My cousin who is a mental health nurse thinks sex offenders should be executed

[NaturalBornNEET]

Specifically with the guillotine. I don't really have an opinion on the matter, just think it's interesting to know that a mental health industry worker thinks such a way.

To add, she was also the person to laugh at me years ago when I opened up about my sexual harassment experience and even got her bf to laugh at me too.

 

[Cosmophobic]

Wow...just wow. Imagine if someone opened up to her about POCD or something. Absolute disaster.

Sorry you had to deal with that reaction to opening up about something so sensitive too. It's anecdotes like this that makes me wary of mental health services.

 

[waqs]

most of the time the abuse is happening by someone close to the abused (family, friends, ect...). if the death penalty was enacted for all sex offenders it would just make victims less likely to come out for fear that the person that is close to them will die, and abusers have more of a way to guilt trip the abused into staying silent.

im sorry you were laughed at over something so horrible too, no one should ever have to go through sexual harassment let alone be mocked for it.

 

[Kurwenal]

I'm so sorry for the callous and vile way your cousin treated you when being vulnerable about what happened to you. No family member should be so heartless. No mental health worker should be so heartless. No human should be so heartless. Yet it just goes on and on, and families, mental health "professionals" and supposed humans continue to perpetuate wrong unto those who have already been so innately wronged. I'm sorry.

I don't know how I feel about any death penalty for any crime. I don't really know how I feel about most things, admittedly, but I particularly ruminate often enough on how I personally would "fix" the justice system. I never come to any actual conclusion. One day I might agree, "Off with their heads!", another day I might think that the ongoing punishment of life imprisonment is more fitting. What I find hardest are the cycles that begin early, and then snowball. This is not related to sexual offences, which are particularly vile, but I do think a lot about teens who make a single poor judgement, maybe throwing stones at a passing car, say. Then the twisted justice system ends up pushing them deeper and deeper, and their offences grow and become worse, and one silly mistake that a teenager makes ends with a lifetime of waste. I wish we could fix that. Some people are probably what would be considered 'bad' to begin with, and that cycle can't be broken. But I do earnestly believe that some people just make an adolescent mistake that follows them forever.

Sexual offences, though, are one of the worst things people can do to other people, though. They are torturing another human, and that needs to be punished. I just don't know what I think is the most appropriate punishment. What @waqs had to say was very insightful, too. If whatever punishment is applied in some way harms the victim further, that's just cruelty beyond belief.

 

[Dejected 55]

Also, "sex offender" has a wide range of definitions currently.

You can be on the sex offender registry for peeing in a public park where there may be children nearby... even if no child saw you and you were trying to be discrete but someone caught you. That offense is nowhere near the level of someone who actually abuses children or the rapists of adults either.

There's no defense someone can make to sexually abusing a child, period. Not even close.

But for adults... there is a gray area there too. If you and your partner are drunk, you could still be found guilty because the other person didn't consent even if you were in the same state of inability to consent yourself. But that's not the same as willfully abusing someone who is saying "NO" repeatedly and fighting (or not fighting, fighting isn't a requirement because you could be a victim afraid you'll die if you fight).

The point is... IF you tell me you have an abuser of children or a serial abuser of adults... and you know this, can prove it... I honestly don't care how that person gets punished. Life in prison, death penalty. I'm not a fan of death penalty in general, but for some cases I don't see how you possibly can be redeemed.

But for a single case of abusing another adult... I think it has to be weighed. And I'm not saying "blame the victim" or not to listen to the victim... I'm just saying I don't quite so easily jump to "must execute now" to that situation.

 

[NaturalBornNEET]

Also, "sex offender" has a wide range of definitions currently.

You can be on the sex offender registry for peeing in a public park where there may be children nearby... even if no child saw you and you were trying to be discrete but someone caught you. That offense is nowhere near the level of someone who actually abuses children or the rapists of adults either.

There's no defense someone can make to sexually abusing a child, period. Not even close.

But for adults... there is a gray area there too. If you and your partner are drunk, you could still be found guilty because the other person didn't consent even if you were in the same state of inability to consent yourself. But that's not the same as willfully abusing someone who is saying "NO" repeatedly and fighting (or not fighting, fighting isn't a requirement because you could be a victim afraid you'll die if you fight).

The point is... IF you tell me you have an abuser of children or a serial abuser of adults... and you know this, can prove it... I honestly don't care how that person gets punished. Life in prison, death penalty. I'm not a fan of death penalty in general, but for some cases I don't see how you possibly can be redeemed.

But for a single case of abusing another adult... I think it has to be weighed. And I'm not saying "blame the victim" or not to listen to the victim... I'm just saying I don't quite so easily jump to "must execute now" to that situation.

So much focus is just put on the after-the-fact outcome and the punishment, not enough focus on eliminating sexual abuse and even just all abuse and exploitation as a phenomenon. And for good reason, no one knows how yet. So it's much easier to focus on smaller solutions and salves like preventative containment and retribution.

But one things obvious, punishing abusers after the fact of their abuse does not negate the abuse. And it won't act as a reliable deterrent for people to abuse in the first place. There's also the point @waqs made which never even crossed my mind.

I'm so sorry for the callous and vile way your cousin treated you when being vulnerable about what happened to you. No family member should be so heartless. No mental health worker should be so heartless. No human should be so heartless. Yet it just goes on and on, and families, mental health "professionals" and supposed humans continue to perpetuate wrong unto those who have already been so innately wronged. I'm sorry.

I don't know how I feel about any death penalty for any crime. I don't really know how I feel about most things, admittedly, but I particularly ruminate often enough on how I personally would "fix" the justice system. I never come to any actual conclusion. One day I might agree, "Off with their heads!", another day I might think that the ongoing punishment of life imprisonment is more fitting. What I find hardest are the cycles that begin early, and then snowball. This is not related to sexual offences, which are particularly vile, but I do think a lot about teens who make a single poor judgement, maybe throwing stones at a passing car, say. Then the twisted justice system ends up pushing them deeper and deeper, and their offences grow and become worse, and one silly mistake that a teenager makes ends with a lifetime of waste. I wish we could fix that. Some people are probably what would be considered 'bad' to begin with, and that cycle can't be broken. But I do earnestly believe that some people just make an adolescent mistake that follows them forever.

Sexual offences, though, are one of the worst things people can do to other people, though. They are torturing another human, and that needs to be punished. I just don't know what I think is the most appropriate punishment. What @waqs had to say was very insightful, too. If whatever punishment is applied in some way harms the victim further, that's just cruelty beyond belief.

my main reason for the post was just to brood over the fact that even mental health workers can be moral judges, it should be obvious but it's something I like to bury, otherwise I would never be able to even speak to a therapist. Abuse is the most understandable thing to be judgmental about, but there's nothing stopping them from crossing the line and judging everything they think is "wrong" about a person, even if they're a patient of yours. And there's gonna be ways that that negative judgement manifests in how they treat a patient even if they don't mention it.

Thank you for your sympathy, my cousin wasn't a mental health nurse at that point tho, she was quite a bit younger so I hope she'd be more mature by now.