Things that are Punishable, Part I

I watched the local news (channel 7, I believe) last night for the first time in many years. This action was not out of some choice of mine, me thinking "oh golly, I think I'll watch the news today." Instead, I was at my grandmother's house playing Scrabble with her, and the news happened to be on the TV. Since it was not my center of attention, I had no need to concern myself with changing the channel or turning off the TV altogether. So the news remained on while I played Scrabble and I overheard bits and pieces of it.

For those of you that don't already know this, I hate the news. Not just 24 hour news networks, which have been a recent target of frustration. No, I also hate the local news, but for different reasons. The people on the 24-hour news networks are full of shit. The content on the local news programs are just dreadfully miserable, and completely irrelevant to everyday life. First and foremost, there is nothing happy about what's on the local news. The newscasters only report on dreary topics such as death, murder, violence, robberies, etc. Of course it is important to be aware that such atrocities occur in the world, but I do not believe that the news sheds any more light on such situations--it only gives examples. Why make your life more depressing if you could just as easily turn off the TV? You may disagree with this statement, but this is actually not the topic of the post, so I will abandon it here. Returning to my original point, the only exception to the dreadfulness of the newscast would be the weathermen, who, though they can often be incorrect in their predictions, are often greatly entertaining with their whimsical attitude and bad jokes. Allow me to elaborate on the stories in yesterday's news broadcast.

• A middle school athletic coach and colleague sexually abused a student a number of times over many months
• A group of armed tweens mugged someone, taking his iPod and cell phone
• A man who pulled over to the side of the road to help a stranger who looked lost, was assaulted from within his car by the stranger who had a knife
• A (non-Jewish) women awoke one morning to find a swastika graffitied on her garage door
• A senator under house arrest (forbidden from drinking) failed a breathalyzer four times within an hour, claiming that his use of toothpaste was the cause
• Balloon Boy's parents could be facing jail-time
• A Red Line train derailed; no fatalities

From what I could gather, this was actually a relatively happy newscast. There was no murder and no domestic violence. No suicide bombings and no war-related deaths/violence. But it got me thinking. Why do we allow such atrocities to exist in our world? After ponding this question for some time, I asked myself another question: Should there be draconian punishments for motivated violent crimes? i.e., should there be a rule "a head for an eye"? Before I go on, let me say that I do not have an answer to the question, not have I even sided with a 'yes' or a 'no'. The question just entered my mind and I've spent some time pondering it. Continuing, this draconian punishment system would imply that murder is punished by death, domestic abuse is punished by death, rape and other forms of sexual abuse is punished by death, etc. The thinking behind these punishments would be that these crimes cause more damage to an individual than a simple death would. Someone that is assaulted will likely face more hardship and struggles (pain and suffering) than if they had just been killed by their assailant.

There are a lot of questions that such a system brings up. Obviously we have the question of "can we take another life as punishment?" This question is not exclusive to the system I bring up, but a question argued often today concerning the death penalty. Another question that we should consider asks "is the person actually guilty?" Again, this question is not exclusive to draconian systems, but to all systems of punishments. For the sake of this argument specifically concerning a draconian system, I think it's okay to assume that we have the right to take a criminal's life and that the criminal is actually guilty. So we are left with more questions pertinent to this system: "is the person deserving of such punishment?" and "is retribution justified or is the criminal's death a reasonable/effective way of preventing future crimes of that nature?". I'm tempting to be more comforted if there are less murderers and violent/abusive people in existence, but I also believe that there are probably many other factors that I am not considering (such as the criminal's family).

Anyways, this question of draconian punishment has been on my mind for some time now, and I figured I'd share my thoughts on it so far, and see if anyone has any more opinions, questions raised, or information to add to such a discussion. My watching the news yesterday reignited an anger I have towards criminals of such the nature I've described, and I'd like to see what others think on such a topic. Happy Wednesday, all.