system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Violent crimes deserve violent punishment

I should probably preface this by saying that this post was inspired by a recent personal experience. It has been pointed out to me that it's unhealthy to harbour this much rage and unease, so I'm turning to the reasonable side of reddit to help me change my view before I harm myself mentally. Oh and, English isn't my first language and I'm doing this on my phone, sorry in advance. 

Basically, while I agree prison is a decent enough punishment for thieves, money lanunderers, tax evaders and similar non-violent offenders, from my newfound position I cannot understand how a few years in prison are a fair tradeoff for causing someone serious and potentially permanent damage, on purpose. Obviously for actual murder the sentences are usually way longer than for other violent acts. I don't think those are sufficient either but I can't put myself in that position so I'll talk about everything "below" murder.

1. Attempted murder is basically the same as murder. The only reason the victim is still alive is sheer dumb luck and the expertise of the medical team saving their life. For all intents and purposes, you were full on gonna murder someone, you just failed. You should be tried as if you actually murdered them.

2. You didn't only cause pain and suffering for the person you attacked. Their friends and families also suffer in a similar capacity, but with no morphine drip. And they will continue to suffer, to some extent, for the rest of their lives. Forever. If you've never been in the situation you can't imagine what it does to you. And you shouldn't. Please don't try.

3. I don't know what it's like in other countries, I can only speak for where I am. Let's say it's your first offense, and you were lucky, you failed to kill your victim. You can get 5-20 years. Since it's your first crime, you're young and you have a family, the judge might go easy on you. You'll get 7 years. With good behaviour, and assuming you're not a complete idiot, you will behave, you'll be out in 5 or less. 5 years. For ruining the lives of at least 10 people. For making them feel unsafe in their own homes. For scarring several children for life.

4. What about permanent damage to the victim? They used to have a job, provide for their family, have friends, barbecues. Will they ever be capable of any of that again? Will they need life-long care? You've changed the lives of everyone around them forever and you get sent to a corner, dressed and fed by tax money the victim's friends and family have to pay? Screw that. On top of that, and believe me this is the least of my concerns, the most the victim's family can get out of it is less than $5000, and not even from the attacker but from the broke-ass state that's probably getting that from tax funds as well. So effectively we pay it to ourselves. 

5. IMO these all apply for rape, abduction and any other similar experience I can't think of either because of the language barrier or lack of experience.

For all these reasons, I believe the only way I'd feel like a "fair" punishment has been dealt is if the same was done to the attacker. You broke someone's knees? Okay bud, enjoy yours having broken. Shot someone in the stomach? Aight, this bullet has your name on it, etc. Oh and obviously they then be denied medical care. Not like they called an ambulance when they attacked their victim. They wanted to harm them, they wanted them dead, they deserve the same. And it wouldn't be fair to spend taxpayers' money on a person like that. 

And yes, I've heard "eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" but I do believe a relative minority of the population commits such heinous acts. None of this is going to make the world blind, it'll just rid us of the most disgusting, lowlife, horrible people who don't deserve to see the light of day anyway.

I think that's all I had to say, but I bet you'll tell me if I missed something. Thank you for reading.
gpt
Oddly enough treating attempted murder as murder actually incentivizes people to try harder. See if you fail the first time and the punishment for attempted murder is lighter than successful murder, there's a motive to not try again. If it's the exact same punishment as for successful murder then trying again and hoping you succeed so that the person can't testify against you is in your best interest. Better yet if you successfully murder everyone who knew anything then you might be able to get away with it. There's no harsher punishment for murdering everyone than for attempting to kill one person, so you might as well try.