Does punishment make sense?

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It would be best, if there was a reliable way to disable the brain portions responsible for child molesting or raping, so that you could give them a choice: Either the brain-operation, life-imprisonment since they would not be able to control their drives probably, or death, if someone would prefer that to being in jail for the remainder of his/her life. But I agree that social rehabilition of serious sex offenders would be nearly impossible using conventional methods and thus it would be careless to let them out the way they were before.
But if such a brain manipulation were possible and reliable I'd see no reason to keep them jailed any longer, since they are not actually responsible for their actions, since I don't think that anyone really has the control over his/her action, just laws of nature control them(this is NOT a justification, but more like an explanation).

This is the story of Nathaniel Brazil, who 8 years ago was condemned by a Florida court to 28 years in prison. He was a good pupil, but he was in love with a schoolmate, a day before the closing of school he was suspended for having thrown some water balloons in class. So he could see nomore the girl he was fallen for. She had rejected him, he asked his teacher to enter school to see her. His teacher, who was his favourite teacher, refused. He had a pistol in his pocket, which he had found in a drawer of hist stepfather, he extracted it and shot. The teacher died. His trial was given live on TV.

From newspapers of that time:

'THE prosecutor grilled him. "Where did you aim the gun?" "At his head."
"Where did you hit him?" "In his head."
"That was your mission, to kill him at that moment?"
"No, sir."
"You hit your target, didn't you?"
"No, sir."

It reads like any murder trial, any prosecutor vs. killer. Only this suspected "killer" was 14 years old. And at one point, the veil slipped. "What did Mr. Grunow do when he fell to the ground?" Nathaniel Brazill, 14, said nothing. "Did you hear my question?" the prosecutor repeated. He was winning now, a bit full of himself. This was almost too easy. "What did Mr. Grunow do when he fell to the ground?"

The boy snapped. "What do you think he did?" And he began to cry.
Suddenly, something easily forgotten was remembered.
A child, even one who kills, is still a child.
And there is no arguing that Brazil -- who went home from school after being suspended for throwing water balloons, got the gun, came back, pointed it at Grunow and then shot -- was aware of his actions, if not fully aware of the consequences.
Kids that age of Nathaniel can't work. They can't drive. They can't vote. They can't shave. Yet they can kill, and we now consider them cold-blooded enough to lock them away forever. …

Deep inside we still have an innate sense of protecting our young. The young are not the same as the old. It's nature. And we know, even as we boil with anger, that there is something very unnatural about a 14-year-old on trial for first-degree murder. '

Is this punishment, justice? Is it all right?

Great topic! I always think the main purpose of a sentence should be to protect the public, rather than punishment.

It isn't that punishment is always ineffective but certainly more likely to be ineffective with 'pathological' inmates. If they don't understand or are not interested in consequences then there is no reason to assume they will respond positively to a punishment.

I don't think that punishment is ever effective alone. I would question how much of a deterrent punishment is. Even people, who are in the normal range of accepting consequences for their actions, don't in fact think of all the consequences, a lot of the time. If anything that would be considered an extreme anxiety. It would be totally debilitating. Someone with no fears at all would be by definition living purely for their own ends. People to varying degrees are synchronised with public/societal needs and may respond intuitively with a specific behaviours and thoughts. However personal (selfish) needs and other needs closer to home are much more apparent. These two things compete for dominance. Crimes of passion are a good example of this.

I think many punishments are indicative of the unwritten, but present absurd personal justice system, in other words: Promoting personal retribution ahead of the overall public need.

Whatever parenting is present in most cases is to ‘societise’ the child. This is not a specific thing at all because society can contain a large range of moral standpoints, there is no such thing as absolute morality. Some parents try to enable their child to form their own moral standpoints, on the flip side some what to indoctrinate a specific unwavering moral standpoint. I think that adults vary in their capability to adapt and update their moral standpoint.

I don't think castration or chopping off their penis will stop rapists. I'm sure the are a magnitude of reasons for rape, but dominance, power and humiliation, etc are the main ones. Rape it self is the weapon it isn't just the penis, balls or other sex organs.

I used to live Africa. Many conflicts in Africa and elseware, rape was and is used as a weapon. This is a good example of how rape isn't really just one 'implement' or indeed one person. Typically what would happen is forces would enter a village then round up the men/boys and kill them or abduct some, and then they would gang rape the women/girls, often leaving them badly mutilated, entirely incontinent and also deliberately passing on AIDs and other diseases that they are already infected with. In other words extreme humiliation and trauma is intended. Often the soldiers who would do the gang rape were abducted in childhood and forced to fight. It is mostly all they know. I'm not saying they are entirely innocent, but the point is rape can involve many people, their commanders, the facilitator and financiers, etc. Rape doesn't have to be done in a specific way. I’m sure I don’t have to be too graphic for people to understand what I mean.