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We then complicate that idiocy by putting alcohol in vastly easier reach for everyone, we somehow put young women in the position of trying to process as much alcohol as their male counterparts.
We are breaking ourselves by breaking the GOOD things that society has used for a very long time to be an impediment to bad behavior.
I don't even drink alcohol, so I don't have a horse in this race personally----but I don't think the laws on alcohol have changed that much over 50 years, except for some states lowering the drinking age and some lightening up on Sunday blue laws...but 25 and 50 years ago, there wasn't excessive drinking to this extent...especially that led to violence, rape, and alcohol poisoning.
And as for "somehow" putting young women in the position of drinking as much as their male counterparts---who is the we who is doing this? The victim in this case didn't even go to the college. She choose to go. It was her choice. Not society's. I think maybe her sister asked her to go. As evil as I think this rapist was, he did not coerce her in any way to attend the party. As far as I know, he did not coerce her to drink. Yeah, I agree---probably some social pressure---almost everyone else would have been drinking. And the victim didn't know anyone and probably felt out of place anyway being a little older. So she choose to drank excessively. I'm not blaming the victim about the rape, but just explaining how it was her choice and her actions that got her to the party and led to her drinking until she passed out. Perhaps colleges should offer alternatives to drinking parties, but how many people would attend? I am many years removed from college but not so clueless as to realize that the "cool" parties involve the frats and drinking/drugging. A party by the chess club or even a straight-edge yoga party would not draw the numbers or the buzz (literally or figuratively!).
You just don't understand the USA should be a
place where a woman can pass out drunk , and
NOT wake up to find out that she was RAPED....
Let’s get one thing straight, OK. Perpetrators of sexual assault are responsible for their crimes and should be prosecuted. I don't think anyone would argue differently.
Where we disagree is I strongly believe we are failing to let young women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them.
Young women are getting a distorted message that the right to drink themselves into oblivion is a feminist issue. Women should be able to drink copious amounts of alcohol and suffer no consequences.
The feminist message should be that when women get drunk, they lose the ability to be responsible for themselves and drastically increase the chances of attracting the kinds of people who could cause them harm or worse.
Stating facts is not blaming the victim. Telling women not to get drunk and to be smart is not sexist. Being honest about the facts is trying to prevent more victims.
Results: Findings indicate that almost 20% of undergraduate women experienced some type of completed sexual assault since entering college. Most sexual assaults occurred after women voluntarily consumed alcohol, whereas few occurred after women had been given a drug without their knowledge or consent.
Last edited by texan2yankee; 06-07-2016 at 02:45 PM..
Proper sentencing in a criminal case weighs a series of factors that are often mixture of both objective and subjective in their nature.
You begin with a goal or goals. What are you trying to accomplish is to incarcerate for long periods of time those people who are truly a danger to society. This is in accord with the notion that the primary purpose of the criminal justice system is to incapacitate dangerous offenders and keep them from re-offending. By the same token, incarceration is expensive and long periods of incarceration should be avoided for offenders who are unlikely to repeat criminal conduct. Deterrence is also a valid concern. One hopes to deter series offenders from committing additional crimes and one also seeks some sort of general deterrence where others in society are persuaded not to offend at all. Rehabilitating an offender is also a goal.
Any offender committing crime like this should undergo a psycho-sexual evaluation. This gives the pre-sentence unit an idea about how dangerous he is. For example, someone who comes across in the evaluation as being enthralled by any violent sexual activity is a dangerous person. Many offenders are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Unless such an addiction is addressed often there can be no hope of stopping such an offender. The factors that are part of this evaluation have little to do with socio-economic status.
Socio economic factors are important though. Those of us who have family ties, a means to pursue a living, and good social support are more likely to avoid future crimes than those who do not. Your example of comparing the background of the well-to-do white kid with the poor black kid does pose difficulties. I do believe racial discrimination is present in American society and probably will be for decades to come. One sentencing judge I knew well, addressed the disparities in offender background by not expecting quite as much from African American defendants. He realized that unemployment might be more an issue for them. As such, he would look at how hard they were trying to find work. He realized their educational attainment might not be as strong as that of white offender. He tried to focus on what their goals were and how hard they were trying to achieve them. He encouraged the pre-sentence unit to look harder and find redeeming features that might go unnoticed.
