echidna

We seem to be swinging between extremes. As per my first post, I don’t want emotional revenge to be the sole reason, and yet I’m not comfortable to remove it altogether.

But you would remove it altogether ?

Kachana

I don't think revenge should have a part to play in sentencing. Revenge I believe is a very useful emotion to have for survival, it serves as a deterrent and can wipe out your future problems by motivating you to maim or kill the perpetrator. However, I see it as useful in anarchies, in societies without legal codes.

One of the main points of the legal system as I see it is to remove the need for actions borne from venegful desires by having the state take care of the problem for you. Revenge sentencing may be satisfying for some people, but what does it achieve above this satisfaction? If we are to base a legal system in part on the satisfaction the public gets from the thought of what is happening to someone, how would we quantify and determine the levels of pain someone should recieve? Should a poll be circulated in which people tick boxes to vote for whether they want to see someone in solitary for a year or subjected to exhausting labour for a year? Should we have video footage of them suffering in prison on the news for people to feel satisfaction upon seeing? After all, it's the satisfaction of the public we are talking about here. How exactly should the 'satisfaction factor' of the public be worked out, and isn't it rather too gladiatorial for a civilised society?

echidna

I retain the need for consideration of emotional revenge when it comes to the victims themselves.

I think it’s a very natural & understandable & healthy to feel the need for revenge. It is a quite healthy emotion IMO, & I’d be questioning the psychological “normality” of someone who didn’t feel the need for some form of “natural justice”. As such, removing this element, may in some circumstances result in perpetrators not being punished, that Defence lawyers can often demonstrate that the criminal will never re-commit, or can be easily rehabilitated. It must be recognised that lenient sentencing has strong negative consequences on victims who often end up suffering a second time, that their original suffering is trivialised, that monetary compensation does nothing for the natural emotional response.

Further, the risk is that in society, it’s quite healthy to use the concept that the bringing of suffering will be met with suffering in return. I sympathise with public indignation when criminals for whatever reason are given minimum sentences. The social message which is sent is that crime is not necessarily punished & this is a very dangerous message to send IMO. This is one of my main problems with Political Correctness, that concepts like punishment are outdated and must be replaced with Rational Niceness. I see no evidence that our society can function solely on Rational Niceness.

On what grounds do you explain to a rape victim that the perpetrator does not suffer in return ? That it’s irrational to expect suffering in return ? That the victims must understand the “bigger picture” ? Neither is adequate IMO. Suffering in return is a quite healthy social construct / instinctive expectation.

I’m not advocating a return to flogging, or amputation of limbs. But I think that revenge & *punishment* are not concepts which should be clinically removed from our Justice System.

Jamie_L

This is another way to ask the question: should the purpose of the penal system be to punish, or to protect society, or both? Personally, I don't believe the two are as linked as most people do. I think you can punish people with little benefit to public safety, and likewise I can envision a system that keeps the public safe without concern as to whether a sufficient "punishment" has been met out. In some cases, I think these can run counter to each other - with too much revenge-minded punishment leading to less safety, and too mcuh safety-minded rehabilitation leading to less punishment.

Personally, I am much more concerned about public safety than punishment. If I could maximize one but not both, I would choose to maximize public safety, no questions asked.

On the grounds that the most important job of the system is to maintain public safety - both from crime and from wrongful punishment.

Perhaps not, but I don't think that's a job for the justice/penal system. Consider that it is possible (if not frequent) for a victim to become convinced of the guilt of someone who is in fact innocent. They can become insistent that that person needs to be punished, to the point that the can't gain closure. Should the system punish that person anyway to give the victim closure? How do you explain to the victim that their emotions are incorrect?

A healthy instinctive expectation perhaps, but not a healthy social construct for a free society. Considering that innocents will always be wrongly convicted from time to time, I believe punishment for its own sake should not be instituted. If the goals of public safety can be met without it, thus protecting the wrongly-convicted innocents, I think that outweighs the need to satisfy victims' needs for revenge. Especially considering that those needs may be misdirected, exaggerated, etc.

Although I've only recently come to this conclusion, I tend to disagree. Punishment is only necessary insofar as it relates to public safety. Furthermore, I think maintaining public safety will always involve some form of punishment. Denial of freedom (i.e. imprisonment) will always be punishment.

Jamie

Keith Russell

Greetings:

The prisoners can view it as punishment, but I don't think the judge, jury, or jailors should view it as such.

All the law should be interested in is protecting the rights of the innocent. If this requires removing certain people from society (depriving them of certain freedoms for specific portions of their lives) so be it.

But, it should be done with the idea of protecting the innocent, never with a mind to punishing (or taking vengeance upon) the guilty.

Keith.

AWAKENOW

On the whole, a sentence is handed down as revenge for the supposed perpetrator having behaved in some way at odds with a societies mores, values etc.. However, the revenge factor has been limited by sentencing guidelines in many cases. Still, emotional cases - those dealing with children, the elderly or others viewed as being helpless may evoke a more emotional outburst, which in fact will determine the type and length of a sentence. In dealing with so-called hate crimes, the sentences are more stiff. Why is that? A crime committed against gays by homophobes, whites against blacks and blacks against whites are perceived differently than crimes committed amongst peers of the same ethnicity or sexual orientation. The sentencing reflects this attitude; however, the nature of the crime remains unchanged and does not serve as a deterrent for future criminals. Revenge in and of itself should play a part in sentencing but not to an extent that it overrides common sense.

Jane Bovary

I’m not advocating a return to flogging, or amputation of limbs. But I think that revenge & *punishment* are not concepts which should be clinically removed from our Justice System.

Isn't "justice" a better word than revenge. Revenge is a passion and sentencing should not be based on passions, but on objectivity. Revenge will be an offshoot of any sentencing which involves punishment, but it should not be a driving force.

On what grounds do you explain to a rape victim that the perpetrator does not suffer in return ?
Safety?...humanity?
Jail terms inevitably involve suffering...what sort of suffering do you mean? The same as the victim? What's to be gained by that? That doesn't work for the safety of the community. The amount of rehabilitiation and compassion is important when it comes time for release.Unless you advocate life sentencing, in which case millions of dollars would have to be diverted from health, education etc. in order to fund more prison beds.

Apparently in Sweden sex offenders are placed in quite femine surroundings, plastic flowers etc. and the warders are female. Seems strange, but the logic is, rapists have a problem with women, thus what is to be gained by locking them up in a brutalised all male environment?

As echidna mentioned, just last week here in Aust. a young man who perpetrated some very nasty gang rapes received a 55 year sentence with a non-parole period of 40 years. The longest sentence ever given for such a crime...much more than for most murders.The case had attracted a huge amount of media attention, and there was a race element. The perpetrator was Lebanese, a muslem and shouted "Aussie Pig" at his victims during the rape. There would seem to have been a heavy dollop of revenge in the sentencing.

The crime is abominable & I am not entirely comfortable with divorcing emotion from the decision-making process. It sniffs of Political Correctness.

The problem with such a long sentence is that it assumes this man can never change...that there is no hope of rehabilitation. There is no leeway for the possibility that he may be a different man at 30 than he was at 18, his age at the time of the crime. He'll be 60 when he's let out.