Poll: How much is an innocent worth?
- Thread starter awesomeClaw
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That's a moral grey area for me, the innocent shouldn't be prosecuted, but justice needs to be done, it's not a fair thing if someone has to be put away and they're innocent, but the guilty cannot get off scott free, and it would be terrible if they repeated the crime just because someone was too afraid to do the grim work.
I would assume it's because we don't know which one is innocent or not.gibboss28 said:
Send them all away. Rape is a very serious crime and should be treated harshly, much more so than it is. To put away 10 rapists for the price of one jailed innocent? Bargain.
If it becomes evident who the innocent one is after a while, let them off for good behaviour
I'm willing to be that 99.6% of the people that voted "charge everyone" has never been wrongfully penalized in a truly life-destroying way.
The other 0.4% can't be trusted to provide a reasonable answer, given that being the victim of a wrongful accusation has damaged them beyond repair.
The other 0.4% can't be trusted to provide a reasonable answer, given that being the victim of a wrongful accusation has damaged them beyond repair.
I'd put them all away. If I had to go to prison for something I didn't do but I knew that I put away scum at the same time, I'd do it. Rape is a crime of the pathetic and cowardly. Filthy animals... Sorry it's a personal subject for me because it happened to two people I'm very close with.
I like how you say you'll get them again when they recommit....what about the next poor person they rape?
If it was me, then yes. I would then set out to anally violate them using old rusty sewage pipes. I'd hunt them down one by one whilst in prison, and display their just penance for all to see.Qizx said:
But you're a girl! Would you really spend time in a men's prison just to...do *that*?
For rapists, yes.
But there's probably more rapists *in* prison! Are you going to implement this plan on every one of them?
I have 10 years, right? The only thing I'd worry about is running out of rusty sewage pipe...
I said "dunno" because the option for 'sacrificing everyone who posts on this thread' wasn't an option 
I think that, at one point in the Bible, God says that he'd spare a city of sinners, for the sake of one innocent person. So there's the answer for something like a quarter of the world's population
Being an atheist myself, I think I have to agree. The justice system becomes worthless if we're willing to screw over innocent people in our attempts to do good. Essentially, it's the same as murdering civilians so as to depose a dictator.
Besides, there's nothing saying we can't monitor these people afterwards, and do our damnedest to make sure that this doesn't happen again.
Being an atheist myself, I think I have to agree. The justice system becomes worthless if we're willing to screw over innocent people in our attempts to do good. Essentially, it's the same as murdering civilians so as to depose a dictator.
Besides, there's nothing saying we can't monitor these people afterwards, and do our damnedest to make sure that this doesn't happen again.
I'm willing to bet that a similar percentage of the people that voted "charge no one" probably doesn't understand that rape is a horrible violation of a persons body, a terrible crime which is not considered anywhere near as bad as it actually is by most justice systems. Rape is inexcusable, and anyone who offends should be put away for life, and the 10 people who are guilty for one innocent? You'd have to be a sexist, a rapist, or insane to let them all go.Carlos Alexandre said:
A harder question would be "10 innocents, plue one guilty of rape, and you don't know who did what. Jail all or none"
I think this plays into the whole death penalty question quite handily; in that, is it worth it to have capital punishment on the books if even 1 innocent man gets punished by death due to it? You can retract a prison sentence when new DNA evidence comes out or, Hell, even if laws change - but you can't (yet) bring somebody back to life.awesomeClaw said:
My gut tells me that nothing is worth punishing an innocent man so I'd have to go with letting them all go free, just to avoid punishing somebody that didn't deserve it.
But that's me.
Most rape is actually man-on-man rape from prison sentences, from statistics I've heard. Yes, rape is inexcusable - but jailing an innocent is also inexcusable.InfiniteSingularity said:
I don't think that it would be worth the jailing of 10 guilty people if even 1 innocent had to be punished; Hell - I don't think it would be worth it to jail 100 guilty people if 1 innocent had to be punished.
I don't consider myself to be sexist, insane, and I know I'm not a rapist so we'll just have to go with different people have different moral structures.
(And personally, my wife sitting right here says that as horrible as rape is, being jailed for no reason would be far more violating to her. I know quite a few women working in human right's organizations who feel the same way. Rape is a horrible, horrible crime - but taking away the freedom of an innocent man or woman just so you can punish some criminals in the process? You're playing God there, and that is just as inexcusable as the crime you claim to be against.)
One might even say that imprisonment is the rape of a man or woman's spirit and soul - as well as very likely leading to the rape of the body.
I agree with you to some extent, but consider this: If you have ten rapists, plus one innocent person, remember that you also have ten innocent people (likely women) who have been violated and likely traumatised. A rapist that gets away with their crime is likely to reoffend, so you can assume that if you let them go, you now have 20 innocent people violated with rape. For the sake of one innocent's freedom I don't think it's worth it.The Gnome King said:
It's not very often I take the extreme utilitarian viewpoint - I generally don't believe in punishment anyway. And yes we are playing God - but is it better to harm one innocent person, or save that one person but potentially, and most likely, have another 10 innocent people harmed? I never usually agree with utilitarianism, but I strongly believe in this case it is the right thing to do.
But not only is this a punishment - it is disabling rapists to offend, and violate innocent people again, and a disincentive to after their ten year sentence is up. The next step would be castration of rapists - but I think that's a bit extreme even for me.
I think that our justice system, or in western countries at least, seem to see rape as being a "minor offence", possibly a result of most countries beginning largely patriarchal, and women have had to fight for their basic rights as individuals and citizens, and some women are still fighting today. Our male-oriented society doesn't get the severity of this offence, and our justice system doesn't take it seriously enough. I believe rape is a very serious and damaging offence - in some ways it can be worse than murder, and can be likened to torture for some people, in some cases. But offenders only seem to get a slap on the wrist, relatively speaking, for rape. And think we need to start punishing rapists in a much, much more severe way than we are now, so people can get the idea that this is not acceptable