In truth, such damaged human beings don't feel guilt or shame. Those emotions are there to keep good people in check of their less flattering emotions. If those emotions are absent, they can effortlessly commit brutal crimes against other human beings. If only there was treatment for such broken people.
I have to agree with the good doctor, and lori, and frontera lupito. A few years ago I worked with Childrens' Services and a large part of my time was supervising visits with children and the parents who abused them. Not one of them, or their victims, ever saw anything wrong with what they did. Its a generational curse, too.I don't know what their punishment should be, but I sure do know they can't change (and don't want to as they saw no wrong or sin in it)
I really don’t care about rehabilitation as much as 1) protecting the innocent and 2) punishing the offender.
If a woman is violently raped by a stranger, what is the proper punishment? The courts exist to try to “make whole” victims, but how do you do that when something like your senses of safety and dignity are taken? The LEAST the courts can do in cases like rape, murder, violent assault, etc., is to expeditiously remove the offender from this planet. Dead people are guaranteed not to reoffend, and are rarely let out of prison by accident (except to vote in blue cities), so capital punishment does do the most important job it is there to do - give some peace to the victim and their family.
Now you might say what about the accused’s rights? Fine, we have due process, but we also have rogue judges, so I’ll help fix the due process when you start making rogue judges culpable for the crimes of the criminal they were lenient towards. Yes, that old “if a bartender can over serve”, a judge can under incarcerate.
When you commit a violent crime, you aren’t worthy of society’s kid gloves. You need a punishment HARSHER than what you gave your victim, but I would settle for your quick death if it saved a few bucks.
Every (single) time I hear a journalist report that so-and-so received "non-life-threatening injuries," I want to see them undergo the same injuries and "report back on their experiences." It infuriates me, a little bit.
I seek a similar scenario I can wish for so rogue judges "enjoy" the company of the criminals they are lenient with. (It strikes me now that lenient judges are lenient with SOCIETY's mercy in the same way liberal pols are generous with SOCIETY's tax revenues. (It's a study of the death penalty in microcosm: people who don't EVER suffer consequences from their decisions don't have any reason to change.)
For me another problem presents, if the epstein class are basically all guilty of crimes against humanity, then why zero indictments/prosecutions to date?
For those with money, power, control of the rule books and the ability to control the narrative, it unfortunately corrupts the entire system.
How many truly horrific events have we witnessed in our lives that the actual perpetrator simply walks free, never even being charged?
And shaming people in this day and age really would only do two things: make them angry (check bullied trans response) or just move somewhere no one knows about them or their crime (and do it again).
I don’t believe the real goal is prevention. It’s justice. Is it JUST to allow the truly heinous (& without a reasonable doubt - guilty) to continue to live in relative comfort (i.e. not in a medieval dungeon, chained to a wall) while their victims lives have been unjustly cut short?
I have always wavered over the efficacy of the death penalty, so for a while I thought Nathaniel Hawthorn got it right in "The Scarlet Letter," but then I read Shirley Jackson's short story (the one that all college freshmen were assigned as their first assignment in American literature), "The Lottery," and was convinced that public shaming was also dangerous. I have finally settled on this punishment: find a deserted island far from the mainland and put all our worst criminals there. Give them each a packet of cucumber seeds and wish them luck. Buh bye.
Good point. I wonder if the entire USA could actually be considered started as a "penal colony"? Certainly the rumor is that a lot of the initial settlers were "fleeing" persecution.
Inmates often live longer (and more expensively) on death row than in general population. It seems 10 - 20 years is not an unusual time frame for a death row prisoner in some states. Efficiency in death sentences should be improved, or death sentences reconsidered. 15 -20 year waits are problematic for survivors, relatives, etc.
The ONLY reason it presently costs more to give capital punishment than incarcerating is because of a corrupt and broken judicial system that cares not one bit for the victims. If we had a true justice system it would be far cheaper.
I take issue with the article’s stockades meme having Trump in the first hole. Did you realize that, Jenna? It’s a very offensive meme to me because of the real message it’s trying to send/manufacture.
