British Expatriate Network

This is disgracefull a man who rapes a child constantly for years get 60 days in jail . you get a longer sentence if you steal a loaf of bread .


this judge will /should be impeached

Claiming he no longer believes in punishment, a Vermont judge issued a 60-day sentence to a man who confessed to repeatedly raping a girl over a four-year period, beginning when she was 7 years old.










http//www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48219

In the interests of balance and accuracy
http//www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060111/NEWS/601110357/1004

He was actually sentenced to 10 years to life with all but 60 days suspended. This is because the State of Vermont cannot offer sex offender treatment to incarcerated persons. This way he is compelled to be in a program.
Sadly this is not an isolated case or a new issue in Vermont.

Perhaps John you and the the various right wing sites might better direct your energies at the Corrections System rather than the Judge who is making the best of a bad situation.

Rob idont know if the protest about this is right wing or not and i really dont care .

I read it in ( free press ) newpaper i know not of its policies after it was pointed out to me by a citizen ,. i just comment on what i believe is wrong right wing, left wing or otherwise .

The prison system like many other govt institutions waht a overhal especially as im reading lately about so many jail breaks

John,
Pretty much all of the coverage on this case has been generated by rightwing news sources and blogs, especially Faux and the Washington Times.

Unfortunately it has been mostly misleading and, at my most generous, ill informed. The uncomfortable truth is that sticking this guy in jail for any length of time would probably achieve nothing and in this case he wouldn't even receive any form of therapy or sex offender treatment until released. Hence the Judge's decision.

What is really broken here is the popular media's understanding and portrayal of the criminal justice system. Where I practice we have Police Prosecutors, it is not unusual to have some 10 or 20 year police veteran prosecuting a case and negotiating the disposition. I can tell you that pretty much all those I deal with prefer suspended sentences to sending people to jail and do so contingent on the offender participating in some appropriate program and staying out of trouble for a fixed period. These aren't liberal activists - these are men and women at the sharp end who aim to achieve an outcome that will work. By and large they, and I, don't believe prison works.

Problem with that attitude *wether the prison system works or not * is you are dealing with a pedifile and there has been so many cases of these perverts being on * parole * and assulting another innocent child .
this type of offender is different from the average criminal in that so called treatment wont help once a pedephile always a phedifile and there is planty of evidence to support that view .

whether you like it or not the victim and her family are within there rights to demand the man be punished for his crime this was not a touch/feel type of offence this was a continue rape of a small (4 years old ) child over a period of several years .

A scum like that doesnt deserve a opportunity to be out oN the public street ,no amount of correctional training will stop him and others like him repeating the crime on another poor innocent child . society has every right to put him in a place where he can no longer harm and distroy a young girls life ..

Whatever you and the rest of the bleeding hearts say he needs to be put when he can no longer assault little girls remember while these monsters are free to walk the streets no child is safe being on probation means nothing the killer of little jesicca lumsford was (on probation )
whatever is wrong with the prison system and other methods of punishment or used ....nothing will bring her back.. YOUR child might be the next one harmed ... I HOPE NOT


If it was my child he abused for 4 years id be looking for him when he came out of jail in 60 days . and i assure you he wouild not be able to abuse any child again ....

I am well aware of a means that works C-A-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N. I couldn't give a shit about left wing, right wing, media.....whatever. We have forgotten of a victim of a sex crime here . The court system is built to protect honest hard working citizens and their children from predators(those who hunt the unsuspecting).

You explain that he went to jail for raping a child for 2 MONTHS a mind f***ing that traumatizes the soul(rape of a child) and he goes home in 2 MONTHS it is 100% the judges duty to protect the citizens of the crime he let us down. It is proven I have seen it on Americam Justice that there is no rehabilation for these guys NONE the odds are astronmoically low but castration worked they had a guy in Texas request it andf it worked for him.

Instead of worrying about politics, he said, she said studies that have been done etc.,etc.,etc. lets get to some results here.

If you are a sex offender ten years hard labour, rehab(while in prison what a thought), and if you come back castration. It is proven to work your so worried about....something working there you go.

I don't know if you or any of your cop buddies have children...if you don't LEAVE THE CASES ALONE AND LET THOSE WITH KIDS DO WHATS RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rob S

You say the prison system does not work but at the moment its all we have got.
What this shows here is that crimes should have set sentances, mandated by central government. They should also be rationalised a great deal. I mean whats the point of tell them they are going away for 185 years, what else the system going to do to him. The 3 strikes law is rubbish. So you put away a petty thief away for the rest of his life, what else can they do to him.

Prison should be a place you don't want to go back to i.e hard labour, but with treatment programs available and learning. Basic meals, maybe give people some option to join the army or something.

If you look at military prisons in the UK the re offence rate is something like 10% if not lower.

Its a hard call, but 60 days no matter what is a bit of a joke.

First of all you are the one who bought up right wing activists not me ..i just posted on something I read about not even caring if either the judge /or the protesters where extreme of either side .and you accused me of being in line with right wing sites .

So ifs true as you say right wing activites bought it to our attention ,then im glad somebody is paying attention to the for ever more leniency towards preditors and the disregard for the victims

Im as far from being a right wing activist as you are of being king of england .


Presumably you have tunnel vision and go against all and every opinion if it is republican sourced and not go with what is right whatever the political views of the complainer

ME i say it * as i see it * wether its republican or democrat motivated




So you dont believe in the prison system what do you have as a altarnative ?? its easy to condemm a system but to be contructive you have to replace it with something .

S o what do you have in mind for sex offenders as its clear by overwelming evidence that treatment programes dont work for them ..

A new car and a weeks vacation in las vegas perhaps



So whats in line under your *new system * for convicts like

charles manson . helter skelter

the btk killer dennis rader .

denis westerfield *raped and killed child *



many other rapist ,murderers and low life scum



I dont think *treatment *will stop them ever doing it again if they get the chance .


Im positive keeping them locked away form the general public will .

Sure let him do his 10 years then do a treatment program i have no problem with that
why 60 days thats a cop out

John,
He wasn't sentenced to 60 days, he was sentenced to 10 years to life - of which all but 60 days was suspended. The suspension will be contingent on a variety of things including good behavior (no violations, misdemeanors or felonies) and complying with the sex offender treatment program. If he doesn't comply he will got back to jail - for AT LEAST 10 years.

Putting him in jail without access to the program - as is the situation in Vermont - is a total waste of public money and is arguably less onerous for the defenant. The offenses of which he has been convicted are strong evidence of a behavioral disorder for which he needs to be treated. From my experience of sex offenders, here and in the UK, the treatment program is quite hard and many prefer straight jail time to the program. (in fact in the UK I represented a guy in Wakefield Prison, the principal sex offender program in England, who wanted to sue the prison service to force them to send him back to an ordinary jail - despite the fact that this would certainly cause him to spend more time in jail).

The knee jerk reaction "give him 10 years" is in fact totally counterproductive to the process and to what I suspect you want to see - retribution and punishment. Personally I regard public protection as a more important consideration in any sentence and so did the judge in this case.

Unfortunately he is now being pilloried by lay persons and a hysterical media who really don't understand the situtation at all. As I said before, such energies would be better directed at persuading