What is justice?
Cop shows portray justice as catching the "bad guy" and locking them up. The investigations and car chases and shootouts are incredibly entertaining. The incarceration is often satisfying. But it is insufficient, and in real life things are often much more complex than the narratives portrayed in TV shows, or even in news reports of real events.
Justice is not punishment, either. When we see someone do vicious things like rape children, it's easy to turn to and justify further violence. I hate prisons, but some people do need to be segregated from society. The child rapist shouldn't be free to commit more violence. But if the goal is to reduce violence, we should not be seeking it either.
The purpose of imprisoning them ought not be to hurt them, nor to take out our rage upon them. If we want to build a better world, where people are treated with dignity and allowed freedom, we must not re-create the traumas we seek to eliminate. When we imprison, it must be for justice, not for spite, not from anger nor hate. It must be to keep others safe, and we must not stop at that and say we've done our job. Protecting other children is a step toward justice, but it is not complete.
We must support any victims and help them to heal, but we must go further, and seek to end the conditions that lead an innocent child to grow into a violent rapist. We must also be realistic and understand that none of our efforts will be perfect, that we may never achieve the ideal world where no-one ever harms a child again.
But this is the world we should seek, and in pursuing it we must move with compassion. You may struggle to extend compassion to the child rapist. What about the murderer? What about the cop who feared for his life? What about the drug addict who stole the stereo? What about the school bully who's abused at home?
We must understand that all of these people started roughly the same as us - in a womb as a clump of cells. Just like us, they were born, lived as a baby, grew as a child, and became an adult.
In some rare cases, they were wired to do terrible things - I do believe this happens. But I believe it is the gross minority of cases. I don't think most murderers or child rapists were born that way.
So let us consider how they turned from being an innocent baby into being our worst nightmare, and let us consider how we can prevent this from happening to other children - how we can prevent other children from growing into adult monsters.
I wish to avoid speaking of who deserves compassion. First of all, because I will win no-one over by telling them a child rapist deserves compassion. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, because the individualistic notion of any one person "deserving" anything is already flawed.
It's easy to look at a loved one who's practiced for many years to become excellent at their sport, to go to a competition, and to win ... then say "they deserved it". It is human, and it is loving, and it is supportive. But what of those who lost? Did they not work hard? Do you not wish for them to experience joy? At the end of a sports competition, the world got nothing. The world did not win, nor lose. One team won. The other team lost. The world is no better for it. Joy is shifted, concentrated, not shared. There is not more joy in the world.
Winning at Tennis or Basketball and "deserving" the victory seems vastly different from raping a child and "deserving" punishment. But punishment does not reduce violence in the world - it increases it. And while you harm the child rapist, you too have become violent. You have become one more violent person in the world.
Yes, your violence seems justified. It seems fair. It seems worthwhile, especially if you believe it will deter others from harming children in the future. But what of children who see you enacting this violence? More little soldiers being grown to believe there is a Right Time to hurt others. An ever bigger army ready to go to war. A growing crowd who believes justice is pain, who forgets about prevention, who forgets about change.