I stopped reading the wisewolf as I found she seemed to have fairly severe TDS - which irritated me... apart from that she had some interesting essays - but there is too much available to read to put up with that rubbish... 🤣🇨🇦
With current day forensics and DNA available it shouldn't be costing $millions to get to the execution stage of someone convicted and sentenced to death. What is required is a change in the law to allow only one appeal based solely on new evidence, if there is even a slight doubt then it should be automatic that the whole evidence is investigated by an independent department. Anyone found ignoring or manipulating evidence at the trial should themselves be prosecuted. When/if it fails then it should be 'set a date time'. End of. Furthermore the only option should be whichever is cheapest - probably hanging.
Because sadly the equally criminal police often arrest and try and convict obviously innocent people to close a case Especially dark skinned and poor ones
This is where, I, a former Forensic Biologist in the great state of KY, disagree. I’m not denying that there are corrupt cops out there (just like any other sector of humanity). I don’t think it is nearly as prevalent as media would have people believe. There is corruption as well as incompetence, but I don’t believe it is any more prevalent in the Justice System than it is anywhere else. I also believe there are significant checks and balances that prevent this kind of thing for the most part. If a corrupt cop brings in an innocent person as a suspect for a crime punishable by death, the court has to build a ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ case against that innocent, the defense team has to absolutely suck at their job, the forensics have to be inconclusive or also corrupt, the jury has to unanimously vote to convict with the possibility of death as a sentence, the judge has to have found the evidence convincing enough to move forward to sentencing to death, the years between sentencing and execution must be void of any exculpatory evidence, etc Of course, the system isn’t perfect, but there *are* a LOT of steps where corruption or incompetence has to be the only thing.
His non-fiction book The Innocent Man, which was published in 2006, tells the story of Innocence Project client Ron Williamson's wrongful conviction and ...
Shaming some of these criminals would just make them want to take revenge on the citizens who shamed them. They don't feel shame for what they did - they're proud of it. Have you SEEN the faces of some of these people who've been arrested for heinous crimes? They look smug and proud. Having them in the town square stockage wont change that. They'll just seek revenge.
How many jurors must be protected simply because they were selected to hear the testimony? Revenge is real. We have a mobile, urban society where shamed people can simply remove from that community.
Jenna, all I could visualize while reading your article was the scenes from Game Of Thrones where the horrific female character who had sex with her brother was paraded down the street naked as the people screamed “Shame,Shame” while ringing bells. Somehow I do not think this would work at all for criminals who have committed horrific death penalty worthy crimes. Personally I believe they should die in the same manner their victim(s) did. And not 50 years later.
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire
As I read the article, I couldn't help but keep thinking not about axe murderers, but politicians. Structural violence (death by public policy) kills people just like dropping bombs on them. More people are killed by our political system either directly or indirectly than any criminals currently in jail or on death row. Why shouldn't they be tried and put on display of public humiliation instead of worshiped by their party? We have a form of this now and it is being ejected from office by a sex scandal, but that is when the politicians don't follow the deep state. Leaving office due to corruption just doesn't happen any more (there is plenty of corruption, but they are protected).
'ostracism'—each Athenian citizen was required to write on a shard of pottery (ostrakon) the name of a politician that they wished to see exiled for a period of ten years.[24] This may have been triggered by Miltiades' prosecution, and used by the Athenians to try to stop such power-games among the noble families.[24] Certainly, in the years (487 BC) following, the heads of the prominent families, including the Alcmaeonids, were exiled.[24] The career of a politician in Athens thus became fraught with more difficulty, since displeasing the population was likely to result in exile.
Im probably going to be wrong about this but my spontaneous reaction is to disagree that public shame is all it takes. For 1 thing, dangerous criminals (mentally ill, drug-induced or whatever) are already NOT spending a week, much less a lifetime, in prison, courtesy of “no bail” laws & the types of judges, AGs, criminal defense lawyers & prosecutors who have the criminals out within a day if not hours to murder, rape, &/or pillage again. In addition, many of not most criminals are psychopaths or sociopaths who have zero sympathy or empathy for their victims so why would they feel shame? And if any did, they can simply move away from the former community. One has to have a conscience to feel shame / humiliation / regret.
And for anyone who has lost a loved one to a horrific crime, they can be justified in wanting vengence because they will suffer the rest of their lives without the loved one while some monster lives & breathes the rest of THEIR lives.
I do agree though that adding more options is stupid.
Umm maybe I'm a little slow... but how is it NOT shameful to go to prison??! That stays on your record forever and follows you everywhere you go. If someone fresh out of prison moved in beside me, I'd definitely hesitate before I pursue a new friendship.
