Verdict in Steubenville Case

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Of course it can't excuse rape and violence against women or anyone. Still, a cultural upbringing explains attitudes, no matter how wrong those attitudes are.
In Steubenville, the local culture elevates high school football players to the status of demigods, thus giving the players a pass on virtually any offense they might commit. This attitude has since seeped into all aspects of their town's local society, according to former Steubenville native, Traci Lords (yes, that Traci Lords), who has since the first reports of the rape has publicly revealed that she had herself been raped by a jock as a teenager. She has since appeared on Piers Morgan On CNN, having transformed herself into a rape survivor advocate.
She has a song on video now, entitled Stupidville. I think the name of the song reveals her opinions about her old hometown, which she describes as having something seriously wrong with it, from the players on the field, to the rude, drunken parents in the stands.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I used to think that. I'm a Rust Belt baby-- survivor of 27 years in northcentral West Virginia (about 100 miles east-southeast of Steubenville, if it matters). My parents thought like y'all. I remember Daddy telling me-- I was his only child and his little princess until the day he died-- that it was never OK for anyone to hurt me, no matter where I was or what I was doing at the time. The cousins and classmates from my generation-- not so much. Like I said, the attitude among the kids I grew up with was, "That's what happens to skanks." Notably, all those kids liked to party, drink, drug, and have casual sex.

Until the last few years, I used to think like y'all. Somewhere along the line, things changed. I stopped wishing for what should be and started living with what is.

I HATE it-- would like to think like y'all again-- but I keep trying and I'm left with, it is what it is. You deal with the world in front of you.

Hubby is actually from south Florida. Prides himself on being progressive, a liberated man, a white knight.

His folks are ex-Catholics from Indiana. That's pretty much their attitude. That's where he got it. I note they are, other than having very stupid habits with materialism and money, very successful people. Well-liked, commonly respected, not looked down upon or victimized by the community around them.

Unlike my folks. The last person in my family to be well-respected in the community was (is, actually, as she's 88 and still kicking) Grandma. The old mixed-race grandchild disowner herself.

It's not the way the world is, though. There are differences from society to society. It's our collective attitudes and actions that shape the culture and these can be changed. This is why it's relatively safe in one society for a woman to walk around alone and in another, one can get raped for not being covered head to toe and escorted.

When you let your daughter know that she'll get no sympathy for being raped, you're telling her she might as well never speak up if it happens. That means the rapist gets away with it and can go forth and rape some more. Even if it had nothing to do with what she did or didn't do right, she'll get the message that her own parents will believe it's probably her fault. A huge amount of rape is done within the family or by someone who was trusted.

This attitude contributes to a society that is less safe than one in which victims gain more sympathy than the perpetrators, who are reported and punished.

Men are also victims of rape under this cultural attitude. Men and boys get raped and don't speak up because they believe it's their fault for being raped for not being strong enough, being gay, or looking/acting gay, trusting the wrong person, etc etc. It's ridiculous.

Dear BuyerBeware,
I respect you and your opinions and your sincerity.

But, please be aware that THIS girl was almost certainly drugged.

This was a set-up by numerous teen-age 'boys' who were members of 'The Rape Crew'.

Not the 'F' crew or 'Sex' crew.

Rape.

She was targeted, set up, raped, sodomized, urinated on and pictures taken of her helpless, and a 12-minute video made of Michael Nodianos watching and describing what they were doing, and how very, very funny it was.

This girl was a genuine victim.

Sylkat

Normally, the legal system would not agree with you, as knowingly putting someone in danger is a punishable offense usually characterized as negligence or recklessness, but since in this case the offender is the legal system...

Also, as the part I put in bold, you are aware that we are talking about prisons here, right? Some of the most controlled environments on earth? If the jailers wanted to prevent prison rape, they could, but when they're not committing the offenses themselves (woman in particular are most likely to raped by their jailers), too many of them seem to be of the same opinion as you and think that rape is part of the sentence.



First of all, I prefer the term "involuntary participants", and second, they had it coming.

Firstly, you must have a lot of faith in fairness and accuracy of the US legal system. I would suggest more thorough study on the matter.

