The compassionate thing would have been to kill him 2001 when he was convicted after like a decade of dicking around with trying to get him from Libya.
This falls back on the current idea that prison is for rehabilitation instead of punishment. There is no way in hell i would have even considered releasing him.
Its not an idea, its what its meant for. It is both a punishment and rehabilitation. The whole point of prison is to rehabilitate them and have the convicts become contributing members of society once they are released. If all it was is a punishment, you might as well cut off a hand and be done with it.
The problem nowadays is that people don't seem to realize the whole point of prison - rehabilitation. The problem is that the whole thing falls flat on one thing: human nature. It isn't in human nature to forgive and forget, it isn't in human nature to give second chances, nor is it to trust. It is in human nature to be egoistical fucktards that care about nothing but themselves, and that goes both ways, both on the normal citizens and the criminals. Once rehabilitation is done, the next step is to get them out in to society, get them a job so they can start earning money and get a place to live, which is where people like you come in. If you own a company and someone that's been in prison for, say, selling drugs, you're not likely to give him a job. If this ex-criminal can not get a job, he will likely fall back in to his old ways of selling drugs, or other illegal things to survive. And then he'll end up back in prison again.
And therein lies the problem, because of human nature, criminals can't become contributing members of society, and thus fall back in to their old ways, leading to the classic mindset of "Once a criminal, always a criminal", as - surprisingly (notrly) - you've found your proof which strengthens your prejudice.
What's worse is for rapists, as people in America have all the legal rights they need to find out if a rapist is living in their neighborhood, which means there is NO chance in hell for them to become contributing members of society when people refuse to accept them.
I admit, and this will be somewhat contradictory to what I've said earlier, I would likely not hire a murdered, therein lies the beauty of NOT having the death penalty. There's virtually no way for them to become accepted members of society again. Life itself IS the punishment for them. Ending it would just do them a favor.
Fair enough, but by releasing him considering the death he caused in a grand scale, him = 1person, him = killed hundreds... means nothing. Justice is not served by releasing a convicted murderer.
Nor is it by keeping him locked up for a few more week. You see, very few of you probably know the people he killed, so let me ask you, why does it matter for you, personally? Are you thinking "But he killed people!! He deserve the worst punishment possible!" Or are you thinking "Poor all the victim's family, the monster is walking free!"? See, he's already getting the worst punishment possible, in your eyes, as he's dying in either case, and likely pretty painfully as I doubt Libya has access to a lot of painkillers. As for the second one, his victims probably do not think "Thank god that monster is locked up!" every time they go to sleep. They only react negatively because they read in the papers that he's going free. Granted, to them it probably feels like a punch to the face that the man who killed their loved ones is going free. But in reality, it doesn't matter, he'll be gone soon anyway.
The reality is this: He's still a human, and like all humans, in my opinion, deserve a chance to be with their family before they die. Whether or not his victims didn't get to is a moot point. What's done is done, a lot of people don't get to spend time with their family when they die, car crash victims included.
Justice won't ever truly be served until humans learn to look beyond their own feelings and egoism, a skill the majority of the human population does not possess.
All that's left are hundreds of families that will never know the truth about how their loved ones died - but that's ok, because their killer was dying of cancer so we let him go home to live his life out in luxury, like all terminally ill killers/rapists will.
Case in point.
Why does this matter? whether he dies of cancer in prison or not, doesn't suddenly "enlight" all of the victim's loved ones the truth of how they died.
The truth is, they were murdered. That's the plain truth. Will him dieing in jail suddenly change that fact? Will that alter the past and suddenly make them die in their loved ones arms with pretty words and lots of tears?
The truth is, they probably wouldn't even care if he died in jail, they would feel the same way, they just think it sucks that he get to die out in the free. That's their hatred talking.
