Bringing more death to Louisiana

To any one who has read a story in the paper, or known a child who was molested or raped, you know how gut wrenching it is to hear the offender get a light sentence. The child may be scared both emotionally and physically for life and the offender gets away with a mere 7 year sentence. What if that changed?

Louisiana is proposing to add child rape to the charges in which perpetrators can face the death penalty.

Now before you jump on-board and start waving flag to push the bill through, lets think about this for a minute.

Most child rapes are committed by family members or family friends of the victim. If the victim or victim's friends know that the offender could be killed for his/her actions, are they more or less likely to turn them in? I would suggest less. Child Advocacy groups agree.

Furthermore, those who trespass on the law, do not often think of the consequences, and if they do, they may decide that the lesser sentence of murder will keep them off death row. So while the harsher sentence would not be a likely factor to deter perpetrators, those who do think about these things are likely to take the next step and kill their victim.

If the death penalty is enacted for child rape, does statutory rape carry the same sentence? There are more than once case of a partner going to jail because his/her lover was 1 or 2 years younger and under the adult age bracket.

All these factors make this is a scary policy and one i don't think i could support.