lirazel | a rant. about the lack of justice in the world

Dear state of Nebraska,

HOW THE HELL CAN "WILLFUL CRUELTY TO CHILD-POSSIBLE INJURY OR DEATH" BE A MISDEMEANOR? SOME TRAFFIC OFFENSES ARE A MISDEMEANOR! UNDERAGE DRINKING IS A MISDEMEANOR! BREAKING THE LEASH LAW IS A MISDEMEANOR! SOMEONE HURTING THEIR CHILD SHOULD NOT BE A DAMN MISDEMEANOR!

I just do not understand how our criminal justice system works. It's so deeply broken. In almost every state, assault on a stranger carries stronger penalties than beating your spouse or child. WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THAT THINKING? I just...I know it's got to be a holdover from the days when a man's wife and children were his (lawful) property and you weren't supposed to interfere into someone else's home. But dammit, we are no longer living in that time. Domestic violence should be taken SERIOUSLY.

Not to mention sexual abuse/rape. Especially of children. I think there should be a one-strike law. Seriously. Lock someone up forever if they sexually abuse or rape a child. The end. Or create some kind of community somewhere in the middle of nowhere in like Alaska or the southwestern desert where when child molesters have served their time they can have a "normal" life in the sense of having a job and living in their own home and going bowling or whatever but without any children in the community for them to hurt. There has been almost no success in "curing" people of pedophilia and we have to protect our children. I'm not usually a "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" kind of person, but in this one area, I absolutely am. (My recent reading on Warren Jeffs and the FLDS probably spurs a lot of this thinking—there were cases of forty or fifty year old men “marrying” twelve and thirteen year old girls and then getting five years in prison. FIVE YEARS. YOU CAN GET MORE THAN THAT FOR A POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA CHARGE.)

If you rape someone, you should be in jail for a very long time. Same if you murder or otherwise violently attack someone. Violent crimes are a legitimate reason to lock someone up. But other than that, prison sentences should be short and other modes of punishment/rehabilitation should be used. (Especially if you’re not going to lock up anyone for white collar wide-scale financial fraud of the type that ran our economy into the ground but you are going to lock up a kid who has a joint in his pocket.)

Marijuana should be completely decriminalized and non-violent drug offenses of other types should have VERY short confinement sentencing (honestly, I think it would be great if we went the route of the Netherlands and decriminalized everything and had government rehabilitation centers for drug addicts, but that will never, ever happen). Prostitution should also be decriminalized--keep solicitation as a crime if you want to, but when the average age for a "woman" entering the sex trade in this country is THIRTEEN YEARS OLD and everyone knows that prostitution is the last resort of desperate people, those people should not be treated as criminals for doing what they have to to survive, especially since it makes it nearly impossible for them to escape that life later if they want to—who’s going to hire someone with a sexual offense conviction on their record? (I actually have really complicated feelings about prostitution morally, but that is another post.)

Also we absolutely have to do away with the death penalty in this country. The question of whether capital punishment is ever acceptable isn’t even on the table (I happen to think reasonable people can disagree on this subject, though I know many disagree). It doesn’t matter whether it’s morally acceptable. The way in which it’s currently used—the reality we’re living in—is a study in perpetuated injustice. It’s hopelessly racist—look at the stats of rates of capital punishment for a black person killing a white person versus a white person killing a black person sometime and prepare to throw up. And we also KNOW FOR A FACT that we have executed many innocent people in this country. This is not acceptable. Period. We have to outlaw this.

