I was a career policeman. My lived experience (for what it’s worth) was that, generally speaking, serious sex offenders don’t change. Hey, I’m not a criminologist or psychologist, but I spent my working life around criminals of virtually every persuasion. Sex offenders are a special breed. Even “decent honest criminals” tended to agree.
On the other hand, I’ve met ex-offenders (who were, but are no longer, criminals) who’ve changed. I’m mates with a few. I have no problem with people who’ve made mistakes in their lives: we all have feet of clay and there for the grace of God go I (etc). I reckon I’d have made a half-decent Christian.
But the Simon Levy types? No. Fucking. Way. If you get convicted for predatory rape you should have a target on your back ad infinitum. Is my view too extreme? I don’t care, to be perfectly honest. I’m simply as passionate about victims as the criminal justice elites are about “oppressed and marginalized” offenders. I believe the rights of women and girls trump those who’ve demonstrated bad faith and a propensity to offend.
That’s the starting point. Fairness builds from there. Anything else is perverse. A system which invites, almost by default, sexual re-offending. Which is the system we have now.
If you’re interested in all things Plod related, I strongly recommend following Dominic Adler
This promises to be an interesting discussion on the libertarian Samizdata board. People tend to lose their libertarian instincts on this topic.
I worked with a guy that was in the Prison Service and he discussed pedophiles with me. His job was to try to persuade them that what they did was wrong and to point out the harm that their victims experienced.
One of them, becoming irritated with him said “What do you fancy? Blondes? Brunettes? Redheads? Women with big tits, fat birds or what?”
When the prison officer asked what this had to do with what they were discussing, the pedophile said “Well, I fancy kids”.
He realised then that it was an intrinsic part of his nature and could no more be changed than a normal sexual preference of someone that, for example, liked blondes with big busts.
I think it is the same with rapists. Sex is readily available, if only from prostitutes so it must be concluded that rapists and other sex offenders must be driven by something other than sexual frustration. I would posit it is the thrill of the power that they hold over their victims.
Let me hazard a thought, even at risk of my “Libertarian membership card”. It really comes down to what you want the criminal justice system to do with criminals.
There are different goals that the justice system seeks: restoration to the victim, deterrence to make others less likely to offend, vengeance — and often state mediated vengeance to prevent a society of vigilantism, and so forth. But the one that surely predominates here is protecting the public from the criminal’s recidivism.
The case is complicated, he was first convicted of sexually assaulting two women and jailed for three years. That seems pretty light, but I also don’t know the nature of the assault, so it is hard to say. But here is the crazy thing, while in jail he assaulted a female prison staff member, which surely should have been the end of this guy’s freedom.
However, he was released on what Americans would call parole, and went on to assault many more women and eventually kill two of them.
I think this is less a case about “lock him up and throw away the key” and more a case of the failure of the police to reliably convict people of crime. I have very much changed my views on this, I used to be very much of the “hang ’em high” school of thought but now I think a bit differently. I think at the root of the problem are two self evident facts: the police have a dreadfully low clearance rates even for serious crimes (murder clearance in Chicago is 25% last time I looked); we treat incarcerated criminals like animals and so they come out worse than they went in — especially in state prisons.
It is FAR more important that criminal justice is swift and sure than that it is severe. Far more important than a criminal be sure of being caught than that the consequences of being caught are particularly severe.
And once we have that we need to think about what we do with them, and to that end I think that prisoners fall into three categories: those on pre-trial detention, those who will be released back into society and monsters we are just warehousing till they die. These groups need to be treated quite differently.
If you are on pre-trial detention your imprisonment is not punitive and so you should not be living with the many animals and extreme austerity that we find in our prisons. I think it should be more akin to a motel with restrictions on mobility.
If you are convicted of a crime but will be released back, it seems to me that the priority should be shaping that person into a person who can be safely released back into society and to determine if they can be. The punishment is the lack of liberty, it is not systematic rape, the constant threat of violence and living conditions that we would not subject our dog to.
As to the last group — the warehouse until you are dead — those people I really don’t care what you do to them. Honestly, most of the worst should have the “until you are dead” accelerated at the end of a rope.
