Yesterday a friend called me upset because of having to go to a funeral. It is for a little girl, only 16, who my friend's mother used to be a foster mother for. She was in foster care because her father had sexually abused her. She left foster care after a few years and soon ended up in high school. Here she met a young boy who committed a murder in front of her. She told some friends and then her horribly beaten body was found in a dumpster. She was almost unrecognizable.
This led to a discussion about what to do with the sick little baby killer murderer who did this to her. And what to do about her sick and perverted father. Is it justice to just keep these two in prison for the next few years until they plea their way out of the prison? Is it worthwhile to keep these guys in prison for years and years?
We joked that maybe if all the murderers and rapists were allowed boxcutters and just went at each other would it save a bunch of money. We could then give this savings to the victims.
This led me to the US Department of Justice's website and a long list of tables and charts to see and learn from. I learned that there were 2,186,000 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails at the end of Jun 2005, the most recent I could find. It cost the Government, at all levels, $60.86 million to support all those prisoners. Which means that taxpayers spent an average of $27, 836 per prisoner per year.
Of these prisoners, 3377 are on death row. The average time on death row is more than nine years and with this many prisoners costing us $94 million a year, could not that money be better used?
If we cut off the appeals after 48 months and that can save millions a year. If we start saving this money, we can easily give each victim a million dollars. Maybe give the murderer/rapist/whatever a chance to give the victim extra cash if he would end his appeals even sooner than that.
What can we do to expedite this? How can we make this happen? This would allow our country to save millions of dollars and it would free up some of the overcrowding in the prisons. The victims would get something for their trauma. What is the downside of this?
I would like all people who think that there might be some justice in this to help with this new campaign. Now that the Republicans are out of power and honest Democrats are in who understand the rights of victims, I am sure something can be done. It will have to be quick in case the balance of power shifts again in 2008.
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I'm the friend. I work in non-profit... consider myself a bleeding-heart liberal doing god's will... and the org I work for helps former prisoners transition into normal society so they can become producive & contribute to the world, & to their children. We do not help sex offenders and I wouldn't work there if we did. I know that not all "listed" S.O.'s truly deserve the title. I have a friend who is on the list because a 17-yr-old girl had a fake ID saying she was 22 to his 25 years.
However; I agree that pedophiles should be denied on-going appeals. I also think they should never ever again be released from prisons and to that end... I agree with this post. Child sexual abuse should carry a mandatory life sentence even if it doesn't include the death penalty. Personally, I think it should include the death penalty.
The funeral today was very difficult. I cried, of course. But I lost all composure later at work upon receiving a call from a sex offender wanting help from my org. I managed to maintain professional decorum on the phone but had to shut my office door until I regained some control of my tears. I wanted to tell that man that I wouldn't help him for any reason and that I'd really like it if he would just kill himself & save us the trouble. When I hung up the phone I felt like I was going to vomit and I felt like I needed a shower & that I needed to clean my phone.
I believe in redemption of the human spirit and the human condition. I believe in helping people correct their mistakes. Pedophilia is is a self-perpetuating debilitating behavior that harms the victim on every level of their being, and it is not correctable. Pedophiles are not able to "recover" and "change"; they just get more cunning and more dangerous.
I'm rambling now... say what you will. Save the money spent on death row by helping the victims of those crimes. Save the money spent on pedophiles by putting them to death.
Hell, save the money it costs to hire all the people & order the drugs from Canada to kill them with--- the prisoners themselves took care of Jeffrey Dahmer...
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