Does it make me a bad person that I want him to live long enough to serve every single year?
laurentweppesays
Does it make me a bad person that I want him to live long enough to serve every single year?
Sol system, 2319 AD: People used to make fun about transhumanists… then Daniel Holtzclaw left prison after serving his sentence and went into politics: No one’s laughing anymore
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Ysays
I wonder what the Bundies will take over to protest this.
numerobissays
I “look forward” to a bunch of Holtzclaws getting nailed throughout Canada in the coming years.
Usernames! (╯°□°)╯︵ ʎuʎbosıɯsays
I wouldn’t say he got off easy: it is a reality of the US prison system that a significant number of prisoners are sexually assaulted.
Since he is a former LEO, he’ll spend the rest of his life in isolation (“protective custody”), and/or he’ll end up dead before too long.
The only problem with this punishment is a problem I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere.
The only cops in the US who ever face serious punishment and prison time are non-white cops. Holtzclaw is of Japanese descent. White cops almost always walk free – and has been shown in the Tamar Rice case, the corrupt local prosecutor didn’t even try to put the murderer on trial. They just went through the motions of pretending justice would be done.
Since he enjoys rape so much, he should have a really pleasant time in the big house.
Holmssays
^ Not nice.
Mark Jacobsonsays
Since he enjoys rape so much, he should have a really pleasant time in the big house.
Prison rape is a problem, not a feature. Suggesting otherwise is not okay.
Vivecsays
Since he enjoys rape so much, he should have a really pleasant time in the big house.
Haha what the fuck? Nobody deserves rape. Fuck you.
brettsays
Easy compared to what? Even if giving him the death penalty had been possible, it’d be letting him off too easy. He’s 29, which means he might very well serve 50 years in prison before his death, year by dragging year. That seems like a far more fitting punishment than anything else.
Assuming he survives, of course. I can’t imagine being a former police officer in prison will do much for his life expectancy.
Adam Jamessays
None of this is good. Certainly the prospect of Holtzclaw being raped in prison is awful (and not something to celebrate, as others have pointed out), but so is the fact that a two-hundred year+ prison sentence is actually possible in the U.S. criminal justice system. It’s a system that’s still predicated on bad and outdated assumptions of human nature and free will. It shouldn’t be possible to give anyone a life sentence, at least not before the fact, not least for the reason that no one is the same person all their life. We’re the complex and ever-changing products of biological and environmental factors: none of us are fundamentally good or evil, and we all have the capacity to act in ways that help or harm other people. In the face of this our justice system still serves the deep-seated belief that some people are just pure bad to the core; that revenge is OK if it’s done in a systematic fashion, with the veneer of impartiality.
Daniel Holtzclaw should be in prison for exactly as long as he presents a danger to women, no longer. More broadly, no one should be imprisoned for any longer than they present a threat to society. It some cases that will in fact mean that a convict lives out their life behind bars. But that should only happen as a result of a continually updated risk/benefit analysis that gives the prisoner every chance to earn their release. It really sucks to see so many progressive gloating over this case, because we were supposed to be the ones talking about the regressive and harmful nature of the justice system. If not us, then who? TLDR The U.S. desperately needs a more utilitarian approach. As it is, our solution to harm is more harm.
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Ysays
It really sucks to see so many progressive gloating over this case, because we were supposed to be the ones talking about the regressive and harmful nature of the justice system.
Why the sudden interest in the regressive and harmful nature of the justice system?
davemsays
What Adam said. Anyone who thinks that a 263 sentence is ‘justiice’ is not a civilised person.
Nick Gottssays
Azkyroth@14,
How do you know Adam James’s interest is “sudden”? (Genuine question, maybe he has a history here I’m unaware of.)
I don’t get the sense of these longer than a Galapagos tortoise lifespan sentences. What are they going to do? Keep his bones in prison*?
As others have pointed out, there’s little to celebrate in the fact that for once the horrible thing that is the US criminal system is working against somebody who is truly a horrible person.
There are better ways. In Germany “life” means 15 years, it can be more if there’s a severe grade of guilt, there can be actual life long “security custody” if somebody is deemed to be a constant danger. Still you don’t see the country running wild with violent crime just because the sentences are “light”.
Holtzclaw is probably somebody who should never set a foot in freedom again and I do think that our system doesn’t take the victims’ need for safety into account enough. But especially when talking about rape, talking about the appropriate length of the sentence is clearly only a very last step, given that about 90% of all rapes are not reported almost 99% of all rapists walk free.
*Though I once read a good horror story based on that premise
Azkyroth
What makes you think it’S a sudden interest. Many people, including myself, have voiced their opinion on the complete clusterfuck that is the US justice system before. Criminal law and prison reform are central issues for the BLM movement. Bad things are bad things, even if they happen to truly horrible people.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
Like Adam James, Davem and Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- I find little to celebrate in the fact that the backward, collective vengeance based model of US justice (and not just US justice – this is a problem across much of the world) happened to befall a truly nasty piece of work this time. It doesn’t alter the fact that the system is still unjust, and that the very mechanisms that landed Holtzclaw with a multi-century sentence are also part of a system that lead to a massive over representation of ethnic minority groups within the prison system. As left0ver1under points out @ 7, one has to wonder whether Holtzclaw would be facing such a sentence if he had been a White police officer. Institutional racism is not suddenly OK when it happens to work against a terrible person.
I also agree with the other posters that these excessively long prison sentences serve little purpose other than to reject the possibility of any kind of reform or rehabilitation. Yes this man is a multiple rapist who used his public office to facilitate his crimes and has done unconscionable things, but should that really mean that he can be simply locked up for the rest of his life with no recognition of the possibility that he could ever be rehabilitated or will ever reach a point where he is no longer a threat to women? How is that meaningfully different from simply executing him and having done with it? Sentencing should not be about vengeance or expressions of outrage; first and foremost it should be about protecting the public, and as such as long as Holtzclaw presents a threat to women he should remain in prison to protect women, not to allow the rest of us to experience some twisted vicarious revenge fantasy. Once it can be credibly demonstrated that he is no longer a threat to women, then he should be released. Should such a time never come to pass, then he may spend the rest of his life in prison, or at least so much of it that his release only comes when he is too physically frail to present a threat. That is a lamentable necessity of the protection of society, not a cause for celebration.