This guy, for the initial sexual assault, should have been in the second group, and the failure to ensure he is safe to release (FFS he sexually assaulted a member of prison staff while incarcerated) was really the chain of events that lead to so much tragedy. And as to now, as I say, my preference would be a short drop with a rope around his neck.
BTW, what is the deal with American states and the death penalty? They have this complicated drug induced process that seems be be beset with endless problems and court challenges. It is not hard to execute someone swiftly and with certainty. Ropes and bullets can easily be obtained at the local hardware store.
Back in law school – early 90’s – I worked on the briefing materials for MN Supreme Court cases that popped up concerning the relatively new idea of civil commitment of convicted rapists and pedophiles.
Specifically, my clinic represented a bunch of defendants who, upon reaching the final week of their 2-year or 5-year or 10-year court-pronounced criminal sentences, were informed that they wouldn’t be leaving, because the State had decided to use the new laws to petition for their continued CIVIL commitment. Surprise!
Under these laws, they could be held – just as if they were still in prison – indefinitely, until they could PROVE that they were no longer a danger to society. Tough thing to prove. In effect, they were looking at life sentences for crimes that carried statutory penalties of a few years, which they had already served.
So now we have two different discussions. First, is it a good idea to keep convicted sex offenders locked up when there was a strong basis to believe they would re-offend. I’d not say “no” to that one.
Second – and more importantly to me at that time – is there a Constitutional basis to lock the door on someone because they might commit a future crime?
The first question is easy. The second is not, and gives ConLaw kids a tough time.
Imagine Biden waiting until the end of the Jan 6 protesters’ prison sentences, and then pursuing civil commitment against them, to keep them imprisoned indefinitely.
The possibility of using such laws for improper purposes is too high – someone has to exercise discretion as to which defendants get the two-year sentence and which get life, and discretion is an evil thing in Con Law.
Anyway, the idea of allowing the State to do this to whom it chooses is far too scary to allow it to continue as it did.
Sadly, we lost, and the caselaw about who eventually gets released is now so convoluted and arbitrary that libertarians ought to be concerned.
(As an “edited to add” thought – maybe “libertarian” and “strict constitutionalist” are not necessarily completely aligned.)
Bearing in mind that incarceration is expensive, individual offenders who have shown that they are a permanent threat to civilised society and its children should be banished to an uninhabited Scottish island to live out their days with others of their kind in monastic seclusion.
For the foreigners who fuck our children as a means of showing cultural dominance I favour crucifixion.
Sure, but no-one who fancies redheads would ‘have to’ rape a redhead if no consenting redhead could be found. This is perverts pretending that their perversion is a sexual orientation, that they can’t help their behaviour. Many nonces are married or have adult sexual relations.
Anyway, I’m with Fraser on this. String ’em up. Quick, efficient, humane, final.
@bobbyb, let me ask you a question about your point.
Let’s say the legislature changed the law so that the penalty was life in prison with the possibility of parole. And prisoners had to demonstrate their ability to behave to receive parole. Would you be ok with that, given that it has the same net effect? In life I generally assume people are good and with good intent, until they prove otherwise. And once they have proven otherwise they have to work very hard to regain my trust. Society may well take the same attitude.
Regarding the constitutionality: this is usually state law which by the tenth would indicate that unless the constitution specifically forbade it it would be at their discretion? I’m not a lawyer obviously, but just my thinking. Maybe their is an eight amendment argument to be made, in the penumbra perhaps?
Regarding libertarians and strict constitutionalism, there are definitely things in the constitution that are, in my opinion, not in line with libertarian principles, patents or eminent domain for example. But the other side to it is that it is better to have a written legal standard that the government is held to even if it is not perfect, than be in the situation in Britain where it is a free for all.
Criminals, people who intentionally violate the body or goods of other people, should be punished – punished proportionally to the offense.
As for “rehabilitation” – I am not sure that is any business of the state (as Gladstone put it – of one thing I am certain, the moral improvement of the people will not come from the state), and in practice it does not tend to work – for example Governor John Jay believed that prisons would “reform” criminals and that flogging should be abolished, but there is no real evidence that prison “reforms” criminals, Governor Jay of New York State also believed in a system of state schools (although that was only fully “achieved” in New York State long after his death) – and this is also an unsuccessful idea.
