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Is there a ‘rational’ punishment for a rapist from the victim's perspective?

#1
C C Offline
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/opini...ional.html

EXCERPT: [...] I was raped repeatedly during a three-year span from age 13 to 16. I was also subject to physical and emotional abuse during that time. I’ve since undergone years of traditional talk and group therapy with trauma specialists [...]

I’m not a proponent of the death penalty primarily because the flaws in our criminal justice system are egregious and increasingly well-documented. The thought experiment’s framing, however, circumvented my usual concerns about unjust sanctions. I know what my rapist did to me, so I know he is guilty. Worries about the inhumanity of capital punishment were also blunted in part because this was purely hypothetical and in part because of the inhumanity he exhibited those long years with his penchant for violence.

Although the death sentence seemed wholly appropriate, I still considered how I would feel if a judge gave my rapist a less severe punishment: a natural life sentence — a life sentence with no chance for parole without a successful appeal. In this scenario, my feelings were just as clear: I would be slightly disappointed, but I would still feel mostly satisfied. Anything less than a death or natural life sentence, I knew, would seem inadequate.

[...] After reporting back to my therapist, she offered another thought experiment. “What if,” she said, “your rapist had been sentenced to death, but then had been pardoned?” I did not have to mull this question over. I knew I would feel exactly as I do now, exactly as I have felt for the past two decades: that the world is a terribly unjust place. It is a place where my life can be irrevocably transformed because a man could exert control, manipulation and violence over me for years without repercussion. It is a place where my rapist and others like him are enabled at both societal and local levels. His mother, for example, simply told us to quiet down whenever she heard my screams — a response as horrifying as it is understandable given the many ways society tolerates violence against women. A hypothetical pardon would allow him to escape repercussions just as he has escaped them in reality. Nearly 20 years later as I began trauma therapy again, he has a secure job, an accomplished and beautiful wife, and a healthy daughter [...]

[...] the philosopher Jennifer Lackey published an opinion piece in The Stone. In the article, she uses her experience teaching philosophy to inmates to argue for the irrationality of natural life sentences.

[...] I read Lackey’s article very soon after the thought experiments with my therapist. I noticed that Lackey’s argument easily applied to the death penalty, and I realized that the sentences I desired for my rapist were precisely the ones Lackey condemns as irrational. Since nothing in her argument prevented me from applying her logic to my own desires, I had to wonder if her argument also concluded that I was irrational for desiring permanent punishments. If it is irrational for the state to prescribe a permanent punishment given our epistemic limitations and prisoners’ likelihood for change, wouldn’t it be similarly irrational for victims to ignore these considerations?

There are, of course, crucial differences between victim’s desires and punishments carried out by the state. While sometimes the criminal justice system considers the wishes of victims and their families, the criminal justice system’s central aim is to protect the interests of the state and the community. This aim does not always coincide with the interests or wishes of the victim. Admittedly, there are often very good reasons for the state to ignore the wishes of victims. But my concern is less about what the state should do in practice and more about what arguments that prioritize transformation say about victims who desire permanent punishments.

Here I will be blunt: it matters very little to me whether my rapist is transformed at some point in his life. It matters to me only to the extent that I will readily agree that it would be better if he became the sort of person who did not inflict violence upon others. I would be very happy hearing that no other women would be harmed by him. But in terms of the punishment that he deserves? Transformation does not matter to me. And this is not irrational: There are many carefully considered reasons one might want a natural life sentence for perpetrators of egregious and irrevocable harm.

Desiring death or a natural life sentence for those who inflict traumatic violence is a rational response because whether or not my particular rapist transforms is irrelevant to whether or not I will ever have the chance to be the sort of person I might have been. His transformation is irrelevant to whether or not I will be able to live the sort of life I could have were it not for the injustice done to me. I desire a death or natural life sentence for my rapist because that is what seems appropriate given the amount of damage he wrought in my life. Rape is itself a transformative experience. I will never be the same, and I have no idea how my life might have been different without the experience....