Gorogh, Lounging Peacromancersays
Agreeing with the sentiment that Adam James brought up at 13. I appreciate the satisfaction inherent in revenge (which can’t be helped either), but, well, Adam James, Giliell and Gregory Greenwood already elaborated on the downsides.
Confinement for confinement’s sake seems like torture to me.
birgerjohanssonsays
Why the hell could he hide behind his badge without his colleagues suspecting anything? It is a very bad comment of the system that the victims did not dare to go to other police.
Weird justice system, with revenge as the priority and poor resources available for rehabilitation of the perpetrator (in the case the perpetrator has any hope for rehabilitation -multiple rapists have a poor prognosis).
Also, few resources available for the counseling and rehabilitation of the victims, because “taxes are evil”.
Instead of locking him up for life, it would make sense to release him when he is seventy and too frail to pose a threat, as Gregory suggests.
.
(Until then, he could be fed these dishes from the Faroe islands http://satwcomic.com/sheepish-food-cravings )
Brother Ogvorbis, Fully Defenestrated Emperor of Steam, Fire and Absurditysays
I am surprised that he was found guilty. I am saddened at the dichotomy between the stated goals and actual achievements of the criminal justice system — we claim we want to rehabilitate offenders but the way the system is set up?
I also wonder if we, as a culture, as a nation, will see the larger problem — who we select as law enforcement officers, how we train them, how they are supervised, whether they are trained to actually operate under the laws they are supposed to enforce. Holtzclaw is a symptom of the system, not an anomaly. Too many law enforcement officers see themselves as above the law, as privileged — ‘I have to break the law to get the bad guys’.
I’m with you Adam (and the rest of you guys). As far as I can tell the whole US prison system represents a systemic cruelty I wouldn’t want to subject anybody to if there was a choice. But if the alternative is to let people like Holtzclaw continue to prey on innocent people, then so be it.
In Norway we have the option of a detention sentence in addition to the regular sentencing that basically means you must be judged fit for society before you can be released. Some eventually get out, others (like Anders Breivik) will probably live out the remainder of their lives in confinement. But that is up to him, if he’s capable of change he too might get out one day. I have no problem with that.
A Masked Avengersays
Giliell,
I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it, consecutive sentences preclude parole. Again AIUI, parole generally becomes an option after serving 80% of your sentence. Concurrent sentences would mean 30 years in prison, with a chance of parole every year after year 24.
numerobissays
In Canada, we now know there’s that culture of impunity where police can freely abuse marginalized women, at least in one small city: police would pick drunk aboriginal women up, and drop them off out of town. Sometimes that was it (dangerous as all hell to be drunk out there on your own), sometimes sex would get them a drive home. Basically the same situation, just slightly different specifics.
We know this happened in one small city (Val d’Or), and it’s widely suspected to be happening across Canada. The former government was completely against investigating the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women, presumably because it didn’t want to deal with the issue.
I guess it’s to much to ask for that they also jail all of the people in the department who turned a blind eye?
Adam Jamessays
Why the sudden interest in the regressive and harmful nature of the justice system?
It’s genuinely not sudden. I realize I don’t comment here often enough for the regulars to know much about my views, but I’m pretty consistent in my opposition to retributive justice. I also recognize that this particular case will generate mixed feelings for many, since it sits at the intersection of the desire to see justice done for women and minorities, and the desire for humane and ethical approach to corrections.
I always go back to the case of Anders Breivik. He single-handedly orchestrated one of the bloodiest, most heinous and outrageous terrorist attacks in our collective memory. And for it, he got 20 years in prison with the possibility of release. I don’t claim causation, but even if they only manage to do it in spite of their progressive approach to incarceration, Norway still has one of the lowest murder rates in the world (though other Scandinavian countries have lower).
Adam Jamessays
Just realized Erlend Meyer (#23) also brought up the Breivik case, credit to you for doing it first. Great minds and all that.
Nowhere in Europe would he spend the rest of his life in prison. To lock him in a cage, basically by himself, for 50 years does not make anything right, in my view. (And yes, that is exactly what is going to happen.) There’s no way to predict whether someone continues to be a risk to commit violence, but I think there are very few people who need to be locked up forever. I believe redemption is possible for most people.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
o lock him in a cage, basically by himself, for 50 years does not make anything right, in my view.
Can your show, with decent evidence, that serial rapists, serial killers, and serial pedophiles can be rehabilitated and released safely back into society? If not, they should be segregated from the population for safety reasons.
This should be evidence based, not ideologically based.
Artorsays
I’m not going to wish prison rape on Holtzclaw, but I do hope the general population knows he was a dirty cop. I expect that will shorten his sentence significantly, and save taxpayers a lot of money.
drstsays
I’m thrilled that every one of the victims who came forward had their crime treated equally so that he was sentenced for every single crime he was convicted of. Each of his victims was recognized in his sentencing.
I’m thrilled this scumbag will be locked up for the rest of his days. Every rapist should be thrown behind bars and never released. The women of the world would sleep far more soundly.
And no, rapists can be any age (or gender or sex, obviously) so a guy getting old does not mean he’s somehow “safe” to be allowed to be around women then. There is no rehabilitation for serial rapists. They deserve to rot forever.
Breivik could indeed spend the rest of his life behind bars. He has a detention-sentence with no upper limit that means he must be found fit for release. And I honestly doubt that such a person would ever be rehabilitated, although one can always hope that we find effective treatments in the future.
boraxsays
I’m just glad that this pig will never rape again. One down, so many more to go.
Matrimsays
Personally, I think we should have a two tiered justice system. The public justice system, which is as progressive as we can make it, and the justice system reserved for people who uphold and create the law (police, judges, legislators, etc), which would be an order of magnitude more severe. People who violate the law under color of authority should face harsher penalties than the populace they failed to serve.
In practice it wouldn’t work, but it’s satisfying to consider.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))says
It is odd how the “justice” system works.
cop sees a “roach” (you know what I mean) in your car –> get thrown in jail for 3 years
occupy federal lands, armed with guns and arsonists -> hands off
where is Justice?
stillacrazycanucksays
@29: And even if redemption is not possible for some people, the system should be based on the premise that it may be possible for each individual: only time will tell whether that is true in any particular case.
@31: let me see if I understand your point of view. You wouldn’t want to see the guy raped, but you clearly hope that he will be murdered….that he will be killed illegally by one or more inmates. The odds are, I gather, that someone may well kill him, secure in the knowledge that the murderer cannot be effectively sanctioned because he, too, is facing no possibility of ever being released. You’re good with that, are you?
