The Rude Pundit: "Deserves" Has Nothing to Do With Rape

[dr.strangelove]

18. Rape as "retribution"

Most scholars evaluate criminal law as having one or more of the following purposes: Retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation and isolation for the protection of society. The last three are fairly universally accepted, but the first one garners a lot of debate. If we assume for a moment that Retribution is a valid purpose for criminal law (and I do not agree with this, but am assuming it for the purpose of my thought herein) is rape ever a valid retribution. For me, I think rape is probably the worst thing a human being can do to another, even worse than murder. But I am in the minority on that view. Most agree that murder is worse than rape. But the US allows state sanctioned murder for certain crimes. While I am opposed to state sanctioned murder, I wonder how the people would feel about state sanctioned rape. Why not sentence someone to 40 rapes over the course of 6 months for criminal activity. Obviously it is lunacy, but I find if you are indicating that someone can "deserve" rape, can the government use it as a sanctioned criminal punishment. Instead of prison for stealing, order sexual assaults on a person to punish them. The idea is as crazy to me as suggesting a person can "deserve" to be raped. Anyway, it has been a long day and I am sorry this was not put an eloquently as I would have liked, but I hope you get my point.