Disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar has been stabbed multiple times during an altercation with another inmate at a federal prison in Florida. Nassar is serving decades in prison after admitting sexually assaulting athletes at Michigan State University and at Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics, including Olympic medalists.
I don’t think it’s exactly a good thing that our prisons are so poorly managed that people can easily random suffer extra-judicial violence, and I certainly don’t think it’s something to celebrate. Sure, today it was a total piece of shit, but circumstances that enable this kind of disorder, combined with our less-than-perfect justice system, mean that tomorrow it could easily be someone who was falsely arrested and shouldn’t even be in prison that gets stabbed.
That said, I certainly won’t shed any tears for Larry here.
I’m really glad people think this way. Our prison system is SUPPOSED to be about rehabilitation not random or targeted acts of violence. Whenever a story like this shows up on Reddit the entire thread is filled with people celebrating the violence yet those same people would condemn the violence right-wingers or people who don’t think like them. The man has already been judged by his peers and sentenced. Any further punishment or violence goes beyond justice.
It’s good he didn’t die.
Now he can continue to live imprisoned, fearing being assaulted (in many ways) at every corner.
Poetic justice, a predator is now the prey.
It’s the monsters we think ‘good’ when we hear about bad things happening to them in prison. It’s still messed up we won’t pay guards enough to keep all of the positions filled. It’s actually messed up we can’t keep the monsters safe in prison.
There are people incarcerated that are innocent, There are people behind bars that were way over charged for what they did. Prisons should be a safe place focused on rehabilitation, not a punative jungle where it’s every person for themselves.
People’s perverse inner lust to hurt other people and willingness to abandon their principles really comes out the moment they convince themselves that the target ‘deserved’ it.
It’s funny how easily people can demand a fair and equal justice system, and then a moment later, cheer for literal extra-judicial violence.
I have to admit my first reaction was “he deserves it” but I immediately felt bad for thinking that. Same as when Trump got Covid. I wouldn’t call it a “perverse inner lust to hurt other people” though. I’m human, human reactions are complicated. Nassar inflicted unspeakable harm to hundreds upon hundreds of girls and young women. He doesn’t deserve to be stabbed, but I definitely have less sympathy for him than I would for someone innocent. I don’t think I’m a monster for feeling like that.
Perhaps I got a little poetic with it, but I do think there is a kinda twisted inner instinct in people that enjoys seeing harm come to those who we feel deserve it. A lack of sympathy is just that - a lack of something. But when you look at, for instance, the sheer joy people felt when seeing anti-vaxxers get COVID, I think there’s more going on there than just a lack of sympathy. It’s an active pleasure.
Yay, our carcereal state subjects people to random violence, and it’s OK because one of the people it happened to, happens to be a loathsome monster!
Oh no!
Anyway.