Sunday, May 04, 2008

Punishment and crime

For all his years of horrific mental and physical torture of his daughter and grandchildren, what is the maximum penalty that Josef Fritzl could face? Fifteen years. That's obscene. There should be no possibility that he could ever be free again. None. What would it be like for his victims to know he is due to be released?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

One excellent argument for the death penalty that you rarely hear is that we have life without parole only because we have the death penalty. If capital punishment were removed from the books, the same people who crusade against it would be using the same arguments against life without parole.

Anonymous said...

The 15 years relates to Fritzl faces charges of incest, abduction and imprisonment and could serve 15 years in jail if convicted.

I've read elsewhere that he faces murder charges because of the death of his daughter/granddaughter. I've no idea of the Austrian tariff for murder. I'd be surprised if it was much greater.

Your point remains.

Anonymous said...

"One excellent argument for the death penalty that you rarely hear is that we have life without parole only because we have the death penalty. "

That's more of a non-sequiter than an excellant argument.

Unknown said...

Obviously, you don't know what "non sequitur" means. And I thought the state of US education was bad.

Anonymous said...

It means that A does not logically follow from B.

It does not follow from not having the death penalty that we would not have a live without parole sentence. Therefore it is a non sequiter. Do you want to have another attempt, or how about you just shut up?

Also even if you think I am an imbecile, if you thing a sample size of one is enough to make a generalisation about a nation's education system, then you are being very silly. Perhaps its best you don't talk.