Tuesday, March 21, 2006

REBIRTHING THE DEATH PENALTY

As a prelude to this tirade I must inform you that I am a softy at heart: I melt around puppies, shamelessly weep during sad movie scenes, enjoy sharing the planet with people who are charming and those that are tedious. The part of our society where all of my warm fuzzies evaporate is our needless molly-coddling of murderers, child molesters and rapists. Now I freely admit that the gross inadequacies of our Legal System, (it ain't Justice) prevent us from providing wholesale executioning of all deserving recipients, but we could atleast keep the real monsters locked up!

Now that improvements in DNA testing has exposed so many outrageous miscarriages of justice and freed wrongly imprisoned victims, it seems as though it's too risky to execute genetic dead-end scumbags. Since executing innocents is not acceptable, the solution to eliminating the deserving with extreme prejudice is to repair the system.
Why not start with the obvious, that the current premise of the entire system is upside down. That it is the victim who has been wronged and not the poor criminal.

I just read an article by David Griffin, executive officer of the Canadian Professional Police Association. In the piece he exposes the gross incompetence of our system in dealing with Conrad Brossard. This guy was sentenced to 7 YEARS in '96 for armed robbery and attempted rape, 4 years later while on parole(?) murdered Andre Lahaise and got LIFE. Then in 1980 while out on a day pass(?) escaped and stabbed Marc Lappiere 13 times and left him for dead. For that Brossard received 23 more YEARS. Seven years later Brossard was moved to a halfway house(?) where he attempted another murder! Despite all of that the National Parole Board again released him to another halfway house in 2002(?) and he murdered Cecile Clement who he had met at the nursing home where he worked(!?!?!?!?!)
If that guy isn't the poster child for capitol punishment who is?

If you're still thinking about phoning Susan Sarandon and sending her over to my house let's try this. Hypothetically, a violent career psychopath, while out on parole, is caught on video torturing and murdering a busload of nuns, orphans and a John Howard Society stenographer on their way to Disneyland. Gotcha! OK, this guy is basically a waste of amino acids with zero chance of being rehabilitated and is guarateed to reoffend. Why don't we mercifully put him down and harvest his organs (not the brain obviously) instead of providing room and board, (until early parole), three squares a day, a university education and time to pen a lucrative memoir all at a cost to the taxpayer of $100 grand a year! Come to think of it crash test dummies cost about $100 grand, Hmm.

You cannot argue that the most popular movies are the Revenge films with Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis and Seagal. They don't molly coddle the perps, they right the wrong in unimaginably satisfying fashion. The whole audience collectively yells YEAH! when the lead villain is exterminated. People are so frustrated with the status quo that they need this escape and film writers know it.

I'll tell you what, as our society greys with the aging Baby Boomers blooming into full potential victim mode, then law enforcement will percolate back to the top of politicians' agendas. Rich doddering boomers congregating like exposed defenseless penquins on an iceflow will require massive armies of cops to protect them. Random muggings will become as rare as unicorns. The ratio of security enforcement providers to penquins will be multiplied exponentially. You think I'm kidding? Just wait.

It seems self evident that the gap between the Rich and the Poor is returning to historical equilibriums. The wealthy will abandon the emerging in utter despair and reluctantly retreat to a well deserved (we tried) gilded new age of Entitlement. Futurists are correct in assuming the inevitable emergence of totalitarian Big Brother type scenarios as the desperate solution to our failing laissez faire approach to crime and punishment. As the citizens age and lose confidence in the legal system they will eventually force parlimentarians to legislate whatever it takes to keep them safe. That will probably entail enacting tougher penalties and stiffer sentencing, more prisons and less parole, empowered cops and limiting the legal options of psychotic killers. The ultimate act will be resurrecting the death penalty to skim the scum off of the shallow end of the gene pool.

Judges, defense lawyers and parole board members don't live next door to the miscreants that they parole. They and their families rarely encounter these human time-bombs because they are safely ensconced in their upscale enclaves. Until the upper echelon of the legal system are attacked on a daily basis the status quo will remain de rigeur. Violent offenders will be paroled to make room for the next wave and continue to wreak havoc in our society. Killers will keep spinning the revolving doors of the system. When the wrong people become their prey the system may begin to right itself.

The death penalty debate is bit of a sticky wicket because some of us don't want to play god. Some people believe that it is wrong to terminate the life of an asshole who would strangle their toddler, rape their daughter or mutilate their spouse in a heartbeat. Public opinion polls show that nearly 70% still support capitol punishment. People will do anything to get out of jury duty but there would be a waiting list to get on the execution duty roster.

If you were shipwrecked on an island with your family and Charlie Manson washed up one dark stormy evening what would you do?Would you acquiesce and passively hand over your precious cargo to the monster?Would you try to reform him and integrate him into your microcosmic society? NO! You would grab the nearest rock because you cannot afford to gamble with the lives of your loved ones.

Public servants are careless and wasteful when they handle your money simply because Hey it's not our money! The same may be said for the way they handle your psycopaths. Would the revolving door still spin if halfway houses were established next door to parole board members, judges, and defense lawyers ?

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