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Originally posted by NightCruiser...
Thanks for the link Eric that was interesting reading. I didn't know much about Norway's Prison system.
If you ever have been a victim of violence or been robbed what do you focus on? Do you want revenge? Probably so. Do you want the perp severely punished? Probably so. Do you want the perp pampered and trained to not do the it to someone else. You're probably not even focusing on the aspect. You sure don't want the perp pampered. You want the perp punished so they will think twice before doing it to someone else. If you are dead then you never think again of course. You are dead and the perp goes to a nice place and told he is a bad or girl. In the mean time you lost your life due to the perp. Live victims want the punishment to fit the crime. They are not thinking about rehabilitation.
Without getting it to it too much in public on a porn site, I WAS a victim of a extremely violent crime, and yes, I can say that there was certainly a time that I wished Canada had the death penally, because I would have liked to seen what I felt was justice served. As time passes, and my personal feelings subside somewhat, I no longer want revenge, I want justice...and they are two VERY different things. Granted, the death penalty would never have been an option, because nobody was killed in the crime against me, but still, I wanted that revenge.
The guys that attacked me were both convicted and sentenced to jail, one is still in jail, the other one is out. Did they get punished? I suppose they did to some extent, they've had to spend many years in jail which I'm sure is a horrible experience. Was justice served? Probably not. I don't know what happened in those jails, I don't really know what kind of programs they were offered...if any. I know that our jails are typically a very violent place, where criminals learn or continue to be violent in order to survive, so I'm guessing that they probably haven't learned anything to change anything about themselves. Its also a fact that many prisoners convicted on non violent crimes, will later be convicted of violent crimes, so all jail did was teach them to be worse criminals.
You ask the question, do I want the perpetrator pampered and rehabilitated...but then you go on to answer the question anyway. Until you're in that situation, you have no right to answer how a victim may or may not feel. I'm gong to tell you how this former victim feels, and I think I speak for a huge majority. My choice would be to have a longer jail sentence with mandatory programs to help rehabilitate prisoners, including victim impact programs. If we're going to spend millions to house prisoners, we can spend a little bit more actually trying to change some attitudes and behaviours. I'm not sure how much these prisoners in Norway are being "pampered", but they certainly are being rehabilitated, so the system is working. Canada has a re-offending rate of 75%, Norway has a reoffending rate of 30%. Let me tell you this, to this day, I am scared for the day the 2nd guy is released, I don't know if he'll try anything or not, but it still scares me. I'm also scared that if its not me, it may be someone else. So yes, I am thinking of someone else. When the feeling of wanting revenge fades, and yes it fades, your next thought is whats going to happen when that person is out of jail, I would feel much more comfortable if I knew the guy who hurt me had a 30% chance or hurting me or someone else, rather then a 75% chance.
