By Peter Lagios
After reading about the house invasion murders in Connecticut I realize that in America, we cannot do away with the death penalty. It’s just not possible, when depraved humans are willing to break into someone’s home, rape and torture the occupants, and then kill them. The death penalty is more than warranted in situations like this. Domestic tranquility and security is what makes life in America so nice. When this has been violated…the utmost in sanctions needs to occur.
I don’t pretend to possess a criminal psychological understanding to attempt to convince you that I understand the minds of depraved and violent humans who do such things. I have absolutely no idea of where they are coming from in terms of how they rationalize and justify what they do…but one thing’s for sure: They attempt to impart a degree of suffering and horror upon their victims in a vain attempt at revenge for what was done to them in the past. Others quite simply, don’t (give a ****) care and are only focused on their immediate needs and desires, much like an animal scrounging for food or compulsively following base primitive reproductive impulses.
Even a dog that rolls around on a dead fish, and chases after every squirrel or rabbit they see, can be trained to overcome their impulses.
If anyone has seen the movie A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick, it deals with violent criminals in a fictitious government program that aims at rehabilitation via drug induced-sensory overloaded conditioning. The goal is to physically cause the criminal to become sick upon any thought, impulse, or tendency for violence-much in the same way an alcoholic becomes sick from drinking while on the medication Anabuse. The criminal no longer follows his violent ways, and is able to re-integrate into society-not because he made a moral choice, but because he physically has become conditioned away from violence or he will become ill. The movie argues that it is more important to cure violent crime than to worry about freewill.
Long and lengthy prison sentences, with their slow-anesthetical drip, apparently do not act sufficiently enough to deter prisoners away from violence…or cure them while they are incarcerated. It’s possible the government needs to develop its own A Clockwork Orange to be tested on first time violent offenders, in hopes of stopping further violence when they are released-decisively.
There are many calls for barbaric murderers such as Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky to be tortured and given “eye for eye” punishments, for which I can hardly disagree. The repulsive feelings that emerge upon reading the horrific account of their actions against the Petit Family is enough to cause any death-penalty opponent to reconsider their views…myself included. But I take it a step further, and realize the death-penalty is not enough, nor is life-in-prison.
We need something more.
The “ultra-violent” ones need aggressive intervention…possibly medical, and definitely Pavlovian. Demons who have already committed heinous atrocities resulting in death would receive torture for many years followed by the death penalty. It could be the only deterrent in which to ‘touch the psyche’ of an increasingly violent population, who just cannot seem to stop committing violent heinous crimes and murder.
The “eye for an eye” policy is something we may need. I realize how awkward it may be to implement at first, but in time it may perhaps be seen as the true mete of justice. Iran offered the victim of blinding-by-acid to pour acid into the eye of her assailant. The United States could develop eye-for-eye policies that put violent aggressors thru rigorous torturous regimens, loosely based on their crimes; so they really get the picture that if they act in such a way, hell will truly await, and not the prison bowling league.
I’ve seen prisoners awaiting transport back to the larger prisons in Anamosa and Oakdale, and they talked like they were part of a culture and family of prisoners. It was right-as-rain for them to be facing 3-8 more years in the State Pen. One poor soul had actually been released from being incarcerated for 5 years, only to have one night out on the town in an alcoholic, meth-fueled binge, to then be picked up by police officers for smashing a convenience store window-that very night. That was a deal breaker for his parole apparently, and he was heading back to prison-with a smile on his face. Now I’m not sure of what his original offence was, and I don’t suggest that every inmate is capable of heinous, barbaric violence and torture, such as was found in the Cheshire, Connecticut Home Invasion, but it does make me wonder if the system is too lenient and not effective at stopping these criminals from advancing further in their life of crime.
Methodical, prolonged, and positively miserable state sanctioned torture of convicted violent offenders, could be exactly what criminals need- to give them pause to reconsider…to save a future family, and the greater society. Not a moral choice perhaps, but a necessary one. The other non-violent criminals like burglars and thieves could receive more of the “medical” portion of the conditioning program. I’m sure in time science will cure this phenomena, but in the meantime, we need to do something we are technologically capable of doing right now. A Clockwork Orange is a form of conditioning, and I think we could seriously implement something similar.
Peter Lagios
