Punishing the guilty

Last Thursday I responded to a call from local PD for an injured baby. We got there and found that the guy in cuffs on the hood of his car had thrown his 9 month old baby girl out of the car as they were traveling at 45 mph. Obviously, this is something we all should be disgusted by. The problem I  have is this: this son of a bitch is probably going to get a nickel in the joint and never see his daughter again. So what? 5 years equals 18 months in the US when you figure in parole and such, and evidently he doesn't want to see the kid anyway.

If you were in charge, what do think an appropriate punishment would be? Something henious and exotic, or do you think the laws are sufficient as they are? And if the law is insufficient, why aren't we changing it?

Personally, I think he should be thrown out of a moving car while traveling at 90 miles per hour, since he'd probably be able to withstand 45 much better than his daughter. Then he should be jailed for 5 years, no parole.

However, I don't think the government should be able to legally throw someone out of a moving vehicle or torture a person, and wouldn't suggest that as the person "in charge". If it were my call as an official, I'd make sure he were jailed for 5 or more years, no parole.

He will probably be beaten worse in prison if they find out what he did.

I have heard that child abusers get roughed up pretty bad in the joint, but I can't help but wonder if it's enough. We excecute murderers, right? And while as Irock said, we can't toss him out of a speeding car under our current laws, what if we could? Despite what we're taught about revenge, isn't that justice?

I'm kinda using this instance as a microcosm for all the crimes that make many people say "what kind of monster would do this?" I think that if the deed turns your stomach, the punishment should be equally vile. Maybe 5 years of beatdowns and butt rape is as bad as he deserves, but I think the element of helplessness needs to be incorporated- as helpless as the victim.

I honestly think that the punishment in this case is sufficient.

He will likely get at least 18 months as you have stated, and then if he ever tries to get a job after released from prison he won't be able to because any smart businessman will do a profile check on him and see if he has a rap sheet or not.  (I really hope that is how you spell rap sheet..)
Then again, he may know people who would take him in and give him money, no matter what.
So maybe he SHOULD get a worse punishment, a longer time in jail.
Really, you can't do anything else to him rather than a longer time in jail.
If this was a worse crime, he could get a lethal injection but...

Well thats what I have to say..
So yeah..

A third strike for petty theft can yield eighty years in prison--if you're lucky--and this guy will get out in less than five years.

There is something very wrong with that. That could have killed his daughter, and will probably leave her with awful scars for life, and is likely to cause severe brain damage (not to mention physical damage), depending upon from where she was thrown and landed.

But I agree with Irock. Do people like this truly know the full extent of their crime(s)? Sentences are not necessarily equal punishment for his or her crime(s). It's among the best that we can do, though, as I do not think that torture is just.

You bring up an interesting point, that of torture. I agree, it is unjust, and I hope we never stoop to that for criminal punishment.
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So what we have here, in my opinion, is a system that does not punish effectively. What I mean here is not "paying a debt to society", but punishment. Like Frank Castle school of thought. Well, maybe between that and what criminals currently face, something short of torture but heavier than what's there now. Is it possible?

So wait, attempted murder, reckless driving, creating a hazard for other motorists, aggravated assault, child abuse, child abduction...adds up to five years?

It really all depends on what he gets charged with. If I know the legal system out here, the prosecutor will bring all kinds of charges which will likely boil down to child endangerment. He'll likely spend a few years in the joint and be kept from his kid. I really don't think attemped murder will be levied against him, nor will abduction- it was his kid. If the prosecutor does his job, ha ha, maybe the charges you brought up will stick- I certainly hope they do, but i have little faith it will.

Yeah, I forget that the legal system turns things into a sort of game of soccer. Sick as that is as a visual.

I think the logic behind the punnishment for throwing a 9 month old out of a window is 1. Thrown from a car isn't deadly (unless you're an infant). 2. Since it wasn't manslaughter, that makes it less punnishable.

I used to post ethical situations on another forum. I'm a nobody, but I'm friends with a lot of cops, EMTs and fire fighters. They come to me a lot, but mostly for the wrong reasons. Instead of them wanting to do what's right, its usually to brag about what they pulled off on duty. Uggg...

Okay, funny you should mention that. When I was precepting (part of the training for paramedics where you ride along at another service and act as though you were the paramedic) I responded to a domestic violence case where some guy beat the snot out of his wife and toddler. We responded as the second unit for a person who had fallen down a flight of stairs. When we got there, the woman and child who had major but non-critical injuries were being transported by the first ambulance. The police had the guy in cuffs at the top of the stairs. When I asked where my patient was, the officers looked at each other, grinned, nodded, and tossed the motherfucker down the stairs headfirst. My report included none of this.

To this day, I feel that what I saw, while not just, was right. What do you think?

In that situation, it was gratifying. It FELT right because he did something so wrong. It satisfied the internal desire to right the wrong.

But even if the evidence is overwhelming, the cops, you, all the responding teams there were -responding-. You weren't actually there. None of you saw it. So no matter what you've assumed the guy is an asshat and that he did it. Furthermore, you're taking it upon yourselves to decide that that was fitting punishment for what he's done, appointing yourselves judge, jury, and executioner without anyone else's say.