The bottom line is there is much more to sentencing than simply looking at the crime the offender committed. If that were all we needed to do, we could have a computer rather than a judge handle sentencing. I do not believe that is what most people want. However, the price we have to pay for this being willing to accept some disparities in sentences.
There are states that try to deal with the "sentence disparity" issue by imposing absolute sentences simply based on the crime committed. I think that's a poor idea and the the fact that it was done in the federal court system lead to massive incarceration of petty drug offenders often for ten years or more. It worked so poorly, that now judges do not have to follow sentencing guidelines anymore.
My own state requires extensive pre-sentence evaluations of felony criminal offenders. When prison terms are imposed they are "indeterminate sentences". They are: 0-5 years; 1-15 years; and 5 years to life. The board of pardons determines how long any one offender actually serves within that range. We have a low violent crime rate and there is little to no opposition to criminal sentencing here. I think its, overall, quite a good system that has served us well.
Mark, thank you for your detailed reply. As suspected, and as you admit, the background review gives a big advantage to the white kid, who may not be remorseful and may be likely to repeat again, as I think may be the case with Turner, and dings the black kid who may take the experience and never do something like that again.
It's good that one sentencing judge in your state (CA?) is trying to offset the disparity, but something needs to be done across the board to make it a more level playing field.
As for the old days, I recall a case in IL where a middle man of a drug ring was sentenced to a life in prison. Judge John Phil Gilbert presided over the case and said he had to follow a strict federal formula for sentencing, but it haunted him for years. I don't know about today, but as of two years ago, the man was still incarcerated. We certainly don't want to go back to those days.
whats horrifying is you refuse to accept reality in what I can only assume is a defense of the progressive march to rid us of all societal morality.
You are absolutely right that in years past rape wasn't reported and women were marked as "damaged goods" if it came out. That is the terrible side of societal structure that needed to be put down. I am glad that has changed.
Not all challenge of societal norms are good. but we have watched as progressives and systematically challenged everything and tossed the proverbial baby out with the bath water.
YES rapist are responsible for rape. but you cannot excuse a society that makes rape easier to access. That is what we have done. Nothing in my comments blames the victim. NOTHING.
we have told young women that there is no difference between them and young men. That is not just stupid, it is dangerous. we are different. we see things differently and we approach sex from very very very different perspectives.
We then complicate that idiocy by putting alcohol in vastly easier reach for everyone, we somehow put young women in the position of trying to process as much alcohol as their male counterparts.
and we havnent even gotten to the trainwreck colleges are causing by teaching kids that its ok for them to be offended, broken by other peoples words or beleifs. we have educated strength OUT of our kids. This is a brilliant read from the Atlantic
We are breaking ourselves by breaking the GOOD things that society has used for a very long time to be an impediment to bad behavior.
Please explain then why men, senior citizens, persons with intellectual deficits, babies, children, etc. etc. are also targets and how they fit into this bizarre social tirade? They should be more responsible?
Let’s get one thing straight, OK. Perpetrators of sexual assault are responsible for their crimes and should be prosecuted. I don't think anyone would argue differently.
Where we disagree is I strongly believe we are failing to let young women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them.
Young women are getting a distorted message that the right to drink themselves into oblivion is a feminist issue. Women should be able to drink copious amounts of alcohol and suffer no consequences.
The feminist message should be that when women get drunk, they lose the ability to be responsible for themselves and drastically increase the chances of attracting the kinds of people who could cause them harm or worse.
Stating facts is not blaming the victim. Telling women not to get drunk and to be smart is not sexist. Being honest about the facts is trying to prevent more victims.
Results: Findings indicate that almost 20% of undergraduate women experienced some type of completed sexual assault since entering college. Most sexual assaults occurred after women voluntarily consumed alcohol, whereas few occurred after women had been given a drug without their knowledge or consent.
