Saddest thing

[Walsingham]

Headline:

Trapped brothers 'open mouthed with awe' at first sight of moon

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jht.../naustria30.xml

 

Tiny bit of illustrative detail brought it home with sudden violence. Story is worth reading.

[qt3.14159]

Fritzl, an electrical engineer and businessman, faces charges of incest, abduction and imprisonment and could serve 15 years in jail if convicted.

 

15 years???? He kept a woman and her children in a cellar for 24 years and he gets 15, ****-ing years???

 

How is that justice?

[Morgoth]

Fritzl, an electrical engineer and businessman, faces charges of incest, abduction and imprisonment and could serve 15 years in jail if convicted.

 

15 years???? He kept a woman and her children in a cellar for 24 years and he gets 15, ****-ing years???

 

How is that justice?

Well, with 73, it's not like he'll live any longer after the 15 years have passed.

[Walsingham]

Fritzl, an electrical engineer and businessman, faces charges of incest, abduction and imprisonment and could serve 15 years in jail if convicted.

 

15 years???? He kept a woman and her children in a cellar for 24 years and he gets 15, ****-ing years???

 

How is that justice?

 

 

I think this is an interesting case on many levels, as well as a moving one. One aspect of interest to me is how a convicted sex offender was let to run loose, and reoffend. It happens all the time, and yet we do not collectively seem to reagrd this as a problem. We simply see a case like this and narrow our focus in on the bastard who did the deed, rather than the orchestra of people who had to be complicit for it to happen.

[Xard]

I remember reading this months ago

 

Still sad and unimaginable *shrug*

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I agree, fifteen years is a ****-load less than the bastard deserves - to bad torture is prohibited in cases such as this...

[Meshugger]

Yeah, a part of me wishes that he would get some medieval inquisition-style treatment. But then i have to remember that the laws are made for the reason to rehabilitate the prisoner, and everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law. Also, everyone knows that no matter what materalistic environment the prisoner is in, he's been robbed the most important thing to the human spirit: Freedom.

[samm]

I mostly understand why the laws are how they are, but:

Also, everyone knows that no matter what materalistic environment the prisoner is in, he's been robbed the most important thing to the human spirit: Freedom.

 

*quite revoltingly graphic description of intended punishment excised so I can finish my lunch*

Edited July 11, 2008 by Walsingham

[Volourn]

"still I try to imagine what can be done for some sort of justice and fail every time. Probably just kill him, but if he has no soul he wouldn't feel ****, and if he has one who knows if it would suffer at all in whatever comes after this life..."

 

Youa re doing what he did - dehumanizing his victims making it justifible to treat them less than humans. Let's not fall into the trap of being like him.

 

Torturing him won't bring any sort of justice. At best, it make you feel 'good' for about 5 minutes.. than nothing.

[Meshugger]

"still I try to imagine what can be done for some sort of justice and fail every time. Probably just kill him, but if he has no soul he wouldn't feel ****, and if he has one who knows if it would suffer at all in whatever comes after this life..."

 

Youa re doing what he did - dehumanizing his victims making it justifible to treat them less than humans. Let's not fall into the trap of being like him.

 

Torturing him won't bring any sort of justice. At best, it make you feel 'good' for about 5 minutes.. than nothing.

 

Yup, that's about it.

[Sand]

It is said that he is on suicide watch. I say let him commit suicide.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

"still I try to imagine what can be done for some sort of justice and fail every time. Probably just kill him, but if he has no soul he wouldn't feel ****, and if he has one who knows if it would suffer at all in whatever comes after this life..."

 

Youa re doing what he did - dehumanizing his victims making it justifible to treat them less than humans. Let's not fall into the trap of being like him.

 

Torturing him won't bring any sort of justice. At best, it make you feel 'good' for about 5 minutes.. than nothing.

