Getting Tough on Crime: When Will We Learn?

I was recently sent an invitation on Facebook to support a cause. The cause was to demand that people convicted of molesting children be given mandatory sentences of life in prison, and for people convicted of killing children to be sentenced to death. The request to join this cause reminded me of several debates on bulletin boards about similar topics.

I’m not sure that anyone supports child molestation except, possibly, child molesters. However, what to do to them always seemed to propel into what I call "bar talk" through which, it seemed, whoever could come up with the cruelest punishment must certainly have the largest penis. There were proposals ranging from dismemberment all the way to stoning them to death.