by Simonne Liberty

Created on: August 17, 2009   Last Updated: August 22, 2009

We have become a country of "Vengeance." The Bible states, "Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." (Romans 12:19) We have become obsessed with punishing everyone for everything by locking them up in prison. We talk about other countries that do horrible things to innocent people, but we are no better. We judge as if we have the right to play God.

We already glorify the death penalty, knowing all along that thousands of people are wrongly convicted for crimes they never did. That make "us" the murderers. What have we become? We already have more people in our prisons than any other country in the world. We lock people up for years for offenses that didn't even harm anyone. We put people in prison for LIFE for committing a 3rd offense, even if it is only stealing a candy bar. Our prisons are full of people just like us. The Bible warns that we are not to judge, lest we be judged.

Murder, and sex crimes that involve violence, and brutality to children are horrendous crimes. But we do not take the time to investigate each crime for what it is. We label people as sex offenders from the worse crimes, to the ridiculous and exaggerated. In Dayton Ohio, a man who was drunk, was convicted of a sex crime for "raping a picnic table." How insane is that? If an 18 year old man has sex with his 16 year old girlfriend, he can be convicted of rape, and sent to prison for life. Is that JUSTICE?

How can this be compared to a brutal rape to a 3 year old child? There is no comparison, yet a sex crime is a sex crime, and we want to punish everyone the same. We have no common sense when we allow psychopathic prosecutors to use lies and exaggerations to lump every case into a category that has a million individual situations.

Men and even women who commit vicious crimes against children do need to be punished, no doubt about it, but it is the way we go about deciding how we punish these people. We ignore and forget that many of these people had endured the same sexual and physical abuse themselves as children. They carry out the things that were done to them. Society needs to focus on stopping these actions before they get out of control. These people never got the help they needed when they were growing up, so they continue the vicious cycle.

Society is too often quick to blame the victims, and impose cruel and vicious punishments on the offenders, instead of trying to help them get over the things they had to endure as children. They continue the vicious cycle because to them, they learned that it was "normal" to do. Every case is as different as the individual involved. Courts and the law do not deal with compassion or emotions. They don't look at the reasons why something occurred. All they work with is THE FACTS.

The problem with "facts," is that they are often based on lies, assumptions or exaggerations. Prosecutors are known to hold evidence that would clear an accused person of a crime. They also, accidently on purpose, lose evidence to lock up their case. Witnesses are not called that could help the defense. And children are coaxed into telling lies in order to win the prosecutors case.

We don't need more severe punishment. We need "MORE HONEST JUSTICE." Citizens should be allowed to investigate a case if they so desire. There is far too much corruption in our justice system. We put too much trust in our criminal justice system. Way to many innocent people are doing long sentences in prison because trigger happy DA's will do anything to win a conviction. They are immune from being punished themselves for all the lives they ruin.

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