Reflections on violent public executions -- Dubai case of the rapist of what they say was a 5-year-old.

Reflections on violent public executions.

1  After a human nature studies group member posts this May 04 2018:

            👆👆👆Quick Justice: 5 year old was raped in Dubai... Within 15 minutes of this rape incident, the judiciary ordered the police to shoot the rapist in public view...

and I asked:

            Is there a good link of that? Can we verify that?

the OP posted a video of the botched execution. No date for the video.



2  My first reply (renumbered):

Several preliminary considerations of the many we could write about:

2.1 Such a careless executor (the rapist keeps moving after two bullets to the head and needs more than four to be sure he is dead) should be thoroughly censured --- I hope that he loses his position in the local militia or police force or whatever, and his bosses' heads roll too (figuratively, of course).

2.2  It is a big risk that executions are carried on public, and even more risky with firearms. What if some bystander is accidentally wounded? Killed?

Besides the immediate cost of stray bullets, public morality is damaged in the process. As a consecuence of the little cost of violence against persons, see the reaction of the family or whatever are the women that try to desecrate the criminal's body (we don't know if they really intend to do that or just want to be seen that indignant, but knowing that the militia/police won't let them touch the rapist).

2.3  We don't know why (but this is of interest for this group, and this is what we are here to talk about), but this level of violence when responding to crimes is linked to the big violence of the crimes.

2.3.1  First of all, it is almost unheard of in most of the population of OECD countries the rape of 5-year-olds. As a proxy indicator for those rapes we can use marriage with underage girls. Of course, being underage is something that varies from country to country, but let's leave it at that, underage. Check this work (Child Marriage in the United States: How Common Is the Practice, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/04/child-marriage-in-united-states-how.html, underage is less than 18 yo in this study):

Approximately 6.2 of every 1,000 children surveyed had ever been married. [Prevalence] was especially high among children of American Indian or Chinese descent (10.3 and 14.2, respectively [that is, about double the average]). Immigrant children were more likely than U.S.‐born children to have been married; prevalence among children from Mexico, Central America and the Middle East was 2–4 times that of children born in the United States.

For those who may think that it is not such a bad idea to be married so young, is also of interest is the prevalence of violence in those marriages: Association between adolescent marriage and marital violence among young adult women in India. Anita Raj et al. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/05/from-2010-association-between.html.

[All papers have big limitations, but even so, they are what we got to study and understand the issues.]


2.3.2  Relevant to this case, the brutality of executions (and the criminal justice system) is correlated (why?) with crime brutality. Any possible reasons I think of are not convincing at all.

Does anyone have papers about this relation of system brutality and criminal's brutal behavior?


2.4  I understand the OP's uneasiness with how "delicately" are going downhill things in OECD countries. Due to abhorrence of violence, more and more things that are perfectly natural and that lots of species do, like eating meat, are getting more and more difficult to understand and, as a consequence, there is a shaming of those who eat meat, and are proposals to ban meat and related activities, and sometimes terrorism against slaughterhouses or the industry more generally. Also, there is a strengthening opinion current to give to other species legal rights beyond not being cruelly handled. I can imagine how discomforting all this is for persons everywhere, but I think we should strive to have both things: less cruel behavior with animals and at the same time keeping for humans the right to behave like many other species do when eating.

What this means for the discussion is, IMHO, that we must not use fear of going downhill as those stupid Western societies (as one can argue) to keep doing unprofessional killings like the one in the video. We should not use the extremes of those opposing the right to have meat or other customs to justify violent, botched executions.

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