Also I think it's fine for people sentenced to death to pick the method used for their exit. That is quite generous considering murderers don't give their victims that option. Except if lethal injection is that expensive, I'd be in favor of removing that option completely. It should never cost as much to achieve justice as it does to house someone for decades.
It's not the injection that costs so much--ANY method would cost the same; it's the legal process that can stretch out for decades with multiple trials and appeals (https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/what-to-know-costs-and-the-death-penalty). And for sure, going to prison is somewhere on the shame-scale, but that's not the same as being shackled in the town square under a sign detailing exactly what you've done... (it's okay fi you disagree!) :)
Exactly... and to put them on display in the town square would totally make their day, they'd love the attention. Negative attention is better than no attention for some people.
I'm thinking the real story here is Jenna's social club! That could make a real improvement to society! Something worth pursuing and a bit of effort!
Certainly a menu of ways to inflict capital punishment isn't going to change the crime rate. Public humiliation is an intriguing concept. I do think the problem is that little bit about "the crowd seemed to enjoy it a little too much.". We humans have some real psychological problems. We enjoy seeing others suffer. What is wrong with us???
For those willing to dish out penalties easily, please consider the harm of convicting even a single innocent person. True freedom comes from not having fear of a lynch mob.
Yes! I think it would be great if we could sign up for "Who are the ten closest Jenna subscribers to where I live?" - Then we could introduce ourselves and consider getting together in person!
I've found a few platforms that let you create interactive maps; they come with monthly fees (which I'm MORE than happy to fork over if there's interest!)... I'll let y'all know what I come up with! :)
Love it! I'd definitely join. Precise addresses wouldn't be necessary, just "city". Anyone within a three hour drive would be under consideration for meeting up with! Or we could even hold our own "conventions" and meet up at a central hub location that might draw from a wider area.
By very definition, trial & sentencing by jury is *not* a lynch mob. True freedom also comes from being able to know you’re protected from depravity as well. I get that convicting an innocent is a crime in & of itself, but while the System isn’t perfect, it is set up to prevent that as well as it can be. For every innocent that gets convicted there will likely be several innocents that become victims to a guilty party set free. I am *not* advocating for convicting innocents, I’m just posing the observation that innocents get harmed whether by the state or by criminals set free. At what point does trading innocents for innocents become preferable?
This brings to mind the people who say that everyone should be vaccinated and that side effects are so rare, etc. etc, it's for the greater good... until it's your kid who's the one who ends up wheelchair-bound or with a chronic disease or dead. I am not at all trying to make the exact correlation, I am extremely aware there's a very big difference between forcing vaccination and trying to deal with murderous criminals, but just the collateral damage aspect of it brought that to mind. I just recently read a non-fiction book called Framed, which is actually about people who were basically framed and imprisoned for many, many years, one of whom was executed, all of whom were innocent. It was a really affecting book. It just makes me think about those people who do get the short end of the stick. It's part of why I have a hard time with the death penalty unless there's literally not even a shadow of a doubt, not even the teeny-tiniest shadow of a doubt.
Very good point. I guess I'm not as impressed by our legal system. Like pretty much everything in life, the "wealthiest person wins". Maybe not all the time, but far, far too many times. Often it's not a mob, but a single person that can make another person's life miserable (very often with false accusations - it isn't even necessary to falsely convict them or even take them to court).
So I stand by "innocent until proven guilty *beyond* a reasonable doubt".
But when a judge & jury do find someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then what? That’s what we’re talking about here—due process through the Justice System. I 100% agree that false accusations can ruin an innocent person’s life & sadly, I have seen it happen. However, that wasn’t the fault of the Justice System because it did its job—the innocent was never convicted or even indicted. It was the not-so-theoretical ‘shame police’ in his community that executed the judgement upon the accusation. Again, the ‘shame police’ are more akin to the lynch mob than the judge & jury or prosecutor. But who controls society? If people had more faith in the Justice System and not just what they want to hear. At least in actual court, there is evidence presented and the opportunity for both sides to be heard. In the court of public opinion, the ‘shame police’ are judge jury & executioner all too often. I guess I can’t see any alternative to innocents suffering one way or another. It’s just a matter, to me, of how many guilty people are going to be left free to harm more innocents in order to ‘save’ one innocent…or how many innocents are going to be harmed to ‘save’ one. Also, in my experience, there’s much less likelihood of everyone involved in a capital case criminal trial being hoodwinked or corrupt than the court of social opinion ruining an innocents life.
