Forget jail - strip 'em and whip 'em!
February 25th 2009 02:35
I am sure many have jested at some time or another of how they would like to push an annoying cyclist from their bike. I admit I have been guilty of such a ‘cartoon-ish’ fantasy in the past. But for me, as for most decent people, that is where it ends.
These days however, I do not find humour in such ideas, as the reports of deranged motorists actually acting on such notions brings the horrific reality hammering home.
On Monday afternoon, while cycling from Melbourne to Geelong down the Princes Hwy, a Swiss tourist was knocked from his bike by the impact of a stubby full of beer that was hurled at his head.
The man’s face was shattered in this vicious cowardly attack, and he has been told by surgeons that his head will take a year to fully recover from the damage.
Read Geelong Advertiser Story here.
This really makes my blood boil and sickens my stomach. Although police have yet to find the assailant, you can pretty safely assume - from the action itself and the weapon of choice - that it was carried out by a low-life yobbo with a penchant for alcohol.
When, and if, this scumbag is finally caught, what a sad little slap on the wrist this bastard will no doubt receive from our flaccid judicial system.
What good is jail? I know many would disagree, but I find the whole concept similar to that of sweeping dirt under a rug.
If the thug is merely an idiotic teenager, with the kind of weak-assed parents so common by today’s parenting trends. Then by sending the little shit to jail is going to do nothing more than teach him how to survive in a community filled with harder more advanced scumbags.
He will be released back into society more misguided and tougher, with more low-life contacts and an even bigger chip on his shoulder than before he went in.
Alternatively, if he is already a punk, or punk-on-the-rise, all too often I’ve heard such degenerates brag that they would be fine in jail, their established connections with people inside, will see to them serving ‘cruisey-time’.
Either way, what consolation does that offer the community at large when odds are this person will emerge from prison worse than he went in?
I would like to see the convicted tied in the Town Square, stripped and lashed with a barbed whip! Publicly punished for their acts of cruelty upon a fellow human in a show of community intolerance for such offences. And to serve as a ‘real’ warning for those who may consider following suite.
He should then be sentenced to an appropriate length of community-service, working among people who have suffered injuries at the hands violent assaults.
In hope that a dose of shocking confrontation with the vulnerability of the human body, flesh torn from bone, blood and guts horror, and the longer-term suffering - caused from a moment of rage or inconsiderate moronic stupidity – will rehabilitate him.
If he then offends again – lock him up and throw away the key! No parole, no good behaviour. Life!
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