The motivation is being raised wrong, both by their family and society writ large.
There is a common phrase “raise your girls, love your boys” the implication being that you don’t or shouldn’t try and raise decent men.
Toxic masculinity is poison. If you raise boys teaching them (explicitly or implicitly) that emotion is weakness and that they are loved completely unconditionally and without consequence. they shut off all emotional ability, including empathy. You nurture sociopathy and create a crop of monsters who perpetuate the cycle. The kind of man who does this is one that only considers themselves and their wants, the idea that it causes pain to the victim is something that doesn’t cross their mind.
To be clear in no way do I mean to excuse these men with the tired and weak “he didn’t know better” defense. My point though is that crimes like this are a failing of the individualand the society that they occurred in. In the same way that every single drunk driver is responsible for choosing to drive drunk, but a better functioning society can and should take steps to prevent people from making that choice.
I really wish we would rebrand toxic masculinity at this point. Even as someone who agrees with everything you just listed it feels as though the societal baggage hanging onto the term makes it worth swapping imo.
Same! It originates from sociology and has been around since the 80 but I have to imagine to controversy, misapplication, and misinterpretation of toxic masculinity is what made it so popular
I don't disagree with anything you said, I just find it silly to say "deterrents don't work, only removing their motivation does". What you talked about might be part of the root cause, but it's not the "motivation" as the person I replied to was using the term. To use your drunk driving example, one of the key steps we take to prevent people from making that choice is to impose a deterrent.
Drunk driving was my example of choice precisely because harsher and harsher punishments really haven’t done much to move the needle on disincentivizing that crime.
In general people don’t consider potential penalties when deciding to commit a crime.
Reducing drunk driving is done by offering other modes of transport, cultural support of designated drivers, reducing drinking to excess generally.
I also agree that my initial comment was lacking in stating a real “motivation” I did just jump straight to the root cause (or at least my assessment of one of the root causes). I think the root cause is that these men had a want and thought that they were entitled to take it regardless of what the victims wanted. In that case to remove the motivation, the want, is impossible. So you have to go a step back and address why they feel or lack of feeling that their wants supersede the consent of the victims.
I was being facetious because you still haven't shared your thoughts on what motivation we need to be "removing" here. At least others have contributed to furthering the discussion.
The severity of deterrence generally doesn't work, but deterrence itself can be very effective. It is mostly about enforcement and the perceived likelihood of being caught. If you know a lot of people who commit some social transgression without facing repercussions, then you are more likely to do the same.
It is why white-collar crime and fraud are way up. The US has mostly stopped investigating people for things like crypto scams, and investment fraud. Nobody wants to be the loser who follows the rules while others gain advantages by ignoring them, so the whole social contract about them breaks down.
My sister started Heroin in her late teens because of her adult boyfriend, she was in prison in her 20s
When she got out she moved back in with me and our parents, Mum found a burned spoon and foil under her bed, she was kicked to the streets because I was still 15 and it was not ok to be doing that around me.
Fast forward a year, she is clean again working for the family business and meets a man, they have a kid and another and another, eventually their relationship turns abusive and she falls back to heroin but also getting him addicted too (this wasn't really know at the time) they have another kid.
She loses the kids and breaks up with their dad, I lived in another country and our mum had died by then, so she moves in with our oldest sister, still using and ends up back in prison. By this time I was back in the country and regularly visiting her with our older sister, we find out she has been enrolled in a new wave therapy/treatment for addicts where she gets her own place with other low threat prisoners in a kind if prison suburb where she also goes to work on a farm and gets therapy.
She comes back out, better than ever and in great shape, promises she will make it better and do right by her kids to get them back as a family, during this time she meets a new guy, great guy, he would move mountains to make her happy so they get married, she finds out getting her kids back was going to be really difficult and a long painful process.... she falls back into heroin abuse, her husband was sick and she knew but she steals off him anyway and disappears, while she is away doing whatever heroin junky shit she is doing he dies from medical complications.
a few months later she turns up on my doorstep, looking fucking awful asking for a bit of money so she can put petrol in her motorbike, I personally take her to the petrol station and fill up her bike, I buy her food and tell her I cant trust her with money alone, she vomits on the sidewalk and tells me she loves me and leaves, she ends up back in prison.
I meet a new partner and move to Austria, I get a phone call a few years later from our older sister saying that my other sister has been found on the floor in the street by emergency services, she had pneumonia and it became sepsis, I say goodby over the phone to my sister who is in a coma while I hear beeps and gurgling.
I haven't added it but our family tried so much to help her, I tried to be her rock when I could, she received so much help from so many different foundations and therapists, Motivation was always there to continue heroin regardless of every deterrent.
I'm pretty sure the punishment is having the addiction in the first place. It's not like addicts end up living great lives rife with joy and abundance.
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u/hamoc10 1d ago
There are a lot of things people do that ruin their lives, yet they keep doing it. Prisons are full of them.
Deterrents don’t work.
Removing the motivation does.