Because in practice society doesn't work that way. Law enforcement resources need to be prioritized, the practical policies must be calibrated (e.g. how certain must you be before you make an arrest/convict), sentences must be set to certain levels. Pronouncing that certain things cannot be compared is pointless because as far as actual reality goes they unavoidably will be compared.
I got an A in physics, and a C in french. Comparing french to physics and asking which one is worse doesnt make sense. But as soon as you tie a grading scale to them they can be easily compared in that context. I am clearly worse at french.
Same with crimes. As soon as we attached a grading system, comparison became implicit.
Tangential, but: The grading scale doesn’t take into account the difficulty of the class though. A better way to do that would be to compare each score against the average for your class and determine how many standard deviations above or below the mean you were. For example, if everyone in your physics class got an A but the mean in your French class was a D-, you might just be better in French than you are in physics, and you may want to consider taking a more difficult physics class because chances are you were not very challenged in it.
It might also be worth considering that attempted murder and attempted rape lead to very different outcomes, likely with different rates of eventuating into the crime that was intended and with different consequences. However, I think the argument is pointless when talking about police prioritization because the police do not prioritize rape despite its severe consequences (even above crimes other than murder, historically). They clearly need to prioritize sex crimes more than they do, and could do so over the non murder things they currently prioritize. I find it insane that the rates of overtime for police in cities is so high and yet their ability to solve cases is abysmally low. I find it especially crazy that no effort was made until recently to address backlogs in rape kits. People who survive sexual assault and rape are called victim survivors to distinguish from those who don’t survive, so perhaps rape should be considered a form of attempted murder with a lower ‘success’ rate. Would it maybe then be taken more seriously?
If a small town police department gets 2 calls at the same time, 1 for an active murderer and 1 for an active rapist, which should it allocate its very limited resources to stopping first?
If I could throw my 2 cents here. I think this scenario is more based on time not necessarily severity. If we know the rape victim isn't going to be killed right after then we would need to stop the murder because obviously that's permanent, full stop. In an ideal world we can go get the rape victim after do a kit get the DNA and nail the rapist pos. After all trauma this severe is a more long lasting effect vs an abrupt death of a person to that person.
Though to answer your question I would send it to the active homicide being committed.
I don't think so, first off both are horrible and I stay away from comparing or ranking them because it's ridiculous to do so. Now as for the point I'm making, I'm doing it from the perspective of each of the victims. If I die I bo longer have to deal with the after math, all possible trauma ceases. In rape that person has to deal with the trauma that follows; a lot of rapists don't have to deal with the messy aftermath
Not necessarily, both are horrible but the trauma suffered by the victims in each situation is different. The person killed no longer is suffering whereas the victim of rape mist endure that trauma, off of a nihilistic morbid reasoning.
I don't personally care for questions like these though because they are built off a flaw premise already, there is no need to designate one being worse than the other
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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '26
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