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From: srm@nsc.UUCP (Richard Mateosian)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: "Rape is violence, not sex"
Message-ID: <2813@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Jun-85 04:46:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: nsc.2813
Posted: Fri Jun  7 04:46:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Jun-85 03:21:48 EDT
References: <601@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <2788@nsc.UUCP> <466@rtech.UUCP>
Reply-To: srm@nsc.UUCP (Richard Mateosian)
Organization: National Semiconductor, Sunnyvale
Lines: 19
Summary: 

>> That realization allows us to cut through rationalizations like:
>  ...
>>   3. I'm sick...I need treatment, not punishment.

>I feel that if someone committed even as severe a crime as rape due to mental
>illness, then that person should get psychiatric or psychological treatment,
>not prison.

What I had in mind when I posted the "I'm sick" point was a program I saw
on TV (60 Minutes?) in which a rapist explained that he merely had high
hormone levels (as substantiated by lab tests) and so couldn't help
himself.

But to answer your basic point, the disease analogy may be helpful in
dealing with inappropriate behavior, but I think that it has very little
usefulness in courts of law.
-- 
Richard Mateosian
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!srm    nsc!srm@decwrl.ARPA