My youngest daughter told me not long ago that we needed to bring shame back (she was, in fairness, talking about access to porn). I couldn’t agree more. And I told Lily that when her article came out lol. I’m not sure about petty crimes and misdemeanors. But for the big ones? Yes. I think public shaming would be a really good idea.
I get the feeling that a person capable of violent crime, who might be operating out of a sense of rage, the need to exercise power, and/or clearly mental instability, might respond to public shaming by upping the ante. Because after you've shamed him and released him, then what?
If they game the current system as badly as they do, imagine how much worse they would game public shaming. Criminals of our day have no shame whatsoever, especially the wealthy ones or those useful to a political agenda.
Shaming only works in a God-fearing, moral society, the same way our Constitution does.
Studies have confirmed that the recidivism rate for dead pedophiles is (checks notes) zero percent.
BOOM! Touch my child and I will kill you myself and not kindly or politely.
That’s a death penalty I can support!
In truth, such damaged human beings don't feel guilt or shame. Those emotions are there to keep good people in check of their less flattering emotions. If those emotions are absent, they can effortlessly commit brutal crimes against other human beings. If only there was treatment for such broken people.
I have to agree with the good doctor, and lori, and frontera lupito. A few years ago I worked with Childrens' Services and a large part of my time was supervising visits with children and the parents who abused them. Not one of them, or their victims, ever saw anything wrong with what they did. Its a generational curse, too.I don't know what their punishment should be, but I sure do know they can't change (and don't want to as they saw no wrong or sin in it)
💔💔💔
they are demonic, not broken.
The same.
I really don’t care about rehabilitation as much as 1) protecting the innocent and 2) punishing the offender.
If a woman is violently raped by a stranger, what is the proper punishment? The courts exist to try to “make whole” victims, but how do you do that when something like your senses of safety and dignity are taken? The LEAST the courts can do in cases like rape, murder, violent assault, etc., is to expeditiously remove the offender from this planet. Dead people are guaranteed not to reoffend, and are rarely let out of prison by accident (except to vote in blue cities), so capital punishment does do the most important job it is there to do - give some peace to the victim and their family.
Now you might say what about the accused’s rights? Fine, we have due process, but we also have rogue judges, so I’ll help fix the due process when you start making rogue judges culpable for the crimes of the criminal they were lenient towards. Yes, that old “if a bartender can over serve”, a judge can under incarcerate.
When you commit a violent crime, you aren’t worthy of society’s kid gloves. You need a punishment HARSHER than what you gave your victim, but I would settle for your quick death if it saved a few bucks.
Every (single) time I hear a journalist report that so-and-so received "non-life-threatening injuries," I want to see them undergo the same injuries and "report back on their experiences." It infuriates me, a little bit.
I seek a similar scenario I can wish for so rogue judges "enjoy" the company of the criminals they are lenient with. (It strikes me now that lenient judges are lenient with SOCIETY's mercy in the same way liberal pols are generous with SOCIETY's tax revenues. (It's a study of the death penalty in microcosm: people who don't EVER suffer consequences from their decisions don't have any reason to change.)
Let’s ask Iryna Zarutska about rogue judges who send repeat offenders back out on the street - oh wait…
Heck yeah! Having an annoying hangnail can get me down! 🤣
For me another problem presents, if the epstein class are basically all guilty of crimes against humanity, then why zero indictments/prosecutions to date?
For those with money, power, control of the rule books and the ability to control the narrative, it unfortunately corrupts the entire system.
How many truly horrific events have we witnessed in our lives that the actual perpetrator simply walks free, never even being charged?
Should we ask Hillary that question or would you prefer something from the honest category? 🤔
And shaming people in this day and age really would only do two things: make them angry (check bullied trans response) or just move somewhere no one knows about them or their crime (and do it again).
Or unhinged whackos that think similarly to the criminal would just protect them and start a GoFundMe.
Absolutely! Couldn't have said it better myself.
Boom!
I don’t believe the real goal is prevention. It’s justice. Is it JUST to allow the truly heinous (& without a reasonable doubt - guilty) to continue to live in relative comfort (i.e. not in a medieval dungeon, chained to a wall) while their victims lives have been unjustly cut short?
