Crime & Punishment
In most Western countries there's a rule that a
person's previous offences can't be revealed in court. In other words, if someone
has committed 10 rapes, served his sentence and then winds up in court on another
rape count, the jury can't know that he has served time before for rape. The
reasoning is that if a person has served his time he has 'paid his dept to society'.
This assumes that the punishment meted out, usually a prison sentence, has a
reforming quality. If we don't accept that assumption then we can say that someone
who has committed a crime before is more likely to commit it again.
With regard to sex crimes involving children no one accepts this premise. In
some countries pedophiles have to report their whereabouts to the police after
their release from prison as it is generally acknowledged that prison doesn't
reform these people and therefore they are potential danger to children in the
vicinity of where they live.
In reality, anyone who knows the prison system knows that it rarely reforms, and not just sex offenders. In many cases someone who goes in as a naive miscreant comes out a hardened criminal. So why do we have one rationale for sex offenders and another for all other offenders?
Some years ago an American youth in Singapore was found guilty of vandalism, I think he spray-painted a car. The punishment was 12 strokes of the cane, but there was a huge outcry from the US government who said this was barbaric. In the US, people in prison are frequently raped and forced to endure all manner of atrocities. This is considered civilised.
In Western cultures there is a fear of pain and when people suffer any pain,
whether physical or even psychological, they are prescribed tablets to ease
the suffering. Punishing children with pain is considered outdated and the idea
of punishing criminals with pain is considered barbaric. Of course, locking
them away where they are victimised or raped is considered OK. A politician
who was to suggest that maybe the cane or some kind of physical punishment should
be considered would be labeled an extremist, though in reality a short caning
would have huge advantages for the individual as well as the community.
People often talk about reforming the criminal rather than punishing them, but there is always the assumption that reform is painless. A painful lesson can have a powerful reforming quality.