Apart from the sheer inhumanity/immorality of these barbaric sentences, it seems pretty clear that the common presence of true ‘lifers’ in prisons is calculated to make for a more violent, less redemptive environment, since there is virtually no way to make worse the lives of those already thrown away. Maybe that would be ‘ok’ if one had a prison where only lifers served their time (it wouldn’t be ok with me), but when one throws hundreds and thousands of other inmates into that environment, the odds of their getting rehabilitated seem somewhat reduced.
@PZ: I confess to being very disappointed at your gloating over this sentence. It’s almost as if you believe in retribution as a positive societal force….what other motive than retribution can explain this sort of sentence? Seems very Old Testament to me.
Do we consider long term effects on the victims? Someone could be rehabilitated before a victim recovers.
Adam Jamessays
drst #32:
There is no rehabilitation for serial rapists.
This sort of claim requires more evidence. In fact, wouldn’t it be better to simply evaluate the evidence on a case by case basis, instead of a priori precluding the possibility that any serial rapist could be reformed?
It is entirely human and understandable to want revenge, to want to hurt those who have wronged us. I get you want to do right by rape victims. We need to do more to prevent rape, and change how we respond to it, especially in our tendency to slut shame and victim blame. But fulfilling the (again, entirely human and understandable) desire for revenge is not the best we can do for victims of rape.
And what about the rapists that were rape victims themselves? What about prison rape? If we locked up every rapist for life, how much more harm might they inflict on each other? On other prisoners? To say nothing of the psychological torture that is lifelong imprisonment.
Locking up every rapist forever might make women generally feel safer. But switching to a reform-oriented justice system, along the lines of Scandinavian countries, would make us all actually safer.
peteshsays
The Norwegian system sounds good to me. I also firmly believe that victims should be allowed the full measure of expressing their grief, including directly in court, but that sentencing should be out of their hands. If my partner were murdered, I for sure would have a gut desire for retribution that would test my principled opposition to capital punishment; but it would not be up to me and it should not be up to me. I do not know if this guy can be rehabilitated or how anyone could tell; I’d likely let him out only if he was a physical wreck, incapable of harmful acts, which probably means a supervised institution anyway. But consecutive sentences of three or four times lifespan? That just seems absurd to me.
Gregory Greenwoodsays
DRST @ 32;
I’m thrilled this scumbag will be locked up for the rest of his days. Every rapist should be thrown behind bars and never released. The women of the world would sleep far more soundly.
And no, rapists can be any age (or gender or sex, obviously) so a guy getting old does not mean he’s somehow “safe” to be allowed to be around women then. There is no rehabilitation for serial rapists. They deserve to rot forever.
Even if we grant the claim that serial rapists can never be rehabilitated (an assertion that would require a great deal of evidence before it could begin to be considered credible), I still don’t think you have fully thought through the implications of such a proposal. If the punishment for rape is a whole life sentence with no possibility of parole (or, as in this case, a sentence measured ludicrously in centuries), and the punishment for murder is the same… then why wouldn’t a serial rapist also murder their victims? There would be no incentive to leave a potential witness alive who could implicate them down the line. Even if you applied the death penalty to murder (Something I also oppose – responding to murder with further murder, this time State sanctioned, is both unethical and has been repeatedly demonstrated to be ineffective as a deterrent), many people would consider death to be preferable to spending the rest of their lives in a cage, and so we are right back to leaving the rapists with no reason to leave their victims alive, and indeed an incentive to kill them to guarantee their silence.
What you propose would have at least one certain outcome I don’t think you have considered – more dead rape victims, most of whom will be women. Are you so sure that this outcome would make women feel safer? Still less that any sense of greater safety would be anything but illusory?
Unintended outcomes are still outcomes.
brettsays
I prefer the Breivik solution myself. 20 years guaranteed in prison for a crime this heinous, followed by a thorough examination to determine whether it’s safe to allow him to interact with the general public again outside of prison. If they decide he’s of a low enough risk to do that, he goes through a Mark Kleiman-style gradual de-escalation of monitoring for a few years until he’s outright free again. If he’s not, they tell him why he isn’t, and he gets another five years in jail before they evaluate him again.
John Moralessays
stillacrazycanuck @37, what’s your problem with retribution?
(Also, things people do is not–definitionally–inhuman, people being human and all)
Adam Jamessays
@John Morales, #43
Can’t speak for canuck, only for myself. My objection to retribution, from a utilitarian perspective, is that it creates net harm. The little good done – the victim’s satisfaction at the suffering of their aggressor – is usually heavily outweighed by said suffering. Add in the original crime and the fact that everyone is in more danger if retribution is the norm and you have massive harm x3 minus tiny bit of good = bad for society. There are better ways to respond to wrongdoing that can actually increase the common good, e.g. a reform-oriented justice system.
John Moralessays
Adam James, I’m sure that any who would cause you harm or suffering would be quite pleased to learn that you would repudiate seeking any retribution for it on utilitarian grounds.
(Snark aside, how you don’t see that an enforced regime of reformation is itself a form of retribution amuses me)
Rob Grigjanissays
John @45:
Adam James, I’m sure that any who would cause you harm or suffering would be quite pleased to learn that you would repudiate seeking any retribution for it on utilitarian grounds.
This is why we have laws; it shouldn’t signify what retribution I might seek. If I thought someone had hurt or killed a loved one, I would want them to suffer indescribably, and then die horribly. And I’m against the death penalty! Weird, innit?
(Snark aside, how you don’t see that an enforced regime of reformation is itself a form of retribution amuses me)
Disingenuousness is an art form for you, isn’t it?
John Moralessays
Rob:
This is why we have laws […]
The laws determined “Two hundred sixty three years”. Adam finds that problematic, on utilitarian grounds.
If I thought someone had hurt or killed a loved one, I would want them to suffer indescribably, and then die horribly. And I’m against the death penalty! Weird, innit?
It is to Adam James, apparently. He objects on utilitarian grounds.
Disingenuousness is an art form for you, isn’t it?
How so? Do you dispute that Adam James apparently thinks that forced reformation is not an act of retribution?
peteshsays
@Jon @47: Avoiding answering a question by theorizing on what someone else’s answer would be is pretty disingenuous.