It would be interesting, if Governor Jay returned to this Earth, to take him to a prison (gang dominated – endless rape and abuse) and ask him how much “reforming” was going on – how this system was better than (for example) executing murderers and flogging people guilty of violations less serious than murder (the system he rejected), and to take him to a government school in New York City or other cities, and ask him how much “educating” was going on in these Hellish places – why should taxpayers be forced to pay vast sums of money for a system that does-not-work?
Castration – pretty good deterrent?
My only objection is not that no one deserves it, clearly some people do. My problem is I do not trust the venal, corruptible, inept state to kill people in cold blood and ensure there is no chance of a miscarriage of justice. You can not un-execute someone and then offer restitution if you get it wrong. How many “oopsie” executions are acceptable? And not just “oopsie” but also politically motivated?
I accept that some cases really do exist where guilt can be proven beyond even the most miniscule shadow of a doubt (Axel Rudakubana for example), but how to draft a law in which *only* the likes of Axel Rudakubana are hanged? Dunno.
See above.
@Perry de Havilland (Prague)
Miscarriage of justice is often, understandably, rolled out as a reason against capital punishment. And yet every convicted murderer who goes on to kill another inmate, a warder, or, on release, a member of the public is a failure of that compassion.
What are the numbers? I suspect repeated murders occur more often than mis-convictions. I acknowledge that it is difficult to predict that a convicted murderer will kill again, but perhaps capital punishment should be available as a punishment for the second murder? Or life imprisonment for the second rape?
@Perry de Havilland (Prague)
You can not un-execute someone and then offer restitution if you get it wrong.
That’s true, but if you throw an innocent person in jail for thirty years where they are abused, raped and mentally destroyed to the point that their psyche can never be recovered, what restitution can you offer? And if you let that guilty person go free and he goes on to torture and kill many other people, are you not the proximate cause of setting such a monster on the public? And how can you offer restitution to those victims?
How many “oopsie” executions are acceptable? And not just “oopsie” but also politically motivated?
But this is the classic question of criminal justice. “Let ten guilty men go free lest one innocent be punished’. But why ten? Why not 100, or 1,000? The only way to guarantee that no innocent be punished is to punish no one, and that means that criminals will be set free to wreck havoc on the many innocents in the public. Which is worse? That the state kills one innocent person, or that the criminal justice system leaks so badly that criminals who should be in jail kill, rape and injure a thousand innocent people? Both are terrible obviously, but we don’t always get to chose between good and bad, often we have to chose between shades of gray.
I share your contempt and distrust of the government, but this one subject of criminal justice is surely the one that any minarchist state must take on. There are no practical alternatives. And so we need to think of mechanisms whereby the dreadful ineptitude of the state can be shaped to offer us some measure of criminal justice while minimizing the collateral damage.
Perry has a good point – take, for example, the sickeningly corrupt judges and juries (yes juries as well) in the State of Minnesota.
A man has his home invaded – he manages to kill the home invaders, and the court finds him guilty of “murder”.
Another man dies from drugs he willing consumed – and police officers are branded as “racists” (none of them were racist) and flung into prison for “murder” – to be cut up with knives.
Britain is not much different from Minnesota – not in its courts.
Men can boast (actually boast – in a book) of “springing” a Soviet agent from prison – and a jury finds them “not guilty”.They never denied their treason – but they were leftists and being a leftist traitor is noble (to a jury made up of scumbags).
Another man (a Labour Councillor) can cross London and deliver a speech to angry mob urging them to “cut the throats” of right wing people – and a jury finds him “not guilty” – not guilty of any crime at all.
Such juries and such judges would find ME guilty and order me castrated or hanged (or both) – before even hearing what the charge was, as a I am “right winger”.
In the end it is no-good living in a society where most people are no-good – it is not good to live in (say) New York City or Washington D.C., where judges and juries find the guilty “not guilty” and the innocent “guilty” (knowing what they are doing – and giggling about it) – judging people by their politics, not by the facts of the case.
And London, and other major British cities, are going the same way – thanks to the indoctrination of the education system, and the “mainstream” media (such as the BBC – but not just them), especially the entertainment media.
