posted
The solution is what Icarus implied - that we should be merciful to ALL parties involved, including the criminal, the victims, and any potential future victims. Or, to put it more bluntly, you should CARE about all of them. You should care about the criminal AND the victims as you would if they were your spouse or children, love and value them, because this is what each of them deserves. What would you do if one of your children burned another, and you thought he was a threat to the rest to all your loved ones? Would you send him to jail forever, to protect your other children, who you care about just as much? Or would you hope to reform him, and risk your other children? That is the practical way to judge what to do - the only way that gives each party involved the value they deserve as a human being.
The perfect judge loves everyone, and judges accordingly. I believe only God can do so perfectly. We can try, though.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:What would you do if one of your children burned another, and you thought he was a threat to the rest to all your loved ones? Would you send him to jail forever, to protect your other children, who you care about just as much? Or would you hope to reform him, and risk your other children?
You list those as though they are the only two options. Is there not a middle ground where you do everything in your power to reform the offending child but take reasonable precautions to protect the other children?
Forgiveness does not mean you must take foolish risks, but I think it does imply you are willing to take some risk. When in your life have you ever been "invulnerable". Forgiveness does not have to imply that we let people steal from us, or beat us -- but it does require that we continue to care deeply about them. When you care deeply about another person, you are hurt when they make bad choices even if those choices don't directly effect you physically. The only way to be invulnerable to that kind of hurt, is to stop caring.
Being merciful requires that we are willing to take risks.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I think each of us may be ascribing to the other a more extreme belief than that person actually holds.
I'm not against taking risks. But I think it depends on the seriousness risk and the gravity of the damage a person is likely to do. I do believe that there are people who have demonstrated by their actions that they have no regard for the lives of other people. The people who destroy children's lives by molesting over and over. Those who murder repeatedly. Those who murder in especially depraved ways.
Your posts seem to be under the impression that I and others are advocating for life sentences for every murder. I am not.
On the other hand, I do believe that there are criminals who should never be freed, where the risk to other innocent people, and the need for mercy to them far outweighs the desire to be merciful to the criminal. I get the sense that you do not believe anybody should be permanently incarcerated (by this I mean a life sentence without hope of parole). Am I correct in this interpretation of your posts?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Thank you for your thoughts, Rabbit. That's very well thought out, and mirrors much of my own thinking on the subject. The trick comes with balancing all those competing interests. For example, 2 & 3 are almost directly opposing principles - it's well documented that increasing discretion decreases consistency in punishment. And yet, each of those is incredibly important to creating a just system of punishment.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The problem, as I see it, with reform is that even the best intentions do not necessarily mean that a person is any different. Like the person that gets his twentieth DWI and for the twentieth time promises to never drink again, or the reformed sex offender that is released from prison and then kidnaps and kills a local college student.
And with those certain people that seem like they are incapable of reform and that pose a very dangerous threat to others, I'd rather not take the risk.
After all, prison isn't really that bad considering the living conditions of billions of people around the world. The only difference is that they no longer have the illusion of freedom.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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