Rob Grigjanissays
John @47:
The laws determined “Two hundred sixty three years”.
This is what I mean by “disingenuousness”. Why we have laws versus specific bad laws. You must know the difference. Bad laws abound. But the reason for law is that we want to live in groups without people going around taking stuff and bashing each other on the head without consequence.
Do you dispute that Adam James apparently thinks that forced reformation is not an act of retribution?
I don’t know Adam from, er, Adam. But I’d love to hear your theories on reformation that don’t include some sort of force.
John Moralessays
petesh, you too amuse me. I didn’t theorise about anyone’s potential answer, rather I challenged Rob to confirm whether he actually disputes my contention.
John Moralessays
Rob:
But the reason for law is that we want to live in groups without people going around taking stuff and bashing each other on the head without consequence.
And that consequence, in this case, was “Two hundred sixty three years”, which Adam claimed was insufficiently utilitarian retribution.
But I’d love to hear your theories on reformation that don’t include some sort of force.
What makes you imagine I have such theories?
Again, look at that to which I initially responded: “My objection to retribution, from a utilitarian perspective, is that it creates net harm. […] There are better ways to respond to wrongdoing that can actually increase the common good, e.g. a reform-oriented justice system.”
Is it not obvious to you that what I quoted contrasts “a reform-oriented justice system” with “retribution”, as if they were different things?
(What is the actual difference between societally-imposed “consequence” and “retribution” for particular acts?)
John Moralessays
PS Admittedly, there is an actual difference between retribution which seeks to reform and retribution which does not seek to reform.
(But let’s not pretend that either is not retribution)
Rob Grigjanissays
John @52:
What makes you imagine I have such theories?
I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have known better.
Adam Jamessays
@John Morales
The reform of convicts, at least the kind that I’m in favor of, is not any kind of retribution, and does not set out to punish. Actually, Wikipedia uses the term “restorative justice” so I’ll use that term here. Restorative justice might seem superficially similar to punitive systems in that its response to violent crime is often imprisonment. But imprisonment under such a system has nothing to do with punishment. It is simply in some cases the only solution we have for the problem of an individual who presents a clear and present danger to those around them. In other words, we should choose to imprison someone iff the harm done by taking away their freedom is outweighed by the good done in separating them from others, to whom the convicted might present a danger or even vice versa. As I said, this may all superficially resemble retributive justice (though certainly it wouldn’t in the frequency of convictions or length of sentences) but under this model a “guilty verdict” is not a conclusion that the accused has done wrong for which they must atone, but instead serves as proof that the individual in question is a threat to those around them, and thus imprisoning them *may* be considered. Similarly, said imprisonment would not be punitive under this model, but protective of both the imprisoned and society, and would only last as long as the former presented a threat to the latter.
Now that’s mainly my idealized model. In reality, establishing a system of justice in a democratic society will always involve some sort of compromise. Inevitably, some stakeholders in the process will be of the belief that crime must always be met with punishment, regardless of whether such an approach promotes any general good. So in practice any real-world justice system will at least pay lip service to the concept of punishment to appease those in favor of retributive justice, even if its operation more resembles the model laid out above. Perhaps that’s part of what’s causing the confusion.
Also, there’s people a lot smarter than me who’ve spent more time thinking about this then I have. So if anyone’s interested more in this topic (or they don’t believe that a justice system can promote reform without enabling retribution) I’d recommend checking out restorativejustice.org, particularly this bit on Proportionality.
John Moralessays
Adam, leaving aside that being imprisoned is being imprisoned whatever the justification, how do you propose to determine that someone no longer poses a threat to society, other than by virtue of incapacity?
(I’ve seen the light, and will sin no more!)
consciousness razorsays
Nerd of Redhead, #30:
Can your show, with decent evidence, that serial rapists, serial killers, and serial pedophiles can be rehabilitated and released safely back into society? If not, they should be segregated from the population for safety reasons.
This should be evidence based, not ideologically based.
It’s only your idea that they’re unlike other people, in being incapable of rehabilitation and safe release. Why do you make that unevidenced assumption, Nerd?
You don’t need to show that a whole group of people (e.g., all serial killers) can be released safely, just that this specific person (who happens to be in the group) can be released safely. And yes, there could be evidence of that sort. Presumably, cervantes (along with basically every other anti-retribution progressive) would not be opposed to using it.
drst, #32:
And no, rapists can be any age (or gender or sex, obviously) so a guy getting old does not mean he’s somehow “safe” to be allowed to be around women then.
Nobody’s arguing that a person’s age is what makes them capable of being integrated back into society safely. The same could be said of killers or any other sort of criminal, not just rapists, so it has nothing to do with anybody’s assumptions about sexuality.
There is no rehabilitation for serial rapists.
How do you know this? Or do you not care whether this bullshit is true or false?
They deserve to rot forever.
Ah, finally, your actual reason appears: you just want someone to rot. No idea why a justice system should reflect sentiments like this. In any case, eternal punishment is not possible for us, so fortunately you won’t get what you want.
John Morales, #55:
Adam, leaving aside that being imprisoned is being imprisoned whatever the justification, how do you propose to determine that someone no longer poses a threat to society, other than by virtue of incapacity?
(I’ve seen the light, and will sin no more!)
If you pay attention, you can notice differences between a person who can’t rob a bank but would if they were capable (because they’re locked in a room) and one who isn’t interested in robbing a bank (again). Because the mind is not a black box, with people acting certain ways for no fathomable reason.
I propose we gather evidence about that, and if it’s satisfactory, then we have a reason to release that person. In order to be satisfactory, the evidence about them should suggest the same low risk of bank-robbing as I have. That is, I argue the risk of robbing a bank is very small in my case (you’re welcome to show evidence to the contrary), but of course it can’t be demonstrated to be zero for anyone — really, there’s no hope of ever having that kind of certainty, if it were necessary to have which it isn’t. I’m not imprisoned because someone could establish that there’s a tiny chance of me robbing a bank (or committing any other crime), so everyone else should be treated equally. If people detect such tendencies in me, that I seem to be heading toward criminal behavior (meaning they think the risk is high), they don’t just lock me in a room or punish me some other way. But they could try to help me get out of my situation/environment which may be encouraging that, help me become a better person or one who doesn’t have that sort of outlook, and so forth. You can do that outside the justice system, and you can do it inside. You can do both.