None of this will happen. There are too many people invested in keeping the status quo. Pharmaceutical companies are completely dedicated to keeping marijuana illegal so that people can’t treat their pain through its use instead of through their costly drugs. People who flat-out do not care about poor women are never going to decriminalize prostitution. And in a world where the first reaction to a rape claim is ALWAYS figuring out a way to blame it on the victim, it will never be prosecuted the way it should be (I cannot even bring myself to think about the recent case with the girl who committed suicide after being raped by her teacher and he got a slap on the wrist because the judge blamed HER. AT FOURTEEN). On top of that, new studies show that when white people find out that the criminal justice system (especially the death penalty) is racist against black people, they become MORE likely to support it. Our world is hopelessly, hopelessly screwed up. There is so much we need to change. But the people in charge are invested in the system, in the pockets of lobbyists and people who make donations to their reelection campaigns. Honestly, sometimes I feel like giving up completely on a search for justice. It seems like a Sisyphean task.

My job has made me trust the criminal justice system LESS because I’ve seen how it actually works. That is not the way a free people should live. Not that the US is really the bastion for virtue and freedom that we pretend to be—between drone strikes and consistently pissing on the concept of Tribal sovereignty in this country, we’re basically a bunch of bullies who just so happen to have the biggest stick to beat down the little guys with.

Ugh. I’m so sick of the world.

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Lauren, GOD, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I NEEDED THIS POST. I have been stewing in silent rage about these very issues recently (esp with that judgment with the teacher you were talking about, and there was an English judgment of the same kind just recently where the PROSECUTOR said that the underage girl ~led the man on and the judge basically agreed. If that is the state of the Prosecution, the defence wouldn't even need a case.) Also, I was watching Coffee Prince and looked up the lead actor to see what else he'd done and came across this movie called Silenced, which was based on a real incident of sexual abuse of children in a deaf&dumb school, where the teachers, after convictions, got a year of probation or so, and god, it was a brilliant movie. It was so realistic and brutal and I was so utterly sickened by it. As apparently was all of South Korea, and the public outrage got so pronounced that the case was reopened (and how angry does it make me that in all of these cases, justice is almost always contingent on the media or the public picking it up, like, wtf do the legal systems exist for, then?) and a bill abolishing the statute of limitation on sexual abuse of minors and people with disabilities was passed. But that there are probably thousands of cases like this which never really see the light of the day.

As a student of law, I think seeing the rampant injustice everyday, in all spheres of existence, even the ones that EXIST to provide justice makes you realize how truly awful people can be. I am definitely in agreement with you on almost all the issues including the punishment for child molesters and rapists as well as the death penalty (till the justice system is absolutely free of all possible errors, it shouldn't even be a possibility, and the justice system will NEVER be free of all possible errors because it's not a simple mathematical equation. It's governed by people and their subjectivity, contingent on often arbitrary criteria where cases with almost identical facts give different results.) Prostitution, I find a very very complex problem, and I think I should read more about places where it's legal to figure out whether it will lead to betterment for the women, or will make trafficking easier, before forming any opinion.

THANK YOU FOR THIS <3

You're so welcome! Spending my day looking through criminal records, I've become really sensitive to what sentencing people get. Like, on my end, I have no way of knowing if the person did or did not do what they were accused of, but I DO get to see how they're punished, and the system is completely backwards. Simple things like marijuana possession get years (and have sent MILLIONS of black men to prison, many of those prisons run by for-profit companies, where their labor is used to make even more profits for the companies), heck, I've seen people get six months jail on their first "driving without a license conviction," but rape carries laughable penalties and even murder often doesn't get more than ten years. It's so supremely messed up.

I haven't heard of that movie! I'm now torn on whether I want to watch it or not. I love Gong Yoo and it sounds like it was brilliantly done, but sometimes it's just too much, you know?

and how angry does it make me that in all of these cases, justice is almost always contingent on the media or the public picking it up, like, wtf do the legal systems exist for, then?

SERIOUSLY. Trayvon Martin?

and a bill abolishing the statute of limitation on sexual abuse of minors and people with disabilities was passed

I wish such a bill would pass here. I know there are reasons for having a statute of limitations, but they don't seem (to me) to outweigh the benefits of NOT having one. But I'm not in the law profession, so...

makes you realize how truly awful people can be

Amen.

till the justice system is absolutely free of all possible errors, it shouldn't even be a possibility, and the justice system will NEVER be free of all possible errors because it's not a simple mathematical equation. It's governed by people and their subjectivity, contingent on often arbitrary criteria where cases with almost identical facts give different results.

