The crime of forcible rape was once a capital offense. A review of military executions by the US Army in World War II reveals that murder associated with rape was the leading crime associated with hanging.
True rape is more of an assault on the spirit of the victim than a mere exercise in sexual gratification. Hanging of such rapists is the most effective therapy and prevents any ‘backsliding’ on the part of the offender.
There are sex crimes involving force and physical injury that demand similar punishment. These often involve young children. The most severe punishment is appropriate’
Then come the hyphenated variants that include spousal- and date-rape. These events can involve very boorish behavior or a change of mind at the last moment. Equating these modes of misbehavior with violent and forcible rape may tend to trivialize the true crime of rape.
We have real and proposed laws to deal with sex offenders and these include registration of lists available to the public. Put who is going to be on the list? Persons who have done acts of great violence should suffer social stigma if they are released into society. But what of those whose acts were ones of stupidity rather than malice?
Many states had sodomy statutes that criminalized acts that were commonly performed between married couples of opposite sex. Penalties could be severe but were seldom imposed. Prosecution was rather arbitrary and capricious. The Supreme Court struck down the Texas sodomy law after a gay couple was arrested for their private acts on the basis of a malicious and false complaint by a neighbor. The government should stay out of the bedroom as well as the gun cabinet.
Mere possession of material deemed to be pornographic was deemed to be a serious crime. Now the emphasis is on ‘child pornography’. One could well question the nature of people who found such material arousing and the book could be thrown at those who exploit children in the production of such material. But should mere possession of the material be deemed a felony? This can include simulated images where the offense is on the order of a thought crime. Yet we may see more severe penalties imposed on thought crimes than on truly violent acts.
An incident involving a teacher and a teen student gets a lot of coverage but who was really harmed by such an encounter? Does it warrant all the media attention?
The rationale for prosecuting pornography is that such material leads to sex crimes. Anecdotal evidence is ‘provided’ by revealing that some accused violent sex criminal had a collection of pornographic material. But this may be a confusion of cause and effect. A sexually-obsessed sociopath may find his first outlets to be accessible images. Certain issues of National Geographic once filled this role and along came Playboy and its imitators along with the old ‘skin flicks’ that evolved from 8 mm B&W images to DVDs. The people involved in the production of hard-core porn tend to be the scum of the earth but is such material a symptom of a sick society or a root cause?
Justice needs to be tempered with rationality. Some people do ‘need hanging’ but others are best left alone.