Secondly, what would be the purpose of your punishment scheme, assuming that you could overcome the hurdles of an imperfect justice system? Does murdering a murderer somehow undo their crime? Is their a societal benefit to state sanctioned sex crimes in the name of retribution? Locking up thieves costs the taxpayers, thus compounding the crime.

If I had a proven system of criminal rehabilitation that was cheaper and more effective than prison, made restitution to victims, and allowed now former criminals to reintegrate into society, but involved no punishment beyond the restitution, would you endorse it? I think I know the answer, but I prefer not to assume.

[Moved from News and Current Events to PPR]

i think these guys are going to get punished in the same way they violated there victims,or they will be in a cage 23 hours a day

I have sympathy for her. She made some bad choices, but I still think she was raped. It's not her behaviour, but the boys. They had the choice to look out for her (even though she was stupid enough to put herself in such a situation) or to take advantage of her. By choosing to take advantage of her they dehumanized her and they failed to look out for someone vulnerable.

This probably happens all the time, but it doesn't make it right.


Your husband can't possibly account for every possible scenario and judge it beforehand. I don't understand how he could think this.

A woman cannot stop herself being raped (obviously a man can't either, but as most rapes are male-on-female...). She can reduce the chances by being very careful, but it is perfectly reasonable to go out clubbing or go to parties without expecting to be raped. The victim of any crime should never have as much blame as the perpetrator.

That doesn't mean I don't have a degree of sympathy of criminals who do something stupid and then ruin their lives as well as the life of their victim. Who doesn't feel a bit sorry for Macbeth?

I don't. Aside from lacking self control old MacBeth had the wife from Hell. He should have known better and he should have married someone else.

ruveyn

Lady Macbeth might not have been so obviously evil until she heard of the prophecy.

Fnord presents us with a perfect illustration of the danger of trying to make the criminal justice system respond to the victims of crime. Fnord is a victim of crime. And as a result of that, Fnord demonstrates a complete failure to exercise dispassion, objectivity and reason in responding to these crimes.

The criminal justice system in the Anglo-American world cannot ever provide satisfaction to a victim of crime, unless we stand it on its head, and eliminate its role as a protector of the citizen from power of the state. That way danger lies. Criminal justice is perverted when "victim impact statements" become not means to inform a decision maker about the gravity of the offence, but rather become a political platform for the victims to insert themselves into a proceeding to which they are not a party. Many victims of crime will never be satisfied with the criminal justice system. They want to impose suffering upon their assailants comparable with the suffering that they have undergone. And that is a place that we can never go.

Meanwhile, the mob, calling for violence to be visited on these offenders is no better than the mob that brayed for the blood in the colliseum, or picnicked in the Place de la Révolution to watch Mme Guillotine.

We do not demonstrate our revulsion for rape through our bloodthirstiness. These young men deserve to be punished, and they will undergo the punishment that the law demands for their offenses. But every single one of you who has joined in this chorus of violence demonstrates a contemptible inhumanity. I depise you all for it.

I'm sorry, but a law that demands one year in exchange for what will very likely turn out to be many years of pain for the victim is a law that cannot sufficiently punish the offenders.

If that makes me despicable, then feel free to hate away. I'll still be over here looking for justice, not what some rich idiot in a fancy suit decided is "good enough".

I imagine the perpetrators of crime will have many years of guilt over their actions.

I've never done anything remotely that bad, nor have I had something that bad done to me, but I know that the guilt for the relatively small things I have done massively outweighs any punishment imposed upon me.

I don't think it makes you despicable to think they deserve more than one year.

Dear Walrus, What you wrote of your acknowledgement of guilt and feelings of regret identify you as a decent and mature human being.

However, one of the defendants, Richmond, approached the victim's family after the trial. He said, "Pictures should never have been taken."

Not "We lured her, we drugged her/got her drunk, we displayed her, we laughed at her, we raped her and posed her for those photos".

His regret is the pictures.

The pictures that were the only evidence of what they did to her.

The pictures that got him convicted.

These individuals are not like you.

If they were, she would not have been targeted, set up, and victimized.

Sylkat