As much as it SUCKS TOTAL ASS, you have to refrain from the self-gratifying chuck down the stairs in these situations. If you don't, then you've reduced yourselves to criminals. If you can do it to this guy, that same line of judgement could be implemented to 'punish' you by whatever means the police or whomever else deem fitting. In other countries, if you steal a loaf of bread you get your hands chopped off, or your legs run over by a truck.

The point of this long winded post is that a line has to be drawn somewhere between the things that good guys do and the things that bad guys do. Bad guys take the burden of being outside the law upon themselves. The good guys convict them for it and send them to prison. Bad guys do what feels good to "right" a wrong. good guys rehabilitate and reform, because we remember that even criminals are still people.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

But even after saying all that, I think it would have been really hard for me not to have done exactly what those officers did.

That was profound. I feel a bit better knowing that I'm not the only one torn between what is right and what is just.

So, then, the good guy does what is proper under the existing law, even though it may not be what he sees as a fitting end to the criminal, whereas the criminal does what is most satisfying at the time regardless of law. I want to agree, I really do. So what more can we do to prevent (or at least minimize) criminal behavior than we are doing now? That seems to be the missing piece. Criminals are held accountable by law, sure, but two guys convicted for the same thing get two different sentences. Does the problem lie in the lawyers and judges? The criminal, being human, has the same right to defend his actions as anyone, but perhaps a stricter set of rules would be helpful in deterring these henious acts. I suppose then it become a question of how much freedom are we willing to give up for security... something we all faced in the Bush administration. Maybe the issue is just too complex for any one solution to be effective. Maybe I just need to accept the fact that people are going to do really bad shit regardless of the consequences, and like you said, it isn't up to me to decide their fate.

Again, very profound, sir.

tl;dr but I get the gist. (Therefore feel very obliged to correct me if I say something stupid.)

I think that what the cops did is unlawful but not necessarily the wrong thing to do in that case. I'd be shocked, too, if I was in your position; a police officer abusing--physically or mentally--a citizen is without a doubt a wrongdoing (it simply goes against all for which they stand) just as it would be for any other citizen. Not only is the point of a police officer to lawfully enforce laws and follow protocol, but also to protect his or her country's citizens (unconditionally?). We have laws, judges and juries to (hopefully) find objective and suitable punishments.

But sometimes a punishment such as that really works better than anything else (not to say that a police officer should give out punishments like that though!). It does not always justify the means, but it certainly may prevent a perpetrator from committing another wrongdoing. And because the law really doesn't work like that unless you get the death sentence (in which case you're probably not going to act out again...), there's no way to say that a person won't benefit more from a good beating than 1 year plus parole. But it's cruel in our eyes, maybe even bizarre, and an unlawful deed nonetheless, even before the fact that there's also no way to know if a person will benefit from a beating.

Funny thing, though, is that I can attest to learning more from seeing the ruler in my mom's purse or hand with the possibility of being hit by it than actually being hit by it. The prospect of not being hit on the butt by a ruler is a much nicer one than sneaking a glass of pop. (Which I suppose is the purpose of "good cop, bad cop" charades. I guess that the "bad cop" wouldn't actually hit you, contrary to my mom and her many a ruler.) Edit: In case it's unclear, imo a child grows up, learns and a parent no longer needs to "tough love" their child, but police shouldn't treat citizens like unlearned children that need to be taught by "tough love"; that's just wrong.

The "warrior gene" is an interesting example. IIRC a guy got a lighter sentence (i.e did not get first degree murder in a child abuse case) because he was "predisposed to violent behavior" via the aforementioned. Why does that mean that people who don't have a violent disposition but may have a violent outburst in their life are more likely to receive harsher sentences? I can't make any sense of it.

I dunno about the genes, man, I really don't. I'll be the first to tell you that many facets of behaviour are influenced by genetics- addictive potential and predisposition one of them that I am more familiar with than I ever wanted to be- but I also think that nurture can overcome nature. How did the gene test come up in court, anyway? Good lawyer, I suppose...

Anyhow, I do jive with the ruler in mom's hand thing. Pain and fear are great motivators, and while they should both be used sparingly with children, every once in a blue moon it becomes neccesary, I think.

When we say that the cops should not engage in the behaviour outlined above, if you look at it from a local perspective those guys were probably dealing with a repeat offender to begin with and could have figured that if they roughed him up a bit he'd think twice about screwing around again. Is it within protocol? Absolutely not. If this had ever hit the news, they'd both have been fired and there would have been a great big civil rights parade on the TV. Rightly so, I suppose, but when a normal person hears that he beat down a woman and a kid, public sympathies would wane for the very reason this thread was put down- we think he deserved it. THe public would be vindicated and feel good about it because even though a line was crossed, the decision is what we'd all do if our cojones were big enough.

If someone acts like a child, shouldn't he be treated like one? Or even better, an adult who should know better acts like a child- shouldn't he  suffer even more dire consequenses? Is this the kind of thing we need to turn a blind eye to, knowing that our system is flawed?

Death penalty.  There should be a committee, and if more than 50% of it agrees that your crime is disgusting enough to warrant it- straight to lethal injection.
Large committee, of course.

The cumming unicorn says death penalty :-) Awesome :-)