MORE: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/opini...ional.html
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#2
Leigha Offline
I don't know. I think that if we hate someone for the rest of our lives, no matter what they've done to us, will only cost us our mental, emotional and physical health in the end. I've never been raped, but have been in situations where men tried to force themselves on me, and I can say that rape would be a horror show of incredible proportions. Can't even imagine. But, for me to spend my life hating my assailant, would mean he wins. I happen to think that the sum total of our lives isn't necessarily due to what we have experienced, but how we view it. Not that horrific events can't shape our lives, I've had terrible things happen to me, and I've allowed them to sometimes take over my thinking, but that was on me, in a way.

I can't judge how someone else handles their personal trauma, but for me, holding onto hate and feeling like I want someone to suffer for the rest of their lives for what they may have done to me, will only cost me in the end.
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#3
Syne Offline
(Nov 17, 2017 09:14 PM)Leigha Wrote: I don't know. I think that if we hate someone for the rest of our lives, no matter what they've done to us, will only cost us our mental, emotional and physical health in the end.

That would seem to be an argument in favor of death over a life sentence. After all, how much/long can you hate a dead person?

Quote:I've never been raped, but have been in situations where men tried to force themselves on me, and I can say that rape would be a horror show of incredible proportions. Can't even imagine. But, for me to spend my life hating my assailant, would mean he wins. I happen to think that the sum total of our lives isn't necessarily due to what we have experienced, but how we view it. Not that horrific events can't shape our lives, I've had terrible things happen to me, and I've allowed them to sometimes take over my thinking, but that was on me, in a way.

I can't judge how someone else handles their personal trauma, but for me, holding onto hate and feeling like I want someone to suffer for the rest of their lives for what they may have done to me, will only cost me in the end.

Again, "suffer for the rest of their lives" seems worse than death. There's a reason that "killing you slowly" is a far worse threat than simply death.
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#4
C C Offline
(Nov 17, 2017 09:14 PM)Leigha Wrote: I can't judge how someone else handles their personal trauma, but for me, holding onto hate and feeling like I want someone to suffer for the rest of their lives for what they may have done to me, will only cost me in the end.


A person's mindset "for sorting out the world and their place in it" -- or lack thereof, at the time of the incident, probably has much to do with it. Ironically, I can't necessarily say that maturity offers a better perspective since I've seen some children shrug off horror and violence better / quicker than adults and adolescents. That is, until the counselors or their preoccupation with anticipated psychological wounds gets a hold of them and incubates longer-lived feelings.

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#5
Leigha Offline
(Nov 18, 2017 01:47 AM)C C Wrote:
(Nov 17, 2017 09:14 PM)Leigha Wrote: I can't judge how someone else handles their personal trauma, but for me, holding onto hate and feeling like I want someone to suffer for the rest of their lives for what they may have done to me, will only cost me in the end.


A person's mindset "for sorting out the world and their place in it" -- or lack thereof, at the time of the incident, probably has much to do with it. Ironically, I can't necessarily say that maturity offers a better perspective since I've seen some children shrug off horror and violence better / quicker than adults and adolescents. That is, until the counselors or their preoccupation with anticipated psychological wounds gets a hold of them and incubates longer-lived feelings.  

- - -

Not sure they're shrugging it off, or just don't fully know how to process it all. I have had traumatic events happen in my childhood, and yet I went on to earn good grades, be social, have boyfriends like everyone else, and join clubs. I seemed very adjusted, but inside I was broken hearted. Not until years later, did I reconcile all of those feelings and learn to process grief properly. I think rape and other such incidents probably need to follow a similar course of the grief process. I appreciate your thoughts to it, CC.
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#6
Syne Offline
So how do people justify a life sentence? Or is the cognitive dissonance to deafening?
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#7
Leigha Offline
''The contents of this message are hidden because Syne is on your ignore list.''

It works!

Big Grin
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#8
Syne Offline
LOL! Good for you, Leigha. Now you can ensure your widdle bubble won't be burst.
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