From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: "Monsters Among Us", Frontlines, November 10, 1992, PBS
Summary: Don't even try to rehabilitate child molesters.
Keywords: Merciful to the Cruel = Cruel to the Merciful
Date: 12 Nov 92 14:28:42 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <13147@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

>This is a profoundly disturbing documentary about the failure of the
>criminal justice system to lock up child molesters when given 
>plenty of opportunity.  One of the "monsters" interviewed is on
>Washington State's death row for kidnapping and murdering three
>little boys.  During the interview, he listed all the occasions
>when he was arrested for molesting children (all boys), and
>attempted kidnapping.  In most cases, he was encouraged by the
>authorities to get counselling for his problem, but no criminal
>prosecutions resulted.  [Clayton Cramer]

"Counseling for his problem."  So he can change his ways, make
a better man out of himself, and become a productive member of
society.  That's the whole idea of attempted rehabilitation,
isn't it?  To help him with *his* problem.

How about *our* problem?  How about the idea that the *whole idea
of government* is to secure innocent people's unalienable [sic]
rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which includes
not having one's children tampered with by some filthy pervert?
A government that puts consideration of the "monster's" problem
ahead of its duty to protect the rights of the innocent -- such
a government is not fulfilling its _raison d'etre_.

>In one case, he told the prosecutor, who
>informed the judge, that his reason for attemptiing a kidnapping
>of a little boy was so he could rape and murder this boy.  The
>judge sentenced him to the 118 days he had already served.

>On another occasion, he was sentenced to 10 years, then released
>after four months.  He is not all that unusual in Washington, if 
>you believe the program.

>A number of the molesters interviewed described their long
>careers -- with hundreds of victims.  
. . .
>It's hard to see how any lighter
>"punishment" could have been awarded than was given to some of
>these scum -- many of whom were interviewed in preparation for
>release from prison, and who admitted that they hadn't gotten
>past their desire for children.  [Clayton Cramer]

"[I]n preparation for release from prison."  So they can pick up
where they left off, because they've "paid their debt to society"?
Is molesting children supposed to be like eating at a diner,
where a man can run up a tab over a few weeks, pay the tab,
and the owner of the diner will urge him to come back and 
eat their again because he's "paid his debt"?  

Suppose I say that we ought to forget about attempted rehabilitation
of "these scum," and upon conviction by a jury for their *first
offense,* sell them to the Anaconda Copper company to work as
slaves for thirty years in the copper pits of Arizona in 110 degree 
heat, with the amount of food they get each day to be determined
by how much copper they mined the day before?  Would Mr. Cramer
argue that that's somehow unfair, because an honest man who has
to work in order to eat gets to choose his own boss on the outside,
whereas a convict slave does not?

As long as he's working in the copper pits, he won't be molesting
children.  That's a good reason to make the punishment for his
first offense as many years as possible, to minimize the number
of children he will molest in his lifetime.  And forget about
making him into a "better man" or a "productive member of society."
The risk just isn't worth it. 

>One of the "monsters" interviewed is on
>Washington State's death row for kidnapping and murdering three
>little boys.   [Clayton Cramer]

What do we say to the families of the kidnapped and murdered three
little boys?  That the State of Washington is now going to kill their
murderer?  Will that bring back the little boys?  Can we face the
families and tell them that we let this monster go after his previous
molestings because we didn't want to throw his life into the garbage
can, because we wanted to "take a chance" that he'd become a better
man and straighten out his life?  Why can't we start *ruining the
lives* of these people *before* they kill anyone?  Haven't we yet
learned that he who is merciful to the cruel ends up being cruel
to the merciful?

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

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