Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
Another look at minimum sentencing
It is my view that the challenge now is to begin to understand that minimum sentencing legislation is not the panacea for our crime problem. Rather, it is the certainty of punishment that is far more of a deterrent. Also, that sustained change will require substantial investment in the development of sound social policy on issues such as education, health and poverty alleviation.
I cannot agree more. But punishment is not only about deterrence. Punishment in criminal cases should also reflect, to some degree, the seriousness with which a society views different crimes. Punishment therefore has a strong symbolic function. When the criminal justice system fails to adequately punish even those few perpetrators convicted of rape and other violent crimes against women, it sends a signal that the system does not value women equally with men.
We will not stop rape by forcing judges to impose minimum sentences for rapists. But such laws will make judicial officers think again about their views on rape and will send a signal that as a society we abhor violence against women. Such a signal will be far more potent than the pious statements of politicians during the sixteen days of activism because it says we are prepared to put the power and the money of the state behind this effort to stop rape.
