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Prison Justice
- Thread starter mactastic
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I'm with mactastic...I can't say that I condone the ending of a human life, but to molest a child is perhaps the crime that comes closest to deserving such a penalty, if any crime does.
I don't believe in capital punishment either, but in this case... The man exploited an implicit, intimate trust to molest not one but a couple of hundred kids over the years. I believe paedophilia is a pathological illness, but there's no excuse for refusing to seek help, when children are being hurt. That's why i'm glad he's off the planet sooner than later.
pnw
edit: spelling
The reason these kinds of intra-prison killing happen is that prisons aren't run by the guards. They're run by the prisoners.
When you put all the criminals in one place without sufficient guidance, you just get criminality^3. I think that one source of the problem is that people who choose "prison corrections officer" as a vocation are unlikely to be the ones who are best able to rehabilitate criminals.
When you put all the criminals in one place without sufficient guidance, you just get criminality^3. I think that one source of the problem is that people who choose "prison corrections officer" as a vocation are unlikely to be the ones who are best able to rehabilitate criminals.
Kinda like the way the people who most want to be politicians are not the ones who will serve us best?
I can't say I felt any sadness at this either. However, I think of all the people recently freed because DNA evidence shows they are innocent. If some of them were killed in prison for the horrific crimes they were accused of, we'd also be thinking "Fine with us".
Sure, everyone knows this guy was guilty. Everyone "knew" it for the innocents as well. You can't devise a moral code based on the easy ones.
Sure, everyone knows this guy was guilty. Everyone "knew" it for the innocents as well. You can't devise a moral code based on the easy ones.
Yup, can't say I'm upset to hear that one little bit. He got what was coming to him IMO. But it's true what Dros says, over the years people have been banged up for crimes they did not commit, and have later been released, that is why I can't see the UK ever bringing back the death penalty....there's always that small chance they may have got the wrong man/woman.
Father Geoghan has done terrible unspeakable things to children from the 1960's to 1995. This is the second man to die in a Massachusetts prison in the past 10 years. The last was the man that when on a murderous ramapage here in Boston area Planned Parenthood clinics. The victims of Father Geoghan are saddened by this event. There comment was that there preference was to see him in court for 3 additonal trials related to child sexual abuse.
I believe that now Father Geoghan is now facing his real punishment for an eternity!
I believe that now Father Geoghan is now facing his real punishment for an eternity!
Come see the violence inherent in the system...
Now the details of Geoghan's death are starting to come out -- and I think that no matter how unsympathetic we may be to his ultimate fate, it's clear that his death is a symptom of a sesriously flawed incarceration system.
One guard on duty in the isolation area? Doors that can be jammed by inmates to prevent guards from entering?
Even if MA had the death penalty (which it doesn't) and made that penalty available for the crime of child sexual abuse (which no state does) and had in fact sentenced Geoghan to death, I think that letting him be bound, gagged and strangled by a racist, antisemitic, homophobic convicted killer is quite simply beyond the pale.
A civilization is measured by how it treats its poor, insane and incarcerated.
Now the details of Geoghan's death are starting to come out -- and I think that no matter how unsympathetic we may be to his ultimate fate, it's clear that his death is a symptom of a sesriously flawed incarceration system.
One guard on duty in the isolation area? Doors that can be jammed by inmates to prevent guards from entering?
Even if MA had the death penalty (which it doesn't) and made that penalty available for the crime of child sexual abuse (which no state does) and had in fact sentenced Geoghan to death, I think that letting him be bound, gagged and strangled by a racist, antisemitic, homophobic convicted killer is quite simply beyond the pale.
A civilization is measured by how it treats its poor, insane and incarcerated.
As a Catholic I can honeslty say I'm glad it happened to him.
Men like him ruin the reputation of my religion and cause people to over look the good that the Church does. I have no sympathy for Geoghan and hope he suffers for an enternity.
Men like him ruin the reputation of my religion and cause people to over look the good that the Church does. I have no sympathy for Geoghan and hope he suffers for an enternity.
That kind of thinking assumes that all criminals are able to be rehabilitated. Would you say you believe that there's no such thing as someone who's too far beyond the pale that society can't fix them somehow? If the answer to that is no, then what do we do with the ones who resist our best efforts to redeem them?
