Hard Questions

I came across this article today about an inmate who drowned his cellmate in their toilet. The murderer was obviously re-arrested and will be charged again. He is already in prison for quite a long sentence for a murder that he committed when he was 17.

This is where someone like me - someone who generally abides by the Consistent Life Ethic - runs into the difficult questions. Every philosophical stance has these kind of questions. There are times when a viewpoint or belief system is very clear. It's easily applicable and there's little disagreement among adherents and the general public alike.

Child molestation, for example.

Oh, yes... I forgot to mention that the cellmate that was killed was an egregious child molester, convicted of lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under 12.

I made the mistake of reading the comments on the Kron 4 facebook page. Some highlights:

 - They should make public his number so people can put money in his books

- Should give this man time off of his sentence not rearrest him on new charges.

- RESPECT to a real man. My thoughts are with his family while they must see and hear of their loved one being slandered for making the world a better place. 

I'm frankly appalled.

But I'm also conflicted, although not with regard to the situation in the cell. The death penalty is a hard topic and child molestation is a sick crime. But here's the thing. The child molester was given a life sentence. Theoretically (yes, I know) he cannot commit his same crime again. He could perform other sex-related crimes, but it's probably unlikely since pedophiles target vulnerable children. The fact that the others in the prison are his peers, rather than young people unable to defend themselves, lowers the risk of this. In my view, with my grasp of the consistent life ethic, this child molester deserves to live.

In the least, he does not deserve to be killed by an individual. The death penalty is something that is governed because that is supposed to make it something that has accountability. Of course, I understand that this isn't what actually happens, and this is a huge part of why I'm opposed to it. I'm also opposed because I think that everyone should be given an opportunity for redemption. I won't go into here how flawed our prison system is to actually deliver that opportunity, but for the sake of time, I'll assume that being alive in itself gives you more opportunity toward redemption than being dead.

So, I believe that both the 17-year-old murderer and the child molester deserve to have their chance. They deserve to be in a place that will protect society from their evils, while simultaneously protecting their right to life. This is the ideal that jail is built on, however messed up our implementation actually is.

But now that the murderer has killed again, I start to see the hard question.

When we've put a person in a place that protects others from their dangerous crimes and that person commits the same dangerous crime again, what is left for this situation? Solitary confinement, perhaps. Some would say that this is a form of torture.

So, is it better to die than to be alive and face a slow, permanent torture? Is it right to allow this man to live until he kills a jail guard? Then what?

Hard questions.

Pin It