"many people I knew reacted vitriolically to lawyers representing inmates at Guantanamo"

This attitude that "criminals deserve no justice" that is pervasive nearly everywhere amazes me. I cannot understand why people really think any system is so foolproof as to charge only those guilty.

> I cannot understand why people really think any system is so foolproof as to charge only those guilty.

A cynical observer might make a connection between the people who think that and the inability of the system to charge only those guilty.

It's relatively easy to get people on your side of that debate. Tell them about how often people who have been convicted to face the death penalty are later exonerated.

People will still say they must have done something wrong to end up there in the first place.

The mom who apparently told her son that she would not bail him out also proudly told the reporter she told her son to not drop the soap in prison. A lot of people praised her for what she said. I am just sad that people think criminals deserve sexual assault as part and parcel of being in prison. The Jared from Subway who was convicted of sexual offenses against children faced similar public decries. People laugh at the idea of sexual assault and rape in prison. People here in the US laugh at the idea of sexual assault and rape in prison. When I approach them and tell them to reconsider what they're saying, they call me an accessory to sexual crime against children. I don't get it.

An old saying says judge a society bynhownit treatsnits worst-off people. When I think about what I've had to hear from otherwise sane, well-educated, and well-travelled people makes me wonder if there's any hope for humanity at all.

Yes, I've been saying this for years. It's astonishing how rare it is to hear someone express the same viewpoint. It disgusts me when people laugh about the idea of (specifically male) rape in prison, as if it is justice. But for whatever reason people have a very different reaction to rape when the victim is male instead of female.

I ask them two questions to get them to reconsider their position:

1. Do prisoners deserve to be raped as a form of punishment?

2. So you believe that women should be raped as punishment?

I believe that a just and fair society should never allow sexual assault to be used as a punishment. This is true whether someone in prison is guilty or innocent.

This is called the just-world hypothesis - the idea that people "get what they deserve".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Completely agree with you. I think a lot of this stems from the media and reporting of crimes in general. News organizations create this want in society to find a suspect, any suspect, guilty or not. To top it off, at least in the US, we live in a society now where we overreact to implementing laws. Zero-tolerance and three-strike laws have created this army of unsympathetic, unforgiving, people who could care less about guilt or innocence.

I am a strong believer in second chances, and giving people the benefit of the doubt (or innocent until proven guilty). Sadly though, many offenders never get a second chance simply because society places a scarlet letter on their chest for life.

Agreed.

Society is at a point in time where many forget the reasoning for principles of the judicial system. The presumption of innocence in particular is critically important and written into most modern democracies constitution.

The alternative of being presumed guilty can lead to a lot more corruption and injustice.