Polish parliament cracks down on sex crimes

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Today, the Polish parliament has passed an update to the criminal code, raising the penalty for rape from 1-10 years to 5-25 and from 12-life to 25 or life for sexual murder, making treatment for paedophilia mandatory for convicts plus indeterminate (until revoked) ban from certain jobs.

A special commission had been working on the changes for a couple of months, but the final version passed by representatives exceeded the commission project in the severity of penalties.

There is also going to be mandatory testing for HIV for sex offenders. The penalty for not informing a sexual partner of the fact of being HIV positive or carrying a venereal disease has also been increased. Same for giving blood without identifying oneself as HIV positive.

The original article is here. You can put it in a translator or some such if you like, but automatic Polish to English translators blow even harder than live ones.

About time. Previously, with 1-10 years, rape wasn't even a felony around here, minimum 3 years in prison being prerequisite for felony. Forging money was worth 6-15 years, armed robbery 2-12. Even gang rape or brutal rape (as if there's a non-brutal one) also 2-12, still not felony. Maybe 5-25 is not castration, but it's still some progress. Are the commies trying to make their way into the next parliament or something?

The vote today might have been influenced by the recent news about a teacher's husband drinking up and raping two young students on a trip and then being covered by his wife, who, apart from being a teacher and ordering the students to lie about the alcohol on the trip, was the local mayor's daughter. The judge set him free until the trial, refusing an arrest warrant. MPs probably didn't like that a lot.

A nice next move would be to crack down on judges and local authorities, not to mention rogue school officials.

 

Your border guards could use a crack down as well, some of em show some pretty disgusting racist behaviour.

 

With the minimum of 5 years, that still sounds pretty light by U.S. standards. Any type of violent crime that is a felony (a rape is on that list) can get you 20 years in the U.S. Rape + murder is always a life sentence if you are convicted, and in some states, it can even get you the death penalty.

Even my state which is considered to be pretty light on the sentencing could get you the death penalty. Under Maryland law, if there are no aggravating circumstances to the murder, then the most you can get is life imprsionment. If there are aggravating circumstances - the commission of another felony during the murder is an example, of which rape certainly counts as such - would get you the death penalty. Other examples would be if you killed someone while robbing a bank. You would then have murder + armed robbery.

 

I don't care very much about the border guards. Have you ever crossed the border to Russia? If not then you have no idea of how rude and racist borderguards can exactly be.

On the topic though, I think rape/pedophilia/sexual abuse cases are the most difficult ones there are, since they tend to be very emotional. Rape in second degree in here is 1-6 years of prison and rape in first degree is 2-10 years of prison. I think both punishments are pretty much as they should be. Putting a rapist to prison for 25 years is useless, it's doubtful that he will be any better after 25 years than he would be after 10 years. It will only cost a fortune to the government and probably won't even make the victim feel much better. Excessive punishment if you ask me. While I agree that rape is a horrible crime and the scars left by it will last for lifetime I must shut myself from emotion and think practically when I consider what is a proper punishment and what is not. The mandatory pedophilia treatment I however support 100%.

 

@Aldeth: In our criminal code, rape is by "force, threat or fraud". I suppose going out on the street and raping a random stranger by force is not the exactly the 5 year kind of rape.

I like the sound of death penalty for rape alone even without aggravating circumstances, but if we did that, they would kill victims after the act. The experiment was done in the USSR in the thirties. Rapists simply started killing women after rape, so it would be more difficult to prove and the penalty was the same either way.

There's a reason I never go to the East from Poland. They have a cultural/historical complex (long story) and nothing is more fun than a bus or train full of Poles on their mercy.

1-6 for rape sounds like "go ahead, boy". How much does one get for assault, body injury etc (beating someone up in human speak)?

Emotional, I admit. It annoys me to no end that within my gender (hey, there is some affiliation ), there are guys who would do something like that. It annoys me to no end that in some countries it's practically a give and three in ten young girls have been raped at least once. It's a scourge, a cancer on the flesh of the society and if the price of getting rid of it were physical elimination of rapists, I would pay the price.

It already annoys the lawful part of me when I see people cheating their way around the system at the expense of others, but when I see something like that... The moron could at least have asked and probably 1 in 1000 women would have agreed. He could have worked on a building site for $2/h and earn the money for a quickie with a professional if he really had wanted sex so much. Of course, it's not just wanting sex so badly. Those freaks get off on domination and humiliation. They want to possess someone literally for at least a while. They enjoy the thrill of forcing their wants on people whether those like it or not. Sick, sick bastards who belong in the ward. Or wherever. Just far from women.

 

Morgoroth, I agree that 10 years, 25 years or 500 years is not likely to make a difference in the behaviour of these guys. Now I'm not one to discount the appropriateness of the punishment factor in criminal cases, but what about the protection of society?

It seems the logic is a bit like this: "well, he can't be rehabilitated, and he won't get any better, so we might as well just put him back on the street so he can do it again"

The mandatory pedophilia treatment is merely a sop to the people who always try to make the rapist out to be the victim, but society as a whole does not have a great deal of faith in rehabilitation.

 

That's exactly the arguement for why rapist do not get the death penalty - they will simply kill their vitims if the punishment is the same either way. As it stands now, rape = 20 years, murder = 25-life, but rape + murder = death penalty.

