I sometimes wonder it it wouldn’t be better if the victims of a crime were to deliver the punishment. Or in the case of the victim being dead or otherwise physically unable to carry out the punishment their nearest living relatives or friends could be assigned the task.
The convicted criminal would be sole property of the victim for three days and would be presented to the victim in stocks with a wide variety of tools available for inflicting punishment or the victim could bring their own. The victim do anything from set them free, to sell off their organs, and torture and/or kill them. It would be all be recorded and made available to the public. This would put some social pressure on the victim to deliver a just punishment.
Of course this would totally violate the Eight Amendment so suspend that objection for now and consider this just some random thought. As the anti-gun people do, only consider the plausible benefits and not the adverse consequences.
- We would save a lot of money by not having prisons.
- Since child abusers get such a rough time in prisons I believe this means that child abusers are believed to be inadequately punished (it could also mean it is just part of some ranking system with them being at the bottom of the respect hierarchy). I suspect there would be a lot less child abuse in the world if it were the parents or other close relative delivering “justice”.
- With the current system of fixed punishments for crimes criminals can easily make rational decisions to be criminals. As in, “I can do the time so why not commit the crime?” With the punishment being unknown the potential criminal does not know if they can “do the time”.
- Pacifists would be forced to carry a greater burden of their convictions. Known pacifists would be much more likely to be selected as victims. Yes, I realize this system would also result in “baiting” by sadists who portrayed themselves as pacifists which would reduce the likelihood that the pacifist would carry their full burden.
- If there were no victim there would be no punishment. It would mean the end of victim-less crimes.
The thing that brought this to the forefront of my consciousness today was this story. What sort of punishment is this guy going to get from ejaculating into his co-workers water bottle? A fine? Somehow that just doesn’t seem right.
If his victim were to decide the punishment I would expect him to be stripped naked in the hot sun for three days with one hand free to drink from the water bottles within his grasp. When he finished drinking all the bottle contents he could go free. I’m sure the male friends of the victim would be glad to provide the bottle contents. He could drink or die from dehydration. His choice.
Or you can just implement “stand your ground” laws in every state, and allow deadly defense of property and use of lethal force against fleeing criminals…
When people decry the use of Old Testament Law as a basis for Justice, they forget that such punishments as an “Eye for an Eye” were the MAXIMUM allowable for the crime. Perhaps we need to rethink the exact meaning of “Cruel and Unusual” as well.
Yeah, that sounds pretty Levitical to me. That’s pretty close to the way God ordained it in the Old Testament.
What if the victim is dead and there are no living relatives or friends to carry out the punishment? I thought a lot of serial killers and such target streetwalking prostitutes because they usually don’t have anyone who will really miss them. So do we want to give them essentially a free pass to kill them?
I bet that if you did something like this, you’d also get services springing up to abuse your prisoner for you for a fee, for people who don’t have the stomach to do what they’d really like to see done to their criminals.
But then, there’s also the small matter that all of the protections we have now are in place because you never know when you will be called a criminal for doing something that is supposed to be your right. Think about what you’d like the criminal justice system to be like when you’re the guy getting arrested for videotaping a police officer, or for disturbing the peace by carrying a gun around in public, or are falsely accused of rape after having consentual sex. (Note that all of these do have a victim who is rather upset, and people have been arrested and charged for doing the same thing)
I’m pretty disappointed in the reaction to this proposal. This isn’t something people should be in favor of. If it was a proposal that started with:
You’d heap scorn on the speaker, would you not?
For a long time, I’ve felt that the Law of Moses standard “if you steal a sheep, you recompense four to the victim” would be ideal. I’ve gone so far as to conclude that the State should not profit from any crime whatsoever: any “crime” committed ought to go directly to the victims, if possible, or if not, to some general “victim of given crime” fund.
And for murderers and rapists, I’ve imagined some sort of “avenger of blood” that would be responsible for executing the murderer–most likely a close relative, but possibly judge-appointed–and would be free to determine the terms under which a murderer would be shown mercy, or killed.