I wasn't ripping on you per se, your posts are always very good, and you did get specific here. Plus I never really disagreed with anything you said.
I do like the idea of opened sentencing in many cases and I do believe that child sex crimes should be punished harder than they are.
As I mentioned earlier I do believe more emphasis should be put on serving society or the victim where possible than jail time. Jail time should be used, as you mentioned, mostly to keep society safe. It's expensive as a punishment, and doesn't often work as a deterrant. Obviously some time behind bars is often needed and in serious cases like this I have no problem with even a little more, but if there are other ways to keep society safe, why not look into those?
I also think more emphasis should be put on 'paying the debt to society or to the victim'. People often confuse the jail time with this. Jail time does not serve the community, it takes away from it. If something is worked in where the community is actually served, I'd be all for that. And if something is worked in where the victim is compensated or somehow made ammend by the criminal all the better. Obviously this gets harder to do the more violent the case, but is not always impossible, even in the worst cases.
To sum up my point I guess, if people want to overhaul the system that's fine with me, but I hope it focuses on more thanjust time served and fines. I hope it takes into account the whole gamut of the problem.
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