I have always wavered over the efficacy of the death penalty, so for a while I thought Nathaniel Hawthorn got it right in "The Scarlet Letter," but then I read Shirley Jackson's short story (the one that all college freshmen were assigned as their first assignment in American literature), "The Lottery," and was convinced that public shaming was also dangerous. I have finally settled on this punishment: find a deserted island far from the mainland and put all our worst criminals there. Give them each a packet of cucumber seeds and wish them luck. Buh bye.
Love it! Yes, exile is perhaps the ideal punishment.
How's the Australian tourism industry doing these days?
And Georgia!
Good point. I wonder if the entire USA could actually be considered started as a "penal colony"? Certainly the rumor is that a lot of the initial settlers were "fleeing" persecution.
Dems have no shame so that won't work. In fact, dems would hold a parade for a depraved rapist/murderer. Perfect example, Mangione.
Exile to six feet lower than the grass.
I figure they'll do that to each other on my imagined island.
How much for the private island (without criminals, with cucumber seeds)?
That is a punishment I may be able to get into.
Sadly, I haven't sufficiently thought it through! 😂
The British did that with Australia.
And our state of Georgia!
My dream for all war mongers
Inmates often live longer (and more expensively) on death row than in general population. It seems 10 - 20 years is not an unusual time frame for a death row prisoner in some states. Efficiency in death sentences should be improved, or death sentences reconsidered. 15 -20 year waits are problematic for survivors, relatives, etc.
It’s the Appeals process that houses them there so long. Maybe that should be reconsidered.
Yes. Execution should definitely cost less than life imprisonment- and this is why it doesn’t.
What?! No drawing and quartering? Horses need jobs too.
I like a variety of capital punishments.
The ONLY reason it presently costs more to give capital punishment than incarcerating is because of a corrupt and broken judicial system that cares not one bit for the victims. If we had a true justice system it would be far cheaper.
I take issue with the article’s stockades meme having Trump in the first hole. Did you realize that, Jenna? It’s a very offensive meme to me because of the real message it’s trying to send/manufacture.
I stopped reading the wisewolf as I found she seemed to have fairly severe TDS - which irritated me... apart from that she had some interesting essays - but there is too much available to read to put up with that rubbish... 🤣🇨🇦
Same
Justice was simpler in medieval times
Accountability should be #1. When there is no accountability, criminals are enabled to commit more crimes. And They Do!
With current day forensics and DNA available it shouldn't be costing $millions to get to the execution stage of someone convicted and sentenced to death. What is required is a change in the law to allow only one appeal based solely on new evidence, if there is even a slight doubt then it should be automatic that the whole evidence is investigated by an independent department. Anyone found ignoring or manipulating evidence at the trial should themselves be prosecuted. When/if it fails then it should be 'set a date time'. End of. Furthermore the only option should be whichever is cheapest - probably hanging.
Because sadly the equally criminal police often arrest and try and convict obviously innocent people to close a case Especially dark skinned and poor ones
This is where, I, a former Forensic Biologist in the great state of KY, disagree. I’m not denying that there are corrupt cops out there (just like any other sector of humanity). I don’t think it is nearly as prevalent as media would have people believe. There is corruption as well as incompetence, but I don’t believe it is any more prevalent in the Justice System than it is anywhere else. I also believe there are significant checks and balances that prevent this kind of thing for the most part. If a corrupt cop brings in an innocent person as a suspect for a crime punishable by death, the court has to build a ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ case against that innocent, the defense team has to absolutely suck at their job, the forensics have to be inconclusive or also corrupt, the jury has to unanimously vote to convict with the possibility of death as a sentence, the judge has to have found the evidence convincing enough to move forward to sentencing to death, the years between sentencing and execution must be void of any exculpatory evidence, etc Of course, the system isn’t perfect, but there *are* a LOT of steps where corruption or incompetence has to be the only thing.
have you ever read any of the accounts from the innocence project? John Grisham has the most readable accounts:
Innocence Project
https://innocenceproject.org › ambassador › john-grisham
His non-fiction book The Innocent Man, which was published in 2006, tells the story of Innocence Project client Ron Williamson's wrongful conviction and ...
Shaming some of these criminals would just make them want to take revenge on the citizens who shamed them. They don't feel shame for what they did - they're proud of it. Have you SEEN the faces of some of these people who've been arrested for heinous crimes? They look smug and proud. Having them in the town square stockage wont change that. They'll just seek revenge.