 

A year in prison sentence is rare. The sentences are usually around three years and it's most certainly not saying "go ahead, boy". I can't imagine who would find three years in prison being worth raping someone. In most cases rape is not motivated by the thought of getting away with it easily it's a spontanious act.

We have three different laws for beating someone up, but if you seriously cause some permanent damage it would be 1-10 years of prison. If you just kick someone once and leave it there you would probably not even get prison and if you kick a bit more it would be a maximum of 2 years of prison.

If someone is deemed unsafe for the society then they are sent to mental institution since if someone seems likely to rape again they belong there and not in the prison, and there is of course no limit to when one will be let out of those, if needed they will remain there for life. This thing about letting out dangerous men just because their sentence run out is complete bs. Most rapists do not renew their deed anyway.

Putting a rapist through hell for 25 years is hardly productive. When he gets out he will not be a better man you can be sure of that and is more likely to cause misery than someone who has gone through three years of therapy and deep pondering of his/her wrongdoings. It's not about making the rapist a victim it's about getting him to realize and take the full responsibility of his/her acts. This I consider to be the best result for society and quite frankly all studies done in Finland show that in here it is. I don't know, perhaps America is full of incurable psychopaths who can never again adapt to the society once they commit a rape but I know that Finland is not.

[ June 03, 2005, 19:14: Message edited by: Morgoroth ]

 

I don't understand that. More for serious damage in assault than for forcing sex on someone unwilling? Being raped as less injuring than being severely beaten? I suppose this has something to do with the sexual revolution and the general cheapening of sex. If sex is considered so casual and no one really gives a damn about marriage or lack of it, fidelity, exclusivity or anything, then rape also becomes no big deal.

 

I'm not surprised that you don't.

It has nothing to do with the "cheapening" of sex in the society. After all fifity years ago it was quite ok for a husband to beat and rape his wife, today it's not that okay anymore in here. Anyway it's all circumstantial and depends on the damage caused.

EDIT: If significant psychological/physical damage is caused, then it will fall under the rape in first degree anyway which is more likely to yield a longer sentence than beating up someone.

 

Still, I don't buy the idea of rape being less than beating up.

 

I'd like to invoke Ragusa into this conversation. Why? Well, he always finds the good articles and stuff. I'd like to see some real statistics on the efficiency of rehab. My feeling is that if even one of these filth re-offend and ruin another life, it's too many. But, some good, reliable stats always helps, and if I could see some that prove that therapy works, then I'd be more likely to get behind it.

The current perception is that rapists do tend to reoffend.

 

Depends really. If you kick someone to a state where he suffers a brain damage which will retard him for the rest of his life then I would argue that it's worse than rape, and that's pretty much what those highest sentences in that cathegory are meant for.

 

My current perception is that rehab doesn't work for rapists. Rehab can work for those guys in dubious consent for drunk sex cases. Maybe for one in a thousand dumb kids with date rape pills. But not for those who go out and rape someone.

 

Well I'll have to disagree on that.

Rehabilitation and therapy can work for just about anything. There are cases where it will not work but in most cases I believe it will work and so does most researches in the issue. Of course there is the problem that rape is also a crime which is quite easy to get away with. It requires a lot for the victim to rise charges and report the offence and it's a difficult crime to prove, so statistics can lie about this too. My firm belief is however that most rapists can be rehabilitated.

 

One thing that should be recognized is that the rape of a stranger, or the use of a drug on a date, is not a sex crime. It has little to do with sex. It has everything to do with power, control, and domination.

There are cases where a man has sex with his sleeping wife/sig other and feels that she is responding but it turns out she was dead asleep or something, that may just be bad judgement or whatever, but the violent rapists -- the guys who stalk, forcibly restrain, violate and injure their victims are not looking for sex per se, but rather a chance to feel powerful, in control, and basically like a "real" man (in their twisted psyches, anyhow.) They need to be treated as the violent criminals they are and society protected from their depredations.

 

My current perception is that rehab doesn't work for criminals, period.

...how the hell do you remain asleep while someone is, erm...y'know. On the flip side, how the hell do you not notice someone is asleep?

 

Beats me, AMaster, I just cite what I've read in the papers.

 

If there's a general consent to have sex (i.e. you are sexual partners and have had sex already on regular basis), things like "responding or not responding" need to be handled differently from simple rape allegation.

I beg to differ. There is an immediate connection with sex drive. Perverted, but still sex drive. The sensation which is sought is orgasm and obsession with sex plus desperate desire for some flesh tends to play a role. Rape like you describe would have to be done out of hate or contempt. There are also other motives than those.

I know of two examples. One was the man who attempted to rape St Maria Goretti and killed her in the process (she resisted). After serving 30 years, he eventually became a monk. Another one guy raped his wife, killed her and after many, many years became a monk when still in prison. Then he wrote a book etc. I'm applying the benefit of the doubt in his case because my knowledge is very, very second-hand.

 

Let me re-phrase my statement on rape as a violent crime. Of course there is a sexual component, but in prisons, heterosexual men have been known to rape other men. It's a way to establish power and control, coupled with the joy of humiliation inflicted on others.

When many people hear "sex crime" they don't get the seriousness of the crime as much as they would have with "violent" crime.