I think we all have feelings of anger when we hear that a child has been molested or hurt by an adult. It's natural to even think, "Hey, I'd love to get my hands on that guy, I'd show him what it feels like to be abused". They'd probably have to hold me back with chains if anyone ever touched my kid. However, I AM glad that we have laws to prevent people from actually going through with taking matters into their own hands. Because it is natural to want to do so, yet the consequences of actually following through on those impulses can have great negative consequences,too. It's normal to want some sort of "cruel and unusual punishment" for those who have hurt the ones we love, or hurt someone who is defenseless. But I honestly think that laws against cruel & unusual punishment serve a great purpose; so that, in preventing us from indulging in cruelty motivated by revenge, we don't start behaving in much the same way as the original perpetrators-- like monsters. In addition, the laws against such types of punishment protect you, and your loved ones. I'd hate to see someone I loved, with all sorts of circumstances making it look as though he or she had perpetrated some horrible crime against a child, sitting in jail, waiting for a fair trial, and everyone thinking "he did it", and then the other inmates and jail personnel just having a field day torturing him, and then when he goes to trial it turns out he was innocent after all. Look at those on death row, actually hundreds of people now I think, who have actually been PROVEN innocent through DNA. What if your loved one was in prison, maybe actually innocent, and some sadistic guard was torturing him because he thought he had the right since he didn't like the crime your loved one had supposedly committed? What if that person in prison was you? Even if guilty, the person in prison is being punished by being in prison, that's the punishment. I don't think prison should be a positive experience, or that inmates should be coddled in any way, shape or form. But to decide that additional punishment, meted out as the other inmates or guards see fit, is appropriate---well, I don't believe that. I heard alot of positive feedback for Ellie N. when she shot that guy---now it looks as though it also may have had some great negative consequences for her child. I know that other factors probably played a part, not just the shooting of the molester, but who knows how differently things would have turned out if the kid's mom had just stood by him in a steadfast manner instead of killing someone, involving herself and her son in such a high-profile and extremely stressful situation, and then going away to prison for a long period of time?