Anrisays
John Morales @ 55:
Adam, leaving aside that being imprisoned is being imprisoned whatever the justification, how do you propose to determine that someone no longer poses a threat to society, other than by virtue of incapacity?
There is no way.
Human behavior is entirely unpredictable, and we cannot use any method whatsoever to track factors that might alert us as to how people might act in future. Because those factors don’t exist.
If this isn’t obvious to you, you’re dumber than John Morales I’d say that, but as the human mind is a perfect cipher, I can’t.
Pity.
(Warning: this post was processed at a facility that handles sarcasm, and may contain more than trace amounts. Handle at your own risk.)
Jake Harbansays
Rehabilitation sans punishment vs. retribution is a false dichotomy. Punishment is useful (and justified) simply as a deterrent to crime.
And while its efficacy as a deterrent is substantially lower than many/most people think, imposing punishment on a criminal from a powerful demographic that generally considers itself above the law is probably the most effective use of punishment as a deterrent.
Holtzclaw had every opportunity to be an upstanding citizen and he very deliberately chose not only to break the law but to target people he assumed had no recourse in a deliberate attempt to avoid getting caught. I agree with PZ— he got off easy.
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Ysays
Azkyroth@14,
How do you know Adam James’s interest is “sudden”? (Genuine question, maybe he has a history here I’m unaware of.)
But even if it is, he’s right on this occasion.
Fine, let me rephrase; I find it tedious that this sort of sentiment comes out when an overwhelmingly privileged person somehow stumbles into actual criminal consequences for willfully horrific actions, and is notably muted in most circles in nearly every other case.
Does it make me a bad person that I want him to live long enough to serve every single year?
Sol system, 2319 AD: People used to make fun about transhumanists… then Daniel Holtzclaw left prison after serving his sentence and went into politics: No one’s laughing anymore
I wonder what the Bundies will take over to protest this.
I “look forward” to a bunch of Holtzclaws getting nailed throughout Canada in the coming years.
I wouldn’t say he got off easy: it is a reality of the US prison system that a significant number of prisoners are sexually assaulted.
Since he is a former LEO, he’ll spend the rest of his life in isolation (“protective custody”), and/or he’ll end up dead before too long.
I hope he sobs himself ti sleep every night
The only problem with this punishment is a problem I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere.
The only cops in the US who ever face serious punishment and prison time are non-white cops. Holtzclaw is of Japanese descent. White cops almost always walk free – and has been shown in the Tamar Rice case, the corrupt local prosecutor didn’t even try to put the murderer on trial. They just went through the motions of pretending justice would be done.
http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2016/01/20/the-grand-jury-in-the-tamir-rice-case-did-not-take-a-vote-on-charges
Since he enjoys rape so much, he should have a really pleasant time in the big house.
^ Not nice.
Prison rape is a problem, not a feature. Suggesting otherwise is not okay.
Haha what the fuck? Nobody deserves rape. Fuck you.
Easy compared to what? Even if giving him the death penalty had been possible, it’d be letting him off too easy. He’s 29, which means he might very well serve 50 years in prison before his death, year by dragging year. That seems like a far more fitting punishment than anything else.
Assuming he survives, of course. I can’t imagine being a former police officer in prison will do much for his life expectancy.
None of this is good. Certainly the prospect of Holtzclaw being raped in prison is awful (and not something to celebrate, as others have pointed out), but so is the fact that a two-hundred year+ prison sentence is actually possible in the U.S. criminal justice system. It’s a system that’s still predicated on bad and outdated assumptions of human nature and free will. It shouldn’t be possible to give anyone a life sentence, at least not before the fact, not least for the reason that no one is the same person all their life. We’re the complex and ever-changing products of biological and environmental factors: none of us are fundamentally good or evil, and we all have the capacity to act in ways that help or harm other people. In the face of this our justice system still serves the deep-seated belief that some people are just pure bad to the core; that revenge is OK if it’s done in a systematic fashion, with the veneer of impartiality.
Daniel Holtzclaw should be in prison for exactly as long as he presents a danger to women, no longer. More broadly, no one should be imprisoned for any longer than they present a threat to society. It some cases that will in fact mean that a convict lives out their life behind bars. But that should only happen as a result of a continually updated risk/benefit analysis that gives the prisoner every chance to earn their release. It really sucks to see so many progressive gloating over this case, because we were supposed to be the ones talking about the regressive and harmful nature of the justice system. If not us, then who? TLDR The U.S. desperately needs a more utilitarian approach. As it is, our solution to harm is more harm.
Why the sudden interest in the regressive and harmful nature of the justice system?
What Adam said. Anyone who thinks that a 263 sentence is ‘justiice’ is not a civilised person.
Azkyroth@14,
How do you know Adam James’s interest is “sudden”? (Genuine question, maybe he has a history here I’m unaware of.)
But even if it is, he’s right on this occasion.
I don’t get the sense of these longer than a Galapagos tortoise lifespan sentences. What are they going to do? Keep his bones in prison*?
As others have pointed out, there’s little to celebrate in the fact that for once the horrible thing that is the US criminal system is working against somebody who is truly a horrible person.
There are better ways. In Germany “life” means 15 years, it can be more if there’s a severe grade of guilt, there can be actual life long “security custody” if somebody is deemed to be a constant danger. Still you don’t see the country running wild with violent crime just because the sentences are “light”.
Holtzclaw is probably somebody who should never set a foot in freedom again and I do think that our system doesn’t take the victims’ need for safety into account enough. But especially when talking about rape, talking about the appropriate length of the sentence is clearly only a very last step, given that about 90% of all rapes are not reported almost 99% of all rapists walk free.
*Though I once read a good horror story based on that premise
Azkyroth
What makes you think it’S a sudden interest. Many people, including myself, have voiced their opinion on the complete clusterfuck that is the US justice system before. Criminal law and prison reform are central issues for the BLM movement. Bad things are bad things, even if they happen to truly horrible people.
Like Adam James, Davem and Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- I find little to celebrate in the fact that the backward, collective vengeance based model of US justice (and not just US justice – this is a problem across much of the world) happened to befall a truly nasty piece of work this time. It doesn’t alter the fact that the system is still unjust, and that the very mechanisms that landed Holtzclaw with a multi-century sentence are also part of a system that lead to a massive over representation of ethnic minority groups within the prison system. As left0ver1under points out @ 7, one has to wonder whether Holtzclaw would be facing such a sentence if he had been a White police officer. Institutional racism is not suddenly OK when it happens to work against a terrible person.