Not that I'm arguing that our system is perfect--far from it--but it's too easy to blame the system for the behavior of the inmates, or for its "failure" to rehabilitate them. It's like the school system. Provide as conducive and positive an environment as you will, and there's always going to be a few who will still either reject it, or be impervious to your offer of something better. To say otherwise is to ignore the duality of human nature.
I would advocate for a two-branch prison system, one for people who are going away for life, and one for people who we would like to re-integrate into society at some point. Seems like it should be two entirely seperate systems to me.
A great question -- it's the Fermat's Theorem of the justice system.
Part of the problem with punishment is that everyone can agree that some people should be punished, but they rarely (read: never) agree on why. As I understand it, there are currently five basic rationales for incarceration:
1. Retribution: your basic eye-for-an-eye theory
2. General Deterence: the idea that people will do less wrong in general if they know that in general bad people get punished
3. Specific Deterence: the theory that people are less likely to [speed, use drugs, etc.] specifically, if they know that that behavior carries a punishment
4. Sequestration: the rationale for imprisonment that suggests that we reduce criminal acts if we separate the criminals from society
5. Rehabilitation: the idea that the justice system can change the way that people act, turning criminals into non-criminals
Reforming our justice system usually requires that we agree on why we are jailing people. This is not easy (read: not possible). Just consider the people who are against the death penalty because they think that life in prison is a "worse" punishment -- purely retributive, even though most of the anti-capital punishment arguments are based on the idea that capital punishment is a poor specific or general deterent.
Oh, and regarding mactastic's suggestion for a two-system prison, it seems from the article that MA indeed has a separate facility for violent prisoners which was shut down due to lack of funding. A good idea, but we have to convince people to pay for prisoners' well being -- a tough sell these days.
This guy must have known he was getting the "death penalty" when they pronounced him guilty. Child molesters never fair very well in prison. Probably because so many of the other inmates were abused, neglected and/or molested themselves and would love to get even with their demons. The only reason we're hearing about it is because he's a catholic priest in jail.
Personally, I think the man had a sickness. The people who really should have died in that prison were all the priests and bishops that covered for him all these years. Unfortunately, those men are still alive. The good news is, not only do they have the guilt of all the molestations but they also have a dead priest weighing on their minds.
I'd like to think that had this priest been "fixed" early, he would be alive today and maybe a decent man. But we shall never know.
Personally, I think the man had a sickness. The people who really should have died in that prison were all the priests and bishops that covered for him all these years. Unfortunately, those men are still alive. The good news is, not only do they have the guilt of all the molestations but they also have a dead priest weighing on their minds.
I'd like to think that had this priest been "fixed" early, he would be alive today and maybe a decent man. But we shall never know.
How would you decide who gets locked up for the rest of their natural life and who has another chance to be free? Sure, it's a sound concept in theory, but it would be extremely hard to determine in reality.
Um, if you are sentenced to life in prison, off you go. Anything less than life, you go the other route. Pretty simple IMHO.
It sickens me to think that I live in a society where so many people think like that.
What happened here amounts to murder by torture. The fact that anyone could condone, much less applaud, such an act makes me feel ashamed to be human, and very very sad.
One sick, disturbed man damaged hundreds of young lives and was murdered in a horrible, brutal way because of it by another sick, disturbed man.
There are no good people in what happened here, no justice, and no moral right. There is only tragedy and loss -- for John Geoghan's victims, for John Geoghan, for the man who killed him, and for all of us as human beings.
I really would like to add my comments to this, but I won't. I'm Catholic by birth, but that's about the extent I'll ever be.
I don't condone what happened, but I don't feel any remorse for the guy either.
I don't condone what happened, but I don't feel any remorse for the guy either.
Exactly! -- this is the sentiment we need. While some may feel true empathy for what happened to Geoghan, I don't think that we can expect or require it.
But people should try to understand why it's not OK to let any sense that Geoghan "got his due" become an endorsement of the status quo in the prison system. There are lots and lots of similar incidents that we never hear about.
I think that if we let our assessment of prisons be clouded by a subjective reaction to Geoghan's death, we risk missing the big picture.