So killing them is better? Perhaps I do not understand the point you are making.
To state the obvious: do not let convicted murderers go free, a life sentence means life.
But that is not what I am discussing, it is the risk of accidently murdering an innocent, rather than punishing an innocent, that makes me unwilling to support capital punishment. Let a life sentence actually mean life. If a mistake was made, at least it is not compounded with a judicial murder.
Yes.
The same net effect, maybe. But . . .
A criminal charge is a complaint by the State that can result in my loss of liberty, and life. The burden is high. A unanimous jury of my peers, a standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt”, and the jury is typically aware of the consequences to me of a guilty verdict.
A civil proceeding (in MN, at least), requires no jury – just some judge who was appointed by idiots. The burden of proof is a civil burden. (More than 50/50 chance.)
I do NOT want my fate resting solely in the hands of someone appointed by Obama.
Lots more to say, but no need for a 20-page reply here.
(Just to add: If you execute someone, new evidence at some point is too late. I’ve seen innocent people released after decades when DNA evidence finally cleared them.)
Ah, but that example was only being used to show why pedophiles are what they are. (Note that I’ve defended pedophiles, and have had long discussions about their attraction.)
I’m a hetero male. I am attracted to female bods. I could not will myself into becoming sexually stimulated by a guy’s bod. It’s not my choice – it’s my limbic system. It’s a matter of, what gives me an erection.
Pure homosexual guys are sexually stimulated by a guy’s bod, and (similarly to me) probably could not will themselves into being stimulated by a female bod.
(Bisexuals probably have the best lives. They can go either way, doubling their pool of love.)
Pedophiles are sexually stimulated by young, childish bods of one of the genders. Just like me, most of them can’t simply decide to change. It just wouldn’t work.
So, the best we can hope for in terms of pedophiles is that they not act on their impulses. A celibate pedophile is about as good as we’re going to get. A celibate pedophile is also no danger.
In hindsight, at 10:38, I probably should not have used “pool of love.” Ick. 😉
@bobby b
The same net effect, maybe. But . . .
I’m not advocating particularly for this approach, I am just saying that the legislature can certainly do it without constitutional problems. For sure part of the problem with the criminal justice system is that it is run by people who have biases and agendas. But there is no alternative to the state running the criminal justice system. The person in question has been convicted at the highest standard of evidence, so the question is not their innocence, it is whether it is safe to let them back into society. A longer sentence with a possibility of parole allows a better level of legal control over that.
For sure determining guilt is something that should be determined by the very highest levels of evidence, but once the presumption of innocence is gone then the question is “at what point do you get back the rights you forfeited by your criminal behavior?” The convicted criminal, unlike the indicted but un-convicted, does not get the benefit of the doubt, and so the standard to allow them the resumption of their rights is not at all the same.
To reiterate my example: I am generally very trusting of people, and believe they have good intentions. But when they betray that trust I am quite at liberty to suspend my trust in them for the future, and it is incumbent on them to do what it takes to gain my trust back. This same idea applies to the relationship between convicted criminals and society.
I agree that the civil commitment thing sounds a sleazy end run around the system, but there are surely better ways to achieve the same ends with a lot less sleaze.
In the end any system depends on the people in it.
If people are no-good then judges and juries (yes juries as well) will be no-good.
And that point has been reached – thanks to the corruption of so many people by their “education” and by the media (including the entertainment media – with the vile political and cultural messages in so many “entertainment”) they are influenced by over years.
It still astonishes me that a jury will find “not guilty” traitors (the “we sprung Blake” case) they know be guilty, and find guilty people they know to be innocent (the smug, or giggling, juries in Minnesota – and New York City, Washington D.C…..), but it happens.
What can one do when the people (or a large part of the people) have been corrupted?
For it is not just the judges – see above.
Wee bit late to this one.
Would those advocating for innocent people to be State killed, so guilty don’t go free answer this: Will you accept that your child could be that State victim?
I’m old enough to remember the Ruth Ellis hanging, which I agree with. She admitted in open court that she planned and intended to kill her victim. We have lefties, today, clamouring for a pardon because she was a spurned woman.