 

I hate it when you speak sense.... It actually feels offensive, twisted and perverted, like a world gone mad. That doesn't change anything though, you're 100% right I totally agree, the only option is to be "better" and treat him in a manner he doesn't deserve.

 

Don't make a habit of this Volourn, I'd be mortified at the idea of you becoming a normal, sane, and rational human being.

[Sand]

He should get more than just 15 years for what he has done.

[Jorian Drake]

He should get more than just 15 years for what he has done.

i guess he will have nice cellar mates, who will 'thank' him for what he did

[random n00b]

One aspect of interest to me is how a convicted sex offender was let to run loose, and reoffend. It happens all the time, and yet we do not collectively seem to reagrd this as a problem. We simply see a case like this and narrow our focus in on the bastard who did the deed, rather than the orchestra of people who had to be complicit for it to happen.

"Out of sight, out of mind" is the operating principle of the penal system. Not "Justice".

 

Sad but true.

 

 

But then i have to remember that the laws are made for the reason to rehabilitate the prisoner

Which is probably a critical flaw. There are mental health specialists popping out all the time when something like this happens, saying that some individuals are simply beyond rehabilitation - they will never be normal, harmless members of the community. That's the force letting serial rapists loose on the streets after conviction, and it obviously doesn't work.

 

This is what you get when you have lawmakers specialized at lawmaking instead of the matters those laws are supposed to regulate.

[Meshugger]

But then i have to remember that the laws are made for the reason to rehabilitate the prisoner

Which is probably a critical flaw. There are mental health specialists popping out all the time when something like this happens, saying that some individuals are simply beyond rehabilitation - they will never be normal, harmless members of the community. That's the force letting serial rapists loose on the streets after conviction, and it obviously doesn't work.

 

This is what you get when you have lawmakers specialized at lawmaking instead of the matters those laws are supposed to regulate.

 

True, true. Under finnish law, he would've been put into a mental hospital in the high-security, enclosed department (a.k.a. the radar-department), meaning that he will stay there throuhout the time he was sentenced to, and after that he would stay until he is cured. Practically meaning, the rest of his life.

 

In the city were i live in, there's a mental hospital of the same sort. It's a bit secluded from the rest of civilization with the regular patients having their own buildings with a park and other recreational oppurtunities. Then there's the enclosed buildings for people with severe mental problems, each patient usually have a nurse or two around them for their own security. These people seldom get back to the 'regular' world.

 

Then there's the high-security building in the far back, with metal-doors with electric locks, the windows are barred and the park is enclosed from the rest. The nurses are usually big, buffed males, equipped batons and pepperspray. Serial-rapists, psychopats and people like him roam around there. I know of only person actually getting out of there a couple of years ago. The guy had killed and dismembered his wife with an axe over a disagreement on the amount of coffee one should serve. 45 years later he was released, since he was deemed as not a danger to society anymore. Being over 80 years old, the guy lived in a flat for a couple of years before dying of old age. The neighbours remember him spending lots of hours at the local cafeteria, drinking a lot of coffee.

Edited July 11, 2008 by Meshugger

[Gorgon]

This is what happens when the govt mandates you install a secret torture chamber in every home. Remember the Belgian child rape/ torture cases. Same deal with mandatory bomb shelters. Some rule dating back to cold war concerns. Anyway the father should be institutionalised for the rest of his natural life. So the children won't have to worry about seeing him again.

[Walsingham]

I don't think it was a mandated shelter, although youre quite right, the number of shelters around Europe which may be being used in this way freezes the blood.

 

This comes back to some fundamental principles of crime and punishment, because there can be no doubts regarding his guilt. Nor is there any prospect of rehabilitation. The question then becomes what we are to do with him. What is the purpose of legal justice?

 

One thing I would say is that I find it curious that anyone would advocate torture as a punishment for being a torturer. If you can get satisfaction of ANY kind from inflicting deliberate pain on a massive scale then I you are one of two things:

 

a) Not really appreciating what you're describing

b) In need of a long lie down and some tea