quote:
Originally posted by Adeptus
There are two distinct approaches to criminal justice: punitive and rehabilitation. The punitive approach takes the position of "eye for an eye", that the perpetrator must suffer at least equally to the suffering of the victim and this will somehow serve justice. The rehabilitation approach takes the position that it doesn't matter as much what one did, it matters that we can be sure one won't do it again. I am a strong supporter of the rehabilitation approach, and the two are usually mutually exclusive. I do not believe in retribution -- sorry.
I also think we should differentiate between the actions of someone clearly less than sane and calculated, intentional actions of someone who knows exactly what they are doing.
Sweeney comes across to me as someone with serious mental problems. I would suspect he is right on the brink of being certifyably insane. If he was calculating his actions, he would have never done it the way he did. Personally, I don't see a problem with any sentence he is given, provided his unsupervised release into society is subject to professional review.
Rehabilitation isn't something that would work for somebody like Sweeney or any other paedophile. People who have sexually offended children and other people in the past usually do it again once they are released. Punitive punishment is the best way forward, with this people will realise that if they do something, then they'll suffer, suffer in a literal sense. Whereas, if they get a sentence of 5 years, they'll just think to themselves: "Hey, that was only 5 years, once I can get out I can shag another 12 month old baby and I'll get another 5. This doesn't matter though because I got a hell of a kick from that!" (sorry about the harsh example there, but it's true).
Sexual offenders, especially paedophiles, are very nasty people, and in my opinion don't deserve any rights, they barely deserve the right of life.
