Kidnapped girl found 18 years later

[Cloud]

Wow. that guy is really creepy and evil looking. I changed the channel rather than hear his voice. (shudder)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Fumigate the neighborhood.

[ZenGum]

Speaking of the neighbourhood, how the hell can a registered sex offender get away with maintaining a private prison in his backyard?
I heard on the news that in about 2005, a neighbour did phone concerns like this in to the cops. EvilPrick was already a registered sex offender by that time.
Cops came by, quick chat, did NOT look about ... result: nothing. WTF?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by DanaC

...but...@ Classic: to my mind, mercy and compassion aren't about what the recipients of them deserve; they're about what the giver is prepared to give. And for justice truly to be justice it needs both, else it's just vengeance. And I'd like to think most of us are better than that. Better than the murderers or the paedophiles or the rapists. Better than those who are devoid of compassion and who have no mercy.


[eta] that's not to say , by the way, that I see no place in life for vengeance. I just don't think its place is in our justice system. As individuals, if hurt we may well want vengeance. But I want my society to be a just one, not a vengeful one. I want a justice system that tempers its judgements with mercy and compassion, even if I as an individual might prefer vengeance.

You wimpy Brit! In America, we have no compassion. The guy did what he did because he could, and had no compassion for an eleven year old girl. He was bigger and stronger, so he did what he wanted to do. Now that we, as a society, have captured him, the collective we, as the bigger and stronger entity, get to do whatever we want to do to him. Torture, death, the sky is the limit! It's a shame that the first person on the scene didn't just shoot him, or better yet, the girl didn't shoot him at the time of her abduction. And his wife.

The girl now has to pull herself up by her own bootstraps. No welfare or healthcare for her or her's. She'll have to get a job and pay for her own housing and healthcare, and maybe she should immediately get her own gun so that this kind of thing can't happen to her again.

What would be better than prison or execution would be to round up all the bad people in the world and quarantine them somewhere - I know, put them all on Manhatten Island![/ugly conservative American]

[DanaC]

*laughs* I call bullshit. I genuinely believe that Americans are some of the most compassionate people on the planet: as individuals. One glance at the third world will show that American teenagers flock in their thousands to help villages build wells, to help save orangutans in the rainforest, and in their own country manning soup kitchens and running thrift sales for charity.

I think most people, even if they believe in capital punishment, even if they believe very strongly that the perpetrator of terrible crimes deserves to be tortured and killed: if sat in a room with an individual who has done these things, listening to them tell their tale of what took them down that path: whatever their belief in what constitutes justice, would hear that tale with empathy and compassion. It is the human condition. We are wired for empathy. That's why we find psychopaths and sociopaths so damned disturbing and frightening. They are alien to us. They have no empathy and compassion and that is unlike the rest of us.

[Pie]

But. . . society has to protect itself. At some level, that's its basic function. Removing known threats (either through incarceration or state-sanctioned murder) is part of that self-preservation ethic.

On what occasions do we allow empathy for a dangerous individual to come before societal good? That's the critical question.


Who says liberals can't be nuanced?

[depmats]

Originally Posted by morethanpretty

Kidnappers, abusers, drunk drivers, ect: all have no place in civilized society, and neither does torture.

Softy. Personally I wouldn't shed a tear while watching that piece of shit get beat to death. or slowly bled to death. or any other method you can think of.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Stoning.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Stoning.

I don't think getting him stoned is much of a punishment.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Sure it is, if you don't give him anything to drink when he gets the drys, or any food when he gets the munchies.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Pie

But. . . society has to protect itself. At some level, that's its basic function. Removing known threats (either through incarceration or state-sanctioned murder) is part of that self-preservation ethic.

I agree. Which I why I am in favour of incarcerating those who are a continued danger.

On what occasions do we allow empathy for a dangerous individual to come before societal good? That's the critical question.

We don't at any point allow empathy to come before societal good. But nor should we allow our need to protect ourselves to rob us of our empathy. There is no good reason, in my mind, to act without mercy even to those who have none themselves. Mercy can come in many forms. It doesn't mean allowing dangerous predators the freedom to prey.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Sure it is, if you don't give him anything to drink when he gets the drys, or any food when he gets the munchies.

Good God man, where is your humanity?!

[ZenGum]

Bruce you sadistic bastard!

Although, that could be some REAL enhanced interrogation.

(1) Spliff up.
(2) So, Mr Achmed Abdul, you see the mars bar and banana smoothie behind the glass window? While you're staring at those, let's just chat about where Osama likes to hang out, shall we.

[Shawnee123]

I think it would work! You guys are all geniuses!

[joelnwil]

Well here is some more detail:

http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_13233303

"Meanwhile those, like Christenson who came into contact with Garridos during the past year, are reporting his increasingly bizarre behavior. Once, both the Garridos came into Christenson's office at the recycling center, shut the door and asked for money to fund a new bathroom and backyard church.

"He started preaching and doing all this stuff. He was telling me about his voices. And then he said, 'You know I've been to prison, and I don't masturbate anymore.' Out of the blue," she said. "Then he started crying, and she was crying. I was looking at them — what is this about? I got freaked out."

Karunaratne also recalled increasingly strange behavior. When he picked up his orders at the Garridos' house, Garrido would often hop in Karunaratne's car, Bible in hand, trying to preach to him. Once Garrido played him a CD of religious country-rock songs — recorded, he said, in a soundproofed backyard studio.

To some, Garrido announced plans to give up the printing business and preach full time. Last year, he launched a company, God's Desire. His blog, called Voices Revealed, describes a fascination with mind control and the ability to hear the voices in people's heads.

"The Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world," he wrote."

And

"Reports show that Garrido managed to somehow slip through the cracks of the legal system. In 1977, he was sentenced to 50 years for a kidnapping conviction and given a life sentence for a rape conviction, but served only 10 years in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., and was granted parole in 1988. Less than three years later, he allegedly kidnapped Dugard.

Garrido had tried to convince a jury that his pot and LSD use were to blame for a 1976 rape in Reno, and he told the victim she was at fault because of her good looks, according to news accounts. A retired Reno police detective Dan DeMaranville, 74, told The Associated Press that a cooperative Garrido came across as intelligent and educated during his interviews with him, despite heavy drug use that started in 1968."

I am so tired of reading about crimes committed by somebody who should never have been let out of jail in the first place. A person in my neighborhood was killed by a guy who had been convicted of armed robbery, and had served only a token sentence.

[richlevy]

Decriminalize marijuana and free up prison cells for people we need to incarcerate. I would happily pay $20-30K a year to keep this guy locked up. I really don't care about any idiot caught with a few ounces of pot.