How many jurors must be protected simply because they were selected to hear the testimony? Revenge is real. We have a mobile, urban society where shamed people can simply remove from that community.
Jenna, all I could visualize while reading your article was the scenes from Game Of Thrones where the horrific female character who had sex with her brother was paraded down the street naked as the people screamed “Shame,Shame” while ringing bells. Somehow I do not think this would work at all for criminals who have committed horrific death penalty worthy crimes. Personally I believe they should die in the same manner their victim(s) did. And not 50 years later.
Totally agree!!!
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire
As I read the article, I couldn't help but keep thinking not about axe murderers, but politicians. Structural violence (death by public policy) kills people just like dropping bombs on them. More people are killed by our political system either directly or indirectly than any criminals currently in jail or on death row. Why shouldn't they be tried and put on display of public humiliation instead of worshiped by their party? We have a form of this now and it is being ejected from office by a sex scandal, but that is when the politicians don't follow the deep state. Leaving office due to corruption just doesn't happen any more (there is plenty of corruption, but they are protected).
'ostracism'—each Athenian citizen was required to write on a shard of pottery (ostrakon) the name of a politician that they wished to see exiled for a period of ten years.[24] This may have been triggered by Miltiades' prosecution, and used by the Athenians to try to stop such power-games among the noble families.[24] Certainly, in the years (487 BC) following, the heads of the prominent families, including the Alcmaeonids, were exiled.[24] The career of a politician in Athens thus became fraught with more difficulty, since displeasing the population was likely to result in exile.
Excellent point! Politicians are perhaps our most heinous group of criminals. Their victims are not counted in single digits!
Bring back the ostracon ! Finally a vote I can get behind
Im probably going to be wrong about this but my spontaneous reaction is to disagree that public shame is all it takes. For 1 thing, dangerous criminals (mentally ill, drug-induced or whatever) are already NOT spending a week, much less a lifetime, in prison, courtesy of “no bail” laws & the types of judges, AGs, criminal defense lawyers & prosecutors who have the criminals out within a day if not hours to murder, rape, &/or pillage again. In addition, many of not most criminals are psychopaths or sociopaths who have zero sympathy or empathy for their victims so why would they feel shame? And if any did, they can simply move away from the former community. One has to have a conscience to feel shame / humiliation / regret.
And for anyone who has lost a loved one to a horrific crime, they can be justified in wanting vengence because they will suffer the rest of their lives without the loved one while some monster lives & breathes the rest of THEIR lives.
I do agree though that adding more options is stupid.
And we know Dems have no shame.
Umm maybe I'm a little slow... but how is it NOT shameful to go to prison??! That stays on your record forever and follows you everywhere you go. If someone fresh out of prison moved in beside me, I'd definitely hesitate before I pursue a new friendship.
Also I think it's fine for people sentenced to death to pick the method used for their exit. That is quite generous considering murderers don't give their victims that option. Except if lethal injection is that expensive, I'd be in favor of removing that option completely. It should never cost as much to achieve justice as it does to house someone for decades.
It's not the injection that costs so much--ANY method would cost the same; it's the legal process that can stretch out for decades with multiple trials and appeals (https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/what-to-know-costs-and-the-death-penalty). And for sure, going to prison is somewhere on the shame-scale, but that's not the same as being shackled in the town square under a sign detailing exactly what you've done... (it's okay fi you disagree!) :)
Most depraved criminals have no conscience or they would not be where they are hence they are not shamed bc they are devoid of that emotion.
Exactly... and to put them on display in the town square would totally make their day, they'd love the attention. Negative attention is better than no attention for some people.
I'm thinking the real story here is Jenna's social club! That could make a real improvement to society! Something worth pursuing and a bit of effort!
Certainly a menu of ways to inflict capital punishment isn't going to change the crime rate. Public humiliation is an intriguing concept. I do think the problem is that little bit about "the crowd seemed to enjoy it a little too much.". We humans have some real psychological problems. We enjoy seeing others suffer. What is wrong with us???
For those willing to dish out penalties easily, please consider the harm of convicting even a single innocent person. True freedom comes from not having fear of a lynch mob.
Truth! I was so excited to see that poll!
Yes! I think it would be great if we could sign up for "Who are the ten closest Jenna subscribers to where I live?" - Then we could introduce ourselves and consider getting together in person!
