If going in with the general population is such a heinous punishment, then that’s the problem we need to be solving. Improve gen-pop for everyone, not just for criminal cops. And if cops ending up in general population is what makes society (and in particular, the parts of society that make these decisions) realize that, then that’s some good that comes of the whole situation.

19

It’s not special treatment because they are a former cop, it is protective custody because they are a target for violence. We often do the same for child molestors and other sex offenders who will be singled out for extra-judicial punishment by their fellow inmates. It’s not a reward. Most people want to be in general population, as humans are social animals and we like to be around other people, even if those other people are criminals. Isolating them is its own form of punishment, but it’s a less harsh punishment than leaving them to the tender mercies of those who would act on the subject of the OP’s fantasies.

We should be solving lots of issues with our judicial system, prison violence being one of them. But most people in general population are not subject to heinous extrajudicial punishment. Those who would be should be protected from that.

Nah, it won’t make society realize anything at all. Those who care already care, and do what little they can to advocate for reform. Those who want to see people tortured as part of their punishment will squeal with glee when they hear about it. And the vast majority of people will continue to do what they always do, completely ignore the problem.

20

As the issue of recidivism shows, the “mere” loss of freedom is not a sufficient deterrent for many criminals. It’s all well and good to say that prison is for separating out the dangerous people, but society would be vastly better off if those people did not need to be separated out at all.

I agree that prisoners should be treated humanely, but at the same time, prison should be a sufficiently-unpleasant place that first-time offenders would want to avoid repeating the behavior that landed them there in the first place.