Monsters in Florida
Alligators are reptiles that belong to the order of crocodiles. They are powerful creatures measuring up to 6 meters (about 19 feet) in length, native only to the United States. The caimans belong to the same family with at least five species found exclusively in Latin American species. Caimans are much smaller — the largest measures around 4 meters (about 13 feet) long. It is not a very aggressive animal and should not be confused with the crocodile, which can be found everywhere from the northern coast of Peru to Cuba and Mexico, including the coast of Ecuador, where it used to be abundant. The crocodile is bad-tempered but not particularly dangerous and coexists in areas of southern Florida with the American alligator from the Mississippi River. It seems that one prefers saltwater while the other favors freshwater.
It just so happens that in the same area where these great beasts live, someone had the primitive and perverse idea to build a prison not for hardened criminals, but for immigrants in the United States without documentation, who, although likely to have violated immigration regulations, should not be subjected to degrading and dangerous conditions. On this continent we have protested against the brutality of Cuban and Venezuelan prisons, but now it appears that the nation previously seen as a beacon of democracy and respect for the law wants to outdo dictatorships by building the most inhumane prison in the hemisphere. Humid climate, swampy ground, swarms of mosquitoes and other insects, swamps patrolled by crocodiles, alligators and pythons imported from elsewhere.
The death penalty has already been found to be morally unacceptable. The same rule applies to torture. Countries only have as much power as the public wishes to give them. As human beings we have the right to self-defense, but only in the heat of the moment when a crime is being attempted — we cannot go to an alleged criminal’s home one week later and “defend ourselves” by crushing their skull with a hammer. Nor can we make them sit in a hornet’s nest to “punish” them one year later. To allow these acts of revenge would be to throw social order overboard. As such, if people do not have these powers, then neither should nations and other institutions. Torture is not just the cattle prod and the truncheon — it’s all shameful practices, like incarceration in unsanitary conditions.
The purpose of the penal code should be as follows. First, punishment should teach a lesson — it should be just strong and unpleasant enough that nobody wants to experience it. The second component is rehabilitation — anyone who wants to reintegrate with society should be given a chance, which is why normal prisons must protect inmates from moral or psychological breakdowns. Third, dangerous individuals and irredeemable criminals should be isolated. Prisons must not be vacation camps recreational facilities, but they should also not be degrading or dangerous spaces. If the state presumably has the ultimate authority, then it should exercise this by lawfully establishing strict but humane order in these facilities. Of course, others may think differently, but they are not lawyers.
It just so happens that in the same area where these great beasts live, someone had the primitive and perverse idea to build a prison not for hardened criminals, but for immigrants in the United States without documentation, who, although likely to have violated immigration regulations, should not be subjected to degrading and dangerous conditions. On this continent we have protested against the brutality of Cuban and Venezuelan prisons, but now it appears that the nation previously seen as a beacon of democracy and respect for the law wants to outdo dictatorships by building the most inhumane prison in the hemisphere. Humid climate, swampy ground, swarms of mosquitoes and other insects, swamps patrolled by crocodiles, alligators and pythons imported from elsewhere.
The death penalty has already been found to be morally unacceptable. The same rule applies to torture. Countries only have as much power as the public wishes to give them. As human beings we have the right to self-defense, but only in the heat of the moment when a crime is being attempted — we cannot go to an alleged criminal’s home one week later and “defend ourselves” by crushing their skull with a hammer. Nor can we make them sit in a hornet’s nest to “punish” them one year later. To allow these acts of revenge would be to throw social order overboard. As such, if people do not have these powers, then neither should nations and other institutions. Torture is not just the cattle prod and the truncheon — it’s all shameful practices, like incarceration in unsanitary conditions.
The purpose of the penal code should be as follows. First, punishment should teach a lesson — it should be just strong and unpleasant enough that nobody wants to experience it. The second component is rehabilitation — anyone who wants to reintegrate with society should be given a chance, which is why normal prisons must protect inmates from moral or psychological breakdowns. Third, dangerous individuals and irredeemable criminals should be isolated. Prisons must not be vacation camps recreational facilities, but they should also not be degrading or dangerous spaces. If the state presumably has the ultimate authority, then it should exercise this by lawfully establishing strict but humane order in these facilities. Of course, others may think differently, but they are not lawyers.
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