Death Penalty
How do you feel about the death penalty?
For the first time in more than 50 years, it’s been recommended in a murder trial – specifically, in the case of cop killer Ronell Wilson.
This brought up a short conversation with my boyfriend last night (short because it was mostly me ranting) about the ever-increasing obviousness that our criminal system is not about rehabilitation at all and is focused on vengeance as justice. In a country in which your criminal past can prevent you from getting a job, when it can put you on a registry so that everyone can know what you did wherever you go, and when it can land you in a prison designed to make you miserable with no chance of hope or redemption beyond serving out your time and leaving bitter and defeated, one wonders why we bother calling it anything but.
I have no real recommendations to fix our broken penal system but something needs to be done. As we move increasingly towards more punishment, more pain and away from even cursory lip service to rehabilitation, we’re in danger of losing all sympathy for our fellow man.
[Photo from the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty]
I have no “sympathy” for fellow man when they kill two police officers, show NO remorse and then try to use their past as an excuse. Touch (and in some cases worse) little kids? You bet your ass I want to know who you are so I go nowhere near you. Sorry, some people absolutely deserve what they get. Why is it right that i went to school to get an education that landed me the job i have only to have a large sum of my money taken in taxes that in part go to “rehabilitating” prisoners? That is not my problem.
Granted, he’s not the best example given his repeated lack of remorse, but when does punishment extend to life? Or repeated reminders to everyone you once did something even if you never did it again?
“but when does punishment extend to life?”
When you have taken one yourself.
“Or repeated reminders to everyone you once did something even if you never did it again?”
Understandable. But when it comes to getting turned down for jobs due to a criminal past, that is something that should be taken up with potential employers. A record is a record. You may not hold up a bank with a gun again, but you did it once and you have to live with it. Every action has a consequence, it’s called life.
I hope you realize I’m mostly playing devil’s advocate here, but I find it, at the least, a fun and enlightening exercise.
So, if we have to live with the consequence of our actions, where do those consequences finally end? Is there ever a point at which you are well and truly forgiven for something you’ve done or does “justice” mandate that the spectre that “you did it once, you’ll do it again” forever follow you? If so, how soon before it’s just cursory procedure for our entire history – credit, criminal, education – to be on a bar code on our ID, to be scanned by potential employers, banks and schools?
I am with Tracy here (although I know Eric is not necessarily taking a side). Yes, people grow and change, but if they committed a crime, they need to understand that a certain cloud will always hang over their head. They will outgrow it when they prove themselves. They may never escape the stigma of being branded a convict, but at least they can get enough good under their belt to prove that that is no longer who they are. A good example would be Tony Sirico, the guy who plays Pauly on The Sopranos. He went to prison, and changed his life. He is now famous and probably very rich.