It was announced today that the jury in the Steven Hayes case recommended the death penalty for his part in the slaying of the Petit Family of Cheshire, Connecticut. The story of what happened to that family makes me sick and I can't spend too much time thinking about it but this recent sentencing has made me even more upset. Sentencing him to death is a cop out. It's a get out of jail free card.
Even Hayes' Attorney made the case for the death penalty being an easy out for Hayes. He noted that Hayes has lost 80lbs in jail, has lost all privacy, and is "an animal in a zoo." He said that putting Hayes to death would, "end his misery."
I think that when emotions run high in a case like this, people feel like they want to tear the suspects apart themselves. We all want justice from this case. We want to put these men to death ourselves and see him suffer and look at the lifeless body and feel safe again.
But killing a killer makes us killers. I don't care if the state condones it. It's giving up on our citizens, no matter how nasty and terrible they may be. And the excitement that people feel when they hear that someone is receiving the death penalty, makes me sick to my stomach. "The death penalty! Yes!!" I feel like our society dies a little bit with each death sentence that gets doled out.
Evil exists, I know that, I've seen it. We see it on the news everyday. But killing an evil person does not remove the evil from the world. But America is all about the kill. We want the big pay off. The cum shot. We're pleasure seekers and the death penalty makes us feel satisfied. We're disillusioned. We're desperate for some release. With the death penalty we place our criminals in sterile rooms, with signed papers and professionals and we call it even.
I say "we" because even I felt great for a few seconds after hearing that he would probably be sentenced to death. I literally felt happy from hearing the news. "He's getting what he deserves" said the emotional side of my brain. But then logic, and sense and reasoning crept in and then I just felt sad. He did something terrible, I am not saying that he doesn't deserve to be punished but I think that any of our citizens deserve to be helped. Like his attorney said, he's lost any trace of an independent life in prison. He's being punished. His life will never be the same. And that is when the state and professionals can step in and take this empty person and make him whole again. Give him the tools to change his life. At least try. It's just terrible when we give up on someone. It's not like he would ever be released. America's karma is already so fucked up. Why not try to help more people? Set some things right. Show those people who feel hopeless that there are people who can help them. Maybe if Hayes and his partner Komisarjevsky had received the proper help when they were first incarcerated for their various multiple felonies in the past things would be different now.
See? We set criminals free and then become upset when they keep on committing crimes. Putting someone in a cell doesn't change them for the better and killing a criminal doesn't right the crime. We need to do more. We need to take responsibility for letting these crimes happen. They had both already been to jail! Why were they released in the first place? What actual evidence had they exhibited that they were good to go back into society?
They served their time? OK, great. What programs did they have to complete while in prison? Did they undergo any psychological testing? Were they given opportunities to find jobs and support groups? Were they checked up on when they were released?
And if they did receive these things then they didn't work. We need to rework the system. Make it effective and stop making prison a holding station for criminals in between crimes.
It's all fucked up. We're all too emotional. Too lazy to do more.
I live the town over from where these crimes occurred. I've been to the grocery store where Hayes and Komisarjevsky first set their sights on the Petit family and I've been to the bank where Mrs. Petit was forced to remove the family's life savings on that fateful day. It could have been my family. It could have been me. But it wasn't. I'm still here to see this all play out and to make my little opinions about what I think should happen. If it was my family in that situation and I was able to survive, like Mr. Petit, I can't imagine how I would feel. Or what justice would feel like when the men who killed my family are before me.
People have said that once those men are put to death that then the family can finally be at peace. Like I said, I don't know how it feels to be in that situation but I can imagine that peace is something that I would never feel again. Peace would be to have my family back. To never have to face the fact that these men did horrible things to my family and that they are gone now. Peace would not be found in the death penalty, not for me.
Hayes wants to die. He wanted to look like a monster because he said he felt guilty and remorseful and he wanted the jury to sentence him to death. He tried to kill himself after the crimes but was unsuccessful.