I also agree with the other posters that these excessively long prison sentences serve little purpose other than to reject the possibility of any kind of reform or rehabilitation. Yes this man is a multiple rapist who used his public office to facilitate his crimes and has done unconscionable things, but should that really mean that he can be simply locked up for the rest of his life with no recognition of the possibility that he could ever be rehabilitated or will ever reach a point where he is no longer a threat to women? How is that meaningfully different from simply executing him and having done with it? Sentencing should not be about vengeance or expressions of outrage; first and foremost it should be about protecting the public, and as such as long as Holtzclaw presents a threat to women he should remain in prison to protect women, not to allow the rest of us to experience some twisted vicarious revenge fantasy. Once it can be credibly demonstrated that he is no longer a threat to women, then he should be released. Should such a time never come to pass, then he may spend the rest of his life in prison, or at least so much of it that his release only comes when he is too physically frail to present a threat. That is a lamentable necessity of the protection of society, not a cause for celebration.
Agreeing with the sentiment that Adam James brought up at 13. I appreciate the satisfaction inherent in revenge (which can’t be helped either), but, well, Adam James, Giliell and Gregory Greenwood already elaborated on the downsides.
Confinement for confinement’s sake seems like torture to me.
Why the hell could he hide behind his badge without his colleagues suspecting anything? It is a very bad comment of the system that the victims did not dare to go to other police.
Weird justice system, with revenge as the priority and poor resources available for rehabilitation of the perpetrator (in the case the perpetrator has any hope for rehabilitation -multiple rapists have a poor prognosis).
Also, few resources available for the counseling and rehabilitation of the victims, because “taxes are evil”.
Instead of locking him up for life, it would make sense to release him when he is seventy and too frail to pose a threat, as Gregory suggests.
.
(Until then, he could be fed these dishes from the Faroe islands http://satwcomic.com/sheepish-food-cravings )
I don’t know how to contact you so here’s another octopus, http://www.boredpanda.com/surreal-animal-sculptures-ellen-jewett/?image_id=surreal-animal-sculptures-ellen-jewett-9.jpg
I am surprised that he was found guilty. I am saddened at the dichotomy between the stated goals and actual achievements of the criminal justice system — we claim we want to rehabilitate offenders but the way the system is set up?
I also wonder if we, as a culture, as a nation, will see the larger problem — who we select as law enforcement officers, how we train them, how they are supervised, whether they are trained to actually operate under the laws they are supposed to enforce. Holtzclaw is a symptom of the system, not an anomaly. Too many law enforcement officers see themselves as above the law, as privileged — ‘I have to break the law to get the bad guys’.
I’m with you Adam (and the rest of you guys). As far as I can tell the whole US prison system represents a systemic cruelty I wouldn’t want to subject anybody to if there was a choice. But if the alternative is to let people like Holtzclaw continue to prey on innocent people, then so be it.
In Norway we have the option of a detention sentence in addition to the regular sentencing that basically means you must be judged fit for society before you can be released. Some eventually get out, others (like Anders Breivik) will probably live out the remainder of their lives in confinement. But that is up to him, if he’s capable of change he too might get out one day. I have no problem with that.
Giliell,
I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it, consecutive sentences preclude parole. Again AIUI, parole generally becomes an option after serving 80% of your sentence. Concurrent sentences would mean 30 years in prison, with a chance of parole every year after year 24.
In Canada, we now know there’s that culture of impunity where police can freely abuse marginalized women, at least in one small city: police would pick drunk aboriginal women up, and drop them off out of town. Sometimes that was it (dangerous as all hell to be drunk out there on your own), sometimes sex would get them a drive home. Basically the same situation, just slightly different specifics.
We know this happened in one small city (Val d’Or), and it’s widely suspected to be happening across Canada. The former government was completely against investigating the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women, presumably because it didn’t want to deal with the issue.
http://globalnews.ca/news/2469243/missing-and-murdered-aboriginal-women-pre-inquiry-underway-in-quebec-city/
I guess it’s to much to ask for that they also jail all of the people in the department who turned a blind eye?
It’s genuinely not sudden. I realize I don’t comment here often enough for the regulars to know much about my views, but I’m pretty consistent in my opposition to retributive justice. I also recognize that this particular case will generate mixed feelings for many, since it sits at the intersection of the desire to see justice done for women and minorities, and the desire for humane and ethical approach to corrections.
I always go back to the case of Anders Breivik. He single-handedly orchestrated one of the bloodiest, most heinous and outrageous terrorist attacks in our collective memory. And for it, he got 20 years in prison with the possibility of release. I don’t claim causation, but even if they only manage to do it in spite of their progressive approach to incarceration, Norway still has one of the lowest murder rates in the world (though other Scandinavian countries have lower).
Just realized Erlend Meyer (#23) also brought up the Breivik case, credit to you for doing it first. Great minds and all that.
Nowhere in Europe would he spend the rest of his life in prison. To lock him in a cage, basically by himself, for 50 years does not make anything right, in my view. (And yes, that is exactly what is going to happen.) There’s no way to predict whether someone continues to be a risk to commit violence, but I think there are very few people who need to be locked up forever. I believe redemption is possible for most people.
Can your show, with decent evidence, that serial rapists, serial killers, and serial pedophiles can be rehabilitated and released safely back into society? If not, they should be segregated from the population for safety reasons.
This should be evidence based, not ideologically based.
I’m not going to wish prison rape on Holtzclaw, but I do hope the general population knows he was a dirty cop. I expect that will shorten his sentence significantly, and save taxpayers a lot of money.
I’m thrilled that every one of the victims who came forward had their crime treated equally so that he was sentenced for every single crime he was convicted of. Each of his victims was recognized in his sentencing.
I’m thrilled this scumbag will be locked up for the rest of his days. Every rapist should be thrown behind bars and never released. The women of the world would sleep far more soundly.
And no, rapists can be any age (or gender or sex, obviously) so a guy getting old does not mean he’s somehow “safe” to be allowed to be around women then. There is no rehabilitation for serial rapists. They deserve to rot forever.
Breivik could indeed spend the rest of his life behind bars. He has a detention-sentence with no upper limit that means he must be found fit for release. And I honestly doubt that such a person would ever be rehabilitated, although one can always hope that we find effective treatments in the future.