I've found a few platforms that let you create interactive maps; they come with monthly fees (which I'm MORE than happy to fork over if there's interest!)... I'll let y'all know what I come up with! :)
Love it! I'd definitely join. Precise addresses wouldn't be necessary, just "city". Anyone within a three hour drive would be under consideration for meeting up with! Or we could even hold our own "conventions" and meet up at a central hub location that might draw from a wider area.
Then we could introduce ourselves and consider getting together in prison! Guess I read that too fast
{giggle} Uh yes, well... if the evil authorities get wind of us they might take advantage to round us up and escort us to prison.
Isn't prison just communism? Everyone gets the same thing!
Could you imagine eating wonder bread and gravy everyday?
That put's Jenna's article back in perspective: bring back capital punishment! Don't force me to eat bread and highly processed food for decades!
Of course Mr. Gates is probably planning to feed us "bugs". 🤣 Can we start a prison garden?
By very definition, trial & sentencing by jury is *not* a lynch mob. True freedom also comes from being able to know you’re protected from depravity as well. I get that convicting an innocent is a crime in & of itself, but while the System isn’t perfect, it is set up to prevent that as well as it can be. For every innocent that gets convicted there will likely be several innocents that become victims to a guilty party set free. I am *not* advocating for convicting innocents, I’m just posing the observation that innocents get harmed whether by the state or by criminals set free. At what point does trading innocents for innocents become preferable?
This brings to mind the people who say that everyone should be vaccinated and that side effects are so rare, etc. etc, it's for the greater good... until it's your kid who's the one who ends up wheelchair-bound or with a chronic disease or dead. I am not at all trying to make the exact correlation, I am extremely aware there's a very big difference between forcing vaccination and trying to deal with murderous criminals, but just the collateral damage aspect of it brought that to mind. I just recently read a non-fiction book called Framed, which is actually about people who were basically framed and imprisoned for many, many years, one of whom was executed, all of whom were innocent. It was a really affecting book. It just makes me think about those people who do get the short end of the stick. It's part of why I have a hard time with the death penalty unless there's literally not even a shadow of a doubt, not even the teeny-tiniest shadow of a doubt.
Very good point. I guess I'm not as impressed by our legal system. Like pretty much everything in life, the "wealthiest person wins". Maybe not all the time, but far, far too many times. Often it's not a mob, but a single person that can make another person's life miserable (very often with false accusations - it isn't even necessary to falsely convict them or even take them to court).
So I stand by "innocent until proven guilty *beyond* a reasonable doubt".
But when a judge & jury do find someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then what? That’s what we’re talking about here—due process through the Justice System. I 100% agree that false accusations can ruin an innocent person’s life & sadly, I have seen it happen. However, that wasn’t the fault of the Justice System because it did its job—the innocent was never convicted or even indicted. It was the not-so-theoretical ‘shame police’ in his community that executed the judgement upon the accusation. Again, the ‘shame police’ are more akin to the lynch mob than the judge & jury or prosecutor. But who controls society? If people had more faith in the Justice System and not just what they want to hear. At least in actual court, there is evidence presented and the opportunity for both sides to be heard. In the court of public opinion, the ‘shame police’ are judge jury & executioner all too often. I guess I can’t see any alternative to innocents suffering one way or another. It’s just a matter, to me, of how many guilty people are going to be left free to harm more innocents in order to ‘save’ one innocent…or how many innocents are going to be harmed to ‘save’ one. Also, in my experience, there’s much less likelihood of everyone involved in a capital case criminal trial being hoodwinked or corrupt than the court of social opinion ruining an innocents life.
My youngest daughter told me not long ago that we needed to bring shame back (she was, in fairness, talking about access to porn). I couldn’t agree more. And I told Lily that when her article came out lol. I’m not sure about petty crimes and misdemeanors. But for the big ones? Yes. I think public shaming would be a really good idea.
I get the feeling that a person capable of violent crime, who might be operating out of a sense of rage, the need to exercise power, and/or clearly mental instability, might respond to public shaming by upping the ante. Because after you've shamed him and released him, then what?
If they game the current system as badly as they do, imagine how much worse they would game public shaming. Criminals of our day have no shame whatsoever, especially the wealthy ones or those useful to a political agenda.
Shaming only works in a God-fearing, moral society, the same way our Constitution does.
Or they might even get off on it somehow.