1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

Father Sentenced For Sexually Abusing Daughter Online

Discussion in 'Alley of Dangerous Angles' started by Splunge, Dec 20, 2007.

Page 2 of 2
  1. Montresor

    Montresor Mostly Harmless Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2005
    Messages:
    3,103
    Media:
    127
    Likes Received:
    183
    Gender:
    Male
    Remove all ads!
    Four years? What would he have got for raping an adult woman, a rap over the fingers?? Heck, we're talking about a four year old girl, and his own daughter to boot - this means the gravest imaginable misuse of trust.

    I find it hard to believe an "insanity" defence in this case. He has set up a Web camera and invited others to watch over the net; this makes his crime deliberate and premeditated, and with an economic incentive. That is not an act of a mentally unstable person acting on his impulses. He is not insane, unless we accept that all criminals are insane to some degree.
     
    Montresor, Dec 23, 2007
    #21
  2. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

    Joined:
    Dec 14, 2002
    Messages:
    16,815
    Media:
    11
    Likes Received:
    58
    Gender:
    Male
    Yeah, rape sentences have been a joke as of late. However, Poland's recent criminal code amendments have upped the penalty for violent sex crimes. Now plain rape is 2-12 years, by 2+ perpetrators is 3-15 each, also "exceptional cruelty" makes it 5-15. In fact, in the latter case, it doesn't have to be full rape. While sexual coercion (below rape) is 0.5-8 years normally, it's still 5-15 in case of exceptional cruelty.

    Unfortunately, forcing someone into prostitution is 1-10 years, which means that if you force someone to prostitute himself but you don't actually rape the person, you get less than for rape. But they got their digits almost right this time.

    I don't know how much they hand out in Canada in a typical case, but I suppose here it would be about the same for a first-time offender. And I don't think insanity is necessarily true in his case. In fact, I find it doubtful, although there's not enough data to say.
     
    chevalier, Dec 24, 2007
    #22
  3. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

    Joined:
    May 15, 2003
    Messages:
    12,434
    Media:
    46
    Likes Received:
    250
    Gender:
    Male
    First of all according to the article, it's less than 3 years. The article says the man has already served 14 months in prison, and he has been sentenced to serve another 20 on top of what he already served. By my math, that's 34 months, which is actually less than 3 years. While I do not know of an identical case here in the US, it is my opinion that he would have received far more here than he did in Canada.
     
    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot, Dec 27, 2007
    #23
  4. Montresor

    Montresor Mostly Harmless Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2005
    Messages:
    3,103
    Media:
    127
    Likes Received:
    183
    Gender:
    Male
    I think this is the time he will serve before being eligible for parole. I don't know the practise in Canada but in Denmark a prisoner would typically serve two thirds of the full sentence before being released on parole.
     
    Montresor, Dec 27, 2007
    #24
  5. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2003
    Messages:
    6,815
    Media:
    6
    Likes Received:
    336
    I just noticed AFI's post.

    Aldeth, what you probably don't know is that, in Canada, time spent in prison prior to being found guilty is counted as double. So the 14 months that he already spent in prison is actually considered to be 28 months; add the other 20 months gives 48 (i.e. 4 years).

    I'm not really sure why the double credit - maybe it's an attempt to speed trials up, or maybe it has someting to do with "innocent until proven guilty". Beren could shed more light on this, I'm sure.
     
    Splunge, Dec 31, 2007
    #25
  6. Beren

    Beren Lovesick and Lonely Wanderer Staff Member Member of the Week Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2002
    Messages:
    3,962
    Media:
    1,157
    Likes Received:
    251
    Gender:
    Male
    There's at least three prongs to it. One is the presumption of innocence. If the accused obtains a not guilty verdict, then it becomes in effect a punishment undeserved.

    The second prong is that its dead time. If you're convicted, you can at least try to spend your time doing rehabilitative programming and the like. There's no opportunity for that during custody pending sentence.

    The third prong is that time spent in custody is deemed to involve a heightened sense of apprehension relative to time sentenced. In prison, its more or less settled that you did it and that you know what to expect. Time in custody, a person can fairly be expected to have a greater sense of apprehension, his future, providing for his family, and so on.
     
    Beren, Dec 31, 2007
    #26
  7. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2003
    Messages:
    6,815
    Media:
    6
    Likes Received:
    336
    Thanks, Beren.

    The only one that doesn't make much sense to me is the first you mention:

    If the accused gets a 'not guilty' verdict, then getting double credit for time served prior to the verdict is pretty much irrelevant, since he/she isn't going to jail afterward anyway. "Time served" or "double credit for time served" doesn't make any difference in that case. Some sort of other compensation would make more sense to me.
     
    Splunge, Dec 31, 2007
    #27
  8. Drew

    Drew Arrogant, contemptible, and obnoxious Adored Veteran

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2005
    Messages:
    3,605
    Media:
    6
    Likes Received:
    190
    Gender:
    Male
    The point, I believe, is that the double credit for time served prior to conviction is meant to serve as a deterrent to overly lengthy trials. If the prosecutor takes too long in the trial, the criminals are not going to get a sufficient punishment for their crimes. Since the prosecutors, under this system, have a vested interest in providing a speedy trial, it means that the innocent (or at least the ones that are found not guilty) will also be held for as short a period as humanly possible during their trials.
     
    Drew, Jan 1, 2008
    #28
Page 2 of 2
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.