I’m just glad that this pig will never rape again. One down, so many more to go.
Personally, I think we should have a two tiered justice system. The public justice system, which is as progressive as we can make it, and the justice system reserved for people who uphold and create the law (police, judges, legislators, etc), which would be an order of magnitude more severe. People who violate the law under color of authority should face harsher penalties than the populace they failed to serve.
In practice it wouldn’t work, but it’s satisfying to consider.
It is odd how the “justice” system works.
cop sees a “roach” (you know what I mean) in your car –> get thrown in jail for 3 years
occupy federal lands, armed with guns and arsonists -> hands off
where is Justice?
@29: And even if redemption is not possible for some people, the system should be based on the premise that it may be possible for each individual: only time will tell whether that is true in any particular case.
@31: let me see if I understand your point of view. You wouldn’t want to see the guy raped, but you clearly hope that he will be murdered….that he will be killed illegally by one or more inmates. The odds are, I gather, that someone may well kill him, secure in the knowledge that the murderer cannot be effectively sanctioned because he, too, is facing no possibility of ever being released. You’re good with that, are you?
Apart from the sheer inhumanity/immorality of these barbaric sentences, it seems pretty clear that the common presence of true ‘lifers’ in prisons is calculated to make for a more violent, less redemptive environment, since there is virtually no way to make worse the lives of those already thrown away. Maybe that would be ‘ok’ if one had a prison where only lifers served their time (it wouldn’t be ok with me), but when one throws hundreds and thousands of other inmates into that environment, the odds of their getting rehabilitated seem somewhat reduced.
@PZ: I confess to being very disappointed at your gloating over this sentence. It’s almost as if you believe in retribution as a positive societal force….what other motive than retribution can explain this sort of sentence? Seems very Old Testament to me.
Do we consider long term effects on the victims? Someone could be rehabilitated before a victim recovers.
drst #32:
This sort of claim requires more evidence. In fact, wouldn’t it be better to simply evaluate the evidence on a case by case basis, instead of a priori precluding the possibility that any serial rapist could be reformed?
It is entirely human and understandable to want revenge, to want to hurt those who have wronged us. I get you want to do right by rape victims. We need to do more to prevent rape, and change how we respond to it, especially in our tendency to slut shame and victim blame. But fulfilling the (again, entirely human and understandable) desire for revenge is not the best we can do for victims of rape.
And what about the rapists that were rape victims themselves? What about prison rape? If we locked up every rapist for life, how much more harm might they inflict on each other? On other prisoners? To say nothing of the psychological torture that is lifelong imprisonment.
Locking up every rapist forever might make women generally feel safer. But switching to a reform-oriented justice system, along the lines of Scandinavian countries, would make us all actually safer.
The Norwegian system sounds good to me. I also firmly believe that victims should be allowed the full measure of expressing their grief, including directly in court, but that sentencing should be out of their hands. If my partner were murdered, I for sure would have a gut desire for retribution that would test my principled opposition to capital punishment; but it would not be up to me and it should not be up to me. I do not know if this guy can be rehabilitated or how anyone could tell; I’d likely let him out only if he was a physical wreck, incapable of harmful acts, which probably means a supervised institution anyway. But consecutive sentences of three or four times lifespan? That just seems absurd to me.
DRST @ 32;
Even if we grant the claim that serial rapists can never be rehabilitated (an assertion that would require a great deal of evidence before it could begin to be considered credible), I still don’t think you have fully thought through the implications of such a proposal. If the punishment for rape is a whole life sentence with no possibility of parole (or, as in this case, a sentence measured ludicrously in centuries), and the punishment for murder is the same… then why wouldn’t a serial rapist also murder their victims? There would be no incentive to leave a potential witness alive who could implicate them down the line. Even if you applied the death penalty to murder (Something I also oppose – responding to murder with further murder, this time State sanctioned, is both unethical and has been repeatedly demonstrated to be ineffective as a deterrent), many people would consider death to be preferable to spending the rest of their lives in a cage, and so we are right back to leaving the rapists with no reason to leave their victims alive, and indeed an incentive to kill them to guarantee their silence.
What you propose would have at least one certain outcome I don’t think you have considered – more dead rape victims, most of whom will be women. Are you so sure that this outcome would make women feel safer? Still less that any sense of greater safety would be anything but illusory?
Unintended outcomes are still outcomes.
I prefer the Breivik solution myself. 20 years guaranteed in prison for a crime this heinous, followed by a thorough examination to determine whether it’s safe to allow him to interact with the general public again outside of prison. If they decide he’s of a low enough risk to do that, he goes through a Mark Kleiman-style gradual de-escalation of monitoring for a few years until he’s outright free again. If he’s not, they tell him why he isn’t, and he gets another five years in jail before they evaluate him again.
stillacrazycanuck @37, what’s your problem with retribution?
(Also, things people do is not–definitionally–inhuman, people being human and all)
@John Morales, #43
Can’t speak for canuck, only for myself. My objection to retribution, from a utilitarian perspective, is that it creates net harm. The little good done – the victim’s satisfaction at the suffering of their aggressor – is usually heavily outweighed by said suffering. Add in the original crime and the fact that everyone is in more danger if retribution is the norm and you have massive harm x3 minus tiny bit of good = bad for society. There are better ways to respond to wrongdoing that can actually increase the common good, e.g. a reform-oriented justice system.
Adam James, I’m sure that any who would cause you harm or suffering would be quite pleased to learn that you would repudiate seeking any retribution for it on utilitarian grounds.
(Snark aside, how you don’t see that an enforced regime of reformation is itself a form of retribution amuses me)
John @45:
This is why we have laws; it shouldn’t signify what retribution I might seek. If I thought someone had hurt or killed a loved one, I would want them to suffer indescribably, and then die horribly. And I’m against the death penalty! Weird, innit?
Disingenuousness is an art form for you, isn’t it?
Rob:
The laws determined “Two hundred sixty three years”. Adam finds that problematic, on utilitarian grounds.
It is to Adam James, apparently. He objects on utilitarian grounds.
How so? Do you dispute that Adam James apparently thinks that forced reformation is not an act of retribution?
@Jon @47: Avoiding answering a question by theorizing on what someone else’s answer would be is pretty disingenuous.