So yeah, lets give him exactly what he wants and say that it's what he deserves. We'll do the work for him.
We won't help them live successfully but damnit if you want to die, we got you covered.
Sources:
CNN: http://bit.ly/d1Gcru
Boston Herald: http://bit.ly/ctguEr
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i give u an A+ for your essay from the University of Hillary. it actually kinda sounds like an essay i wrote in college. i agree with you 100%. It's really no justice at all. Mal, maybe you should be a constitutional lawyer, eh? -Hillary
ReplyDeleteI propose separating self-destructive crime from crime that targets a victim and then taking a good hard look at how we approach rehabilitation. On that I couldn't agree more. And of course there are all the folks on death row now who may have benefited from DNA-related evidence and had no access at their time-of-trial.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I am just as opposed to keeping the irredeemable alive in prison until they expire naturally. Both outcomes that don't conclude in perfect rehabilitation and a cession of the bad behavior that landed them in the clink to begin with are equally cruel and pointless.
So we fail pretty miserably at understanding certain aspects of sociopathic behavior, we don't know where to draw the line in the nature/nurture debate as it relates to personal responsibility after a heinous crime, and we've got a way-too-big prison population. Right now the money that could go to developing new ideas on rehabilitation is spent on keeping the seams from bursting, and so that has to be step number 1.
I want to bring back a classic. I propose a zero tolerance rule for everything from shoplifting to regicide: banishment. Like, to the moon or something.
There are certain crimes against humanity that shouldn't be forgiven, like the crimes of murder and rape. How often do you think a would be killer would committ these crimes if they know the justice system will only give them one chance? The very problem could lie in the fact that we give too many chances. Then hard working blue collar individuals end up paying for them with their limited tax dollars, just because we want to make them 'suffer'. This holds us back, not only socially but economically. Eventually it will have to be time to put the drags on our evolution to bed. But how do we want to evolve? Regression is my biggest fear, that we will slip into a world of idiocracy(the movie), with substandard morals and brain power. This could stem from simply giving too many chances, "rehabilitating" everyone. We worry about the bad influences to the point where they control the class. I say no tolerance.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of your points Steven. But where I disagree is with the idea that the justice system gives too many chances. I see it as giving up. Letting money dictate who is fit to be out in public. Our prisons are overcrowded and tax dollars are stretched so we let prisoners go. But you can't call it "giving some a chance" when they are let go before they are actually helped. We are giving them a "get out of jail free" card. We are giving up on them. The legal system needs to take responsibility for letting these people go before they are helped. The men in this case were repeat offenders and they were allowed, by the legal system, to return to society before anything was changed. More needs to be done to check out these individuals on their first offense and maybe then we can prevent further crimes from occurring. I think, more than giving these people chances to get out of jail, we give them chances to commit more crime.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem with rehabilitation is the person has to want to be helped. That's the issue. So what do we do? Throw them in jail until they are receptive to therapy? The problem with keeping them in institutions is they become institutionalized and subsequently end up with worse morals than they had before. Prison doesn't work, it makes you worse in most cases. If we are going to spend the time to rehabilitate them, then we should at least get something for our money! I know it sounds communistic, but I almost wouldn't be opposed to work programs for all types of offenders, I'm so frustrated with the situation. If they are going to fuck their own lives up to the point where they harm others and don't contribute anything, we should make them. I also beleive most would take this alternative as opposed to rotting in a cell. You've heard of 'tiger' mothers right? What about a 'tiger' justice system? Haha what do you think of that?
ReplyDeleteAnd on a side note? People like the stabbing suspect in N.Y. (Gellman I believe) should be put to death immediately. I don't want to have to pay for his stint on death row and I don't have faith he can be rehabilitated. We need to stop commercializing these peices of shit to the point where they become folk heroes in their own minds. It gets to the point where we almost encourage such behavior through social media in an indirect way.