Thursday 30 June 2011

Useless Punishment - Comment

In response to my post last evening Hazel wrote with the following comment. I agree with her.  


They can't police that. It's the cheap option, the easy get out for salving politician's consciences. Unless he's going to be tagged for 25 years and someone sitting monitoring his every move, or following him 24/7, then it is the most pointless sentence out there. 

27 months in prison is pathetic considering the 1500 damaged souls whose photographs were on his computer. The majority of whom will have a lifetime of confused dysfunctionality to live through as they deal with the abuse as best they can. The consequences of this man's actions are far reaching in terms of mental health care interventions that may and probably will occur to many of them. 

He has not only burdened these children and their immediate family, but the whole of society, as we are the ones who pick up the broken pieces with our taxes through social works and health care costs. 

Paedophiles need to be dealt with more realistically as should the scope and damage their crimes bring about. 


1 comments:

JRB said...

Hazel – thank you for the thought provoking comment.

I find myself agreeing with virtually all of what you say.

However...

I have to ask, where do we as a society draw the line at what is appropriate?

Take for example the three generations of a family, their relatives and friends for whom hardly a month goes by without them remembering in sorrow the young life snatched away from them be a speeding uninsured motorist who was sentenced to a period of months for a minor motoring offence.

Or consider the Dowler family who, despite the accused receiving a life sentence, feel strongly that justice was not served. They will carry with them for the rest of their days the belief that they were not served by the legal system.

The argument surely must not be about any individual case, but what society feels is an appropriate level of sentence.

Related Posts with Thumbnails