I could not agree more. A lot of people are completely against any kind of capital punishment ever, and I respect that. I'm not sure where I stand on the issue myself. But even if you're for it in theory, anyone with any sense of justice should be horrified by the way it's applied.

If there's DNA evidence AND you caught the person on tape OR it happened in front of multiple people or something, I could understand pursuing capital punishment. But only AFTER we ensure that racial profiling and other biases don't enter the court...and we can't do that. So it has to be taken off the table.

Prostitution, I find a very very complex problem, and I think I should read more about places where it's legal to figure out whether it will lead to betterment for the women, or will make trafficking easier, before forming any opinion.

I totally agree with you and I definitely respect that. My own solution would be to decriminalize prostitution but make soliciting a prostitute or pimping a felony. That would be a more effective way to fight it, I think. But you're right that it's an incredibly complex problem. I just hate that I know of women (we have an extraordinary women's program here in town that works with former sex workers/addicts/single moms/homeless women/etc. so I've heard lots of stories) who were convicted of prostitution at like eighteen after having been pimped out by grown men for several years, and then that conviction is on their record and when they try to go get another kind of job, they have a difficult time doing it.

If we don't decriminalize it, we should at the very least make it easy for women who are wanting to move out of that life to be able to petition to have the conviction sealed so that it's not on their record. With emphasis on the "easy" part--not having to wait for five years for the paperwork to go through and a judge to see them. Have it expedited. That would help a lot. But you're absolutely right that prostitution is a HUGELY complex issue, and even if we knew that every single woman (or queer or trans* man) who was a sex worker had chosen that freely among vast numbers of other options, I would still have issues with it (the fundamental power difference exhibited by the fact that sex is a commodity bought by men from women/girls/queer men/queer boys/trans* people who are almost always homeless/addicts/single mothers/etc. makes it a giant problem. If I could live in a world where men and women bought sex in equal numbers from sex workers who were paid fairly, treated well, and had chosen that job from many other options, I could be okay with it, even if I had personal moral issues with. But we are nowhere close to that world. Nowhere close.)

Anyway, I love you for going into law. It's so important, and every place in the world needs more good people joining the criminal justice system. You can make such a difference, even if it's on a small scale, I know it.

FOREVER SICK OF THE WORLD. Praise this rant. Always, always rant about injustice, dude.

Marijuana should be completely decriminalized and non-violent drug offenses of other types should have VERY short confinement sentencing (honestly, I think it would be great if we went the route of the Netherlands and decriminalized everything and had government rehabilitation centers for drug addicts, but that will never, ever happen).
And I cry and my tears are also blood.

p.s. I saw your post about religion and social woes and want to give advice but feel like it is totally out of my area (I am not religious at all, although the rest of my family are), so will have to make do with wishing you good luck?? Whatever you decide to do I hope it brings you minimal strife!

Not to mention sexual abuse/rape. Especially of children. I think there should be a one-strike law. Seriously. Lock someone up forever if they sexually abuse or rape a child. The end. Or create some kind of community somewhere in the middle of nowhere in like Alaska or the southwestern desert where when child molesters have served their time they can have a "normal" life in the sense of having a job and living in their own home and going bowling or whatever but without any children in the community for them to hurt. There has been almost no success in "curing" people of pedophilia and we have to protect our children. I'm not usually a "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" kind of person, but in this one area, I absolutely am.
tearing up

i love you a lot a lot a lot

(sorry i wish i could do words but i'm afraid it'll overspill)

Edited 2013-09-07 03:49 (UTC)

I want to print this off and frame it basically.

Agree with everything here. I wrote a long long comment and then realized basically I was taking a lot of words just to say I agree. So I agree.

a rant. about the lack of justice in the world

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