"Released early on good behaviour" Serious question, poll.

[Raz_Kaz]

Every murder, rapist or hard criminal needs to be executed. Why spend the countries money to feed, clothe and have a safe environment for people like that when there are needy families who live in worse conditions.
The only jail should be for those with less severe crimes such as theft etc...

[Oz]

First answer: do we gaol to punish, rehabilitate or both?

[Broke_as_****]

Originally Posted by Oz

First answer: do we gaol to punish, rehabilitate or both?

The problem with this is always trying to make generalized laws that apply to all situations. Opponents and proponents of any type of increase/decrease in punishment levels cite individuals that would seem to warrant exemption. A rapist who saw his evil, reformed and spent the next 60 years of his life working in a soup kitchen. Or a murderer given all the proper attention and rehabilitation measures and is released, only to kill again.

I would like to think that rehabilitation is the way to go. However I also think that rapists, murderers, child molesters and other forms of sub-humans need to be rounded up, drug out to a field and given .45 of rehabilitation in the brain stem. To me there simply is no redemption for the terrible thing they have done. I believe this mostly because if they ever were rehabilitated into real humans I would think the knowledge of what they had done would drive them to suicide and they would die anyway. This process just skips that secondary step and proceeds directly to the end result. However even as I say that I know that there is more than a few success stories of hard criminal rehabilitation that give even the hardest fanatic of absolute punishment a moment of pause. And therein lies the larger question: Is the lives of the rehabilitated few worth the keep and possible re-offense of the rest of the dregs? Does the positive done by those who have changed their ways weigh more heavily than the continued evil done by those who have not? I really don't know where I stand on that.

In the particular case cited at the begining of the thread I would still urge the harsh course of action possible. No one who could toture and murder a 3 year old deserves to live, even if they are children themselves. In grand English fashion, hang them in the courtyard and toss their corpses to rot in the moat.