John @47:
This is what I mean by “disingenuousness”. Why we have laws versus specific bad laws. You must know the difference. Bad laws abound. But the reason for law is that we want to live in groups without people going around taking stuff and bashing each other on the head without consequence.
I don’t know Adam from, er, Adam. But I’d love to hear your theories on reformation that don’t include some sort of force.
petesh, you too amuse me. I didn’t theorise about anyone’s potential answer, rather I challenged Rob to confirm whether he actually disputes my contention.
Rob:
And that consequence, in this case, was “Two hundred sixty three years”, which Adam claimed was insufficiently utilitarian retribution.
What makes you imagine I have such theories?
Again, look at that to which I initially responded: “My objection to retribution, from a utilitarian perspective, is that it creates net harm. […] There are better ways to respond to wrongdoing that can actually increase the common good, e.g. a reform-oriented justice system.”
Is it not obvious to you that what I quoted contrasts “a reform-oriented justice system” with “retribution”, as if they were different things?
(What is the actual difference between societally-imposed “consequence” and “retribution” for particular acts?)
PS Admittedly, there is an actual difference between retribution which seeks to reform and retribution which does not seek to reform.
(But let’s not pretend that either is not retribution)
John @52:
I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have known better.
@John Morales
The reform of convicts, at least the kind that I’m in favor of, is not any kind of retribution, and does not set out to punish. Actually, Wikipedia uses the term “restorative justice” so I’ll use that term here. Restorative justice might seem superficially similar to punitive systems in that its response to violent crime is often imprisonment. But imprisonment under such a system has nothing to do with punishment. It is simply in some cases the only solution we have for the problem of an individual who presents a clear and present danger to those around them. In other words, we should choose to imprison someone iff the harm done by taking away their freedom is outweighed by the good done in separating them from others, to whom the convicted might present a danger or even vice versa. As I said, this may all superficially resemble retributive justice (though certainly it wouldn’t in the frequency of convictions or length of sentences) but under this model a “guilty verdict” is not a conclusion that the accused has done wrong for which they must atone, but instead serves as proof that the individual in question is a threat to those around them, and thus imprisoning them *may* be considered. Similarly, said imprisonment would not be punitive under this model, but protective of both the imprisoned and society, and would only last as long as the former presented a threat to the latter.
Now that’s mainly my idealized model. In reality, establishing a system of justice in a democratic society will always involve some sort of compromise. Inevitably, some stakeholders in the process will be of the belief that crime must always be met with punishment, regardless of whether such an approach promotes any general good. So in practice any real-world justice system will at least pay lip service to the concept of punishment to appease those in favor of retributive justice, even if its operation more resembles the model laid out above. Perhaps that’s part of what’s causing the confusion.
Also, there’s people a lot smarter than me who’ve spent more time thinking about this then I have. So if anyone’s interested more in this topic (or they don’t believe that a justice system can promote reform without enabling retribution) I’d recommend checking out restorativejustice.org, particularly this bit on Proportionality.
Adam, leaving aside that being imprisoned is being imprisoned whatever the justification, how do you propose to determine that someone no longer poses a threat to society, other than by virtue of incapacity?
(I’ve seen the light, and will sin no more!)
Nerd of Redhead, #30:
It’s only your idea that they’re unlike other people, in being incapable of rehabilitation and safe release. Why do you make that unevidenced assumption, Nerd?
You don’t need to show that a whole group of people (e.g., all serial killers) can be released safely, just that this specific person (who happens to be in the group) can be released safely. And yes, there could be evidence of that sort. Presumably, cervantes (along with basically every other anti-retribution progressive) would not be opposed to using it.
drst, #32:
Nobody’s arguing that a person’s age is what makes them capable of being integrated back into society safely. The same could be said of killers or any other sort of criminal, not just rapists, so it has nothing to do with anybody’s assumptions about sexuality.
How do you know this? Or do you not care whether this bullshit is true or false?
Ah, finally, your actual reason appears: you just want someone to rot. No idea why a justice system should reflect sentiments like this. In any case, eternal punishment is not possible for us, so fortunately you won’t get what you want.
John Morales, #55:
If you pay attention, you can notice differences between a person who can’t rob a bank but would if they were capable (because they’re locked in a room) and one who isn’t interested in robbing a bank (again). Because the mind is not a black box, with people acting certain ways for no fathomable reason.
I propose we gather evidence about that, and if it’s satisfactory, then we have a reason to release that person. In order to be satisfactory, the evidence about them should suggest the same low risk of bank-robbing as I have. That is, I argue the risk of robbing a bank is very small in my case (you’re welcome to show evidence to the contrary), but of course it can’t be demonstrated to be zero for anyone — really, there’s no hope of ever having that kind of certainty, if it were necessary to have which it isn’t. I’m not imprisoned because someone could establish that there’s a tiny chance of me robbing a bank (or committing any other crime), so everyone else should be treated equally. If people detect such tendencies in me, that I seem to be heading toward criminal behavior (meaning they think the risk is high), they don’t just lock me in a room or punish me some other way. But they could try to help me get out of my situation/environment which may be encouraging that, help me become a better person or one who doesn’t have that sort of outlook, and so forth. You can do that outside the justice system, and you can do it inside. You can do both.
John Morales @ 55:
There is no way.
Human behavior is entirely unpredictable, and we cannot use any method whatsoever to track factors that might alert us as to how people might act in future. Because those factors don’t exist.
If this isn’t obvious to you, you’re
dumber than John MoralesI’d say that, but as the human mind is a perfect cipher, I can’t.Pity.
(Warning: this post was processed at a facility that handles sarcasm, and may contain more than trace amounts. Handle at your own risk.)
Rehabilitation sans punishment vs. retribution is a false dichotomy. Punishment is useful (and justified) simply as a deterrent to crime.
And while its efficacy as a deterrent is substantially lower than many/most people think, imposing punishment on a criminal from a powerful demographic that generally considers itself above the law is probably the most effective use of punishment as a deterrent.
Holtzclaw had every opportunity to be an upstanding citizen and he very deliberately chose not only to break the law but to target people he assumed had no recourse in a deliberate attempt to avoid getting caught. I agree with PZ— he got off easy.
Fine, let me rephrase; I find it tedious that this sort of sentiment comes out when an overwhelmingly privileged person somehow stumbles into actual criminal consequences for willfully horrific actions, and is notably muted in most circles in nearly every other case.