The Execution of the D.C Sniper

[Che]

Not sure what the right way to go about dealing with people like that, but it isn't death. I mean, it's definitely better than letting him get to a point where he could potentially break out of jail and do it again, but overall not the right thing.

Why not? Because he was dead when he decided to do that in the first place. Death is an easy way out. He should be tortured until he dies. Make an example out of him. Maybe we'll cut down on half the "sniper shootings" from here on out if we give people who think in that way some consequence that matters to them.

I definitely agree that the prison system does not make things any better. It's literally a college for criminals. All they know when they get out (if they are to get out) is more criminal shit than when they went in.

At least, for now, that one man won't be sniping anyone else out ever. The problem is people who are suicidal and want to go out with a bang, or who are just crazy, now believe that if they want to they can just snipe some people out and it will just end with a swift death. Easy.

Alpha, your ideas on what to do with a thief seem reasonable to me. A thief will steal because they have to. Rarely do you find a thief that steals just because he wants to. However, you obviously can't do the same for people who murder someone.

Also, I would like to say:

I don't believe in reimbursing someone, or a family for someone that got taken away from them. They shouldn't receive money because (especially in America), people will do drastic things just to get money. When someone is murdered, you've lost it all. There's no way to pay them back. The only thing you can do is make sure the same thing doesn't happen again by the same murderer.

[Alpha]

So does normal justice. The law is a series of bits of paper which set out the rights of individuals. Violate the person, you're violating the bit of paper.

I took this as representative of your whole post, because I'm tired.

What I should clarify in my explanation is that punitive sentencing doesn't repair the relationship between people that law codifies. It punishes an offender, but does nothing for the victim, or for the offender once they are (potentially) released. Sure, there's the whole 'I'm glad they're off the streets' thing, which is all well and good, but wouldn't a better solution be one where people come out of a (ideally shorter) sentence, having repaired the damage they've done, understood the magnitude of their crime, had their underlying motive investigated and repaired (if possible), learnt skills to cope with similar situations again, etc. Just look this up on teh interwebz, there's a lot; the UK's Home Office is a good starting place, they're actually very big on RJ.

Actually, I'll do this one too:

That's what happens in a courtroom. The accused sits there while the victims explain what happened, and why they're not happy/utterly destroyed about it.

Sure does, but it's not acted upon. Sure, Hypothetical Thief has done an injustice, but is the appropriate response to punish, or to repair? Punitive justice is just a socially-acceptable form of violence. It's easy to say,

He should be tortured until he dies. Make an example out of him.

but a lot harder to say that the criminal and those affected by the crime should work together on a consequence that repairs than on something counterproductive and just makes society more fearful.

This is a quote from my initial source that I would like to reiterate:

When we place the emphasis on the violation of law instead of the violation of the human relationship, we hide or mask the real violation. It is possible for an offender to be tried and sentenced for an offense, more or less serious, and never be fully aware of the human consequences or impact of the violation.

Also, deterrent is rarely, if ever, effective. People will commit crime (look, I'm a realist now!), but criminals do not say, 'hey, the sentence for this crime is really light, the trade-off is in my favour, let's go commit crime!' Instead, we should focus much more on incidences of recidivism and the causes of crime. Punitivism (that needs to be a word) is not effective as deterrent. Nothing really is.