I was reading into this case and also the case of Rory Macaleece in Glasgow and I'm genuinely in shock at how little jail time they received. Why is rape seen as a lesser crime here?

Sorry for this seemingly random post – I came across this case by chance and I've gotten myself all pissed off.

by Awnaw2

11 comments

  1. There’s a lot of pressure for jail time to be kept on the lower end of the scale because it costs a fair bit to jail someone. But 6 years isn’t a short time I wouldn’t want to do 6 weeks after 6 years I’d be going mad (or even 3 with good behaviour)

  3. It’s not seen as a lesser crime and most dont get light sentences. You only hear about the cases highlighted by the media, who are huge fans of whipping up a frenzy of penal populism because it sells papers.

  5. Your question is too long. Why are rapists given such light sentences EVERYWHERE

  6. Look I’m Scottish and a us guys my age are saying this very thing Pedos get out & a new law was passed that even if you’ve raped before youl be released on bail !😀 ..for drugs or any other crime big sentence what the fuck is on with the courts ? .

  7. Isn’t part of the reasoning that having smaller sentences and not just life will disincentivise the chances someone would be raped AND murdered?

  8. Anyone convicted of actual “rape” should be jailed as a minimum. Simple as that. I cannot believe that judges have the discretion not to.

    You could perhaps spare custody for cases of lesser and more general “sexual assault” that don’t meet the legal definition of “rape”, with fair assessment of the facts.

    **EDIT:** immediately downvoted for saying rapists should go to prison by default. What kind of apologist ghouls are you people if you’d rather they didn’t?

  9. Cause we don’t have enough space in our prisons. Tbh parliament has been speaking about it for years now and it’s open knowledge they are letting people out early cause of it, que another hate crime law we need real criminals in there.

  10. It’s really simple, we do not have anywhere close enough the required prison places or the prison staff.

    Also it’s only ever going to get worse as the general population demand longer and longer sentences.

    We are now going down the route the US took many decades ago and it doesn’t work.

    Prison alone doesn’t work, tougher sentences alone doesn’t work, you have to have Rehabilitation, education and then a plan for when people come out of prison but this is all very unpopular with the general public.

    I was involved with Probabtion for a number of years and it was soul destroying. The sheer amount of people being released from prison with little to no education, little to no skills and no means of supporting themselves meant that far far too many ended either ended up reoffending as it was all they knew and they were just put back into the same situation that caused them to offended in the first place or homeless.

    Yes there are a very small number of people who are and always will be a danger no matter what help you give them and for those we need specialised prisons which we lack but generally speaking due to decades of cuts, out sourcing and the general public hating any talk of Rehabilitation, Education and Housing then the situation will only get worse and we will end up excalty like the US.

    On top of this you have to tackle the route cause of why so many people, especially young men offend to begin with.

    The vast majority of those that I Interacted with had little to no education, they often got into trouble at school, came from an abusive broken home and lived in deprived areas.

    The most common cause of being sent to prison were for violent crimes, theft and drugs.

    It was literally all they knew.

    You want to solve the problems of a prison system that is breaking under its own weight, you need to tackle the route cause which means spending significant more in social services, youth training, youth opportunities such as sports (Football, Boxing, Martial Arts etc..) and education.

    Secondly you need to invest more in Rehabilitation, Education and Mental health for those in prison.

    Thirdly you need to invest significantly more in halfway houses and job creation schemes for those coming out prison.

    Last but least you need more specialist prison for those who those commit high level crimes that require long term sentences such as multiple rapes, murders, child abuse etc..

    The problem is money and convincing the general public that it’s in their interest to do this.

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