Based on your argument, Brock, who was also drunk and well past the legal limit, should realize he is at risk for being a rapist while drunk so he should be more careful and stay at home. But for some reason I don't think you are saying that. Only women should be responsible enough not to get intoxicated. Intoxicated men are blameless. I mean boys will be boys, and boys are allowed to get drunk and act stupid (or criminal).
IMO the sentence makes sense. That young man's reputation is ruined for the rest of his life. He is now permanently on the sex offenders list. And no matter what he ends up doing for work, he will never get any endorsement deals or become top management for any company. He will be a pariah wherever he goes.
And what would a longer prison sentence accomplish? Also longer sentence would cost taxpayers more money. Instead, let that man become a productive citizen sooner.
And I do have sympathy for the girl, but women need to stop putting themselves in vulnerable positions. When alcohol and drugs are involved, it's just not a smart combination when counting on the people around to behave morally and responsibly. It's not as if it were a chaperoned party. And that's why there are chaperones at high school dances.
Based on your argument, Brock, who was also drunk and well past the legal limit, should realize he is at risk for being a rapist while drunk so he should be more careful and stay at home. But for some reason I don't think you are saying that. Only women should be responsible enough not to get intoxicated. Intoxicated men are blameless. I mean boys will be boys, and boys are allowed to get drunk and act stupid (or criminal).
I agree. Why don't men just drink less if they can't control themselves.
Please explain then why men, senior citizens, persons with intellectual deficits, babies, children, etc. etc. are also targets and how they fit into this bizarre social tirade? They should be more responsible?
you keep returning to a mantra that I am blaming the victims. That is flat out wrong. Not one time have I done that in this thread or at any other time in my life.
I don't do victim blaming.
What I am saying is that in addition to looking at the preditors, we need to recognize that we have collectively as a society made our society less safe.
we put this young lady in greater danger than she should have been in.
I get you don't get it. you have a perspective to protect. Its going to get worse because we wont deal with what is wrong with society.
IMO the sentence makes sense. That young man's reputation is ruined for the rest of his life. He is now permanently on the sex offenders list. And no matter what he ends up doing for work, he will never get any endorsement deals or become top management for any company. He will be a pariah wherever he goes.
And what would a longer prison sentence accomplish? Also longer sentence would cost taxpayers more money. Instead, let that man become a productive citizen sooner.
And I do have sympathy for the girl, but women need to stop putting themselves in vulnerable positions. When alcohol and drugs are involved, it's just not a smart combination when counting on the people around to behave morally and responsibly. It's not as if it were a chaperoned party. And that's why there are chaperones at high school dances.
You could also argue that the guy put himself in a bad situation. Some people should not be allowed to drink and this guy sounds like one of those people. Plenty of men get drunk and don't go out an rape someone.
Based on your argument, Brock, who was also drunk and well past the legal limit, should realize he is at risk for being a rapist while drunk so he should be more careful and stay at home. But for some reason I don't think you are saying that. Only women should be responsible enough not to get intoxicated. Intoxicated men are blameless. I mean boys will be boys, and boys are allowed to get drunk and act stupid (or criminal).
Yes, as outlined below..........
Quote:
Originally Posted by miu
IMO the sentence makes sense. That young man's reputation is ruined for the rest of his life. He is now permanently on the sex offenders list. And no matter what he ends up doing for work, he will never get any endorsement deals or become top management for any company. He will be a pariah wherever he goes.
And what would a longer prison sentence accomplish? Also longer sentence would cost taxpayers more money. Instead, let that man become a productive citizen sooner.
And I do have sympathy for the girl, but women need to stop putting themselves in vulnerable positions. When alcohol and drugs are involved, it's just not a smart combination when counting on the people around to behave morally and responsibly. It's not as if it were a chaperoned party. And that's why there are chaperones at high school dances.
So he should not take responsibility for his actions, the rapists, but she should, the unconscious one? Alright then.
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