Rape Revenge and the Death Penalty

Whether or not revenge for rape is right or wrong is in itself a
matter of whether or not you agree with revenge in the first place.
Although Andrea killed men for her own personal revenge, I do believe
rapists should be met with the death penalty. The death penalty isn't
revenge necessarily, but rather punishment and preventing a reoccurring
tragedy from happening if the perpetrator was released from jail or
otherwise just have them sitting in jail for life, the same person
capable of why they are there in the first place. I consider rape just
as serious a crime as murder or the other crimes met with capital
punishment (federally: espionage, treason, trafficking in large
quantities of drugs; attempting, authorizing or advising the killing of
any officer, juror, or witness in cases involving a Continuing Criminal
Enterprise, regardless of whether such killing actually occurs; and
aircraft hijacking, aggravated assault by incarcerated, persistent
felons, or murderers, aggravated kidnapping, to name a few other
statutes). I think charging rapists with the death penalty fits the
crime because although they may not have physically taken someone's
life, they certainly have robbed them of the quality of life and victims
may feel as though some part of them has died inside emotionally or
psychologically. Rape victims often experience lingering hardships
after the rape, including, but not limited to post traumatic stress
disorder, depression, unwanted pregnancy or abortion (if women), sleep
or eating disorders, suicide, sexually transmitted infections, and
turning to substance abuse to consider a few. Rape victims also often
have feelings of guilt, embarrassment, and shame. All of these effects,
not to mention a decreased trust in humankind, so severely diminish
quality of life that the perpetrator of this crime should certainly be
sentenced to death in order to prevent future crimes. Although prison
sentences of convicted rapists are very varied across the nation, I was
shocked to find the national average for years in prison was very low.
I would imagine at the time of this novel the punishment was probably
even less severe and even shorter jail times were served. As soon as
they are released from prison they can go back into society and
disappear. In class, someone brought up the use of hormone therapy to
"rehabilitate" rapists but rape is an act of control – something
psychological – rapists don't want to just have sex with a bunch of
people (generally), they want to assert dominance and control someone.
I think it was wrong for Andrea to kill random people she didn't
necessarily know for certain to have raped people, but I do think that
she was doing other women like her a service by getting rid of a threat
to their life.