PureX
Well-known member
There seems to be a prevelent misconception among a lot of religious fundamentalists that the function of our criminal justice system is to punish people. They don't seem to understand that the function of our criminal justice system is to protect us from each other and from itself. We don't put people in prisom because we judged them "bad", we put them in prison because we believe that they've committed crimes against other people, and we need to stop them from doing this. I really wish more people would understand this, because I think our criminal justice system would work a lot better if we would leave off this stupid idea of vengeance against criminals. All this lust for vengeance does is make criminals of the rest of us.julie21 said:Turbo, I will answer your post...for clarification, I did not say that Governments should forgive criminals. Just leave the death penalty for God to administer as he sees fit on the Final day. Governments should use good judgement of removing from society those who are incapable of allowing others to live as they should be able to, peacefully and safely.
If we would understand that we're not locking people up to punish them, (that's God's job, not ours) but because they have shown that they can't be trusted to live among free people, I think we'd become a lot more effective at deciding when to let people back out, and when to NEVER let them back out. And at how to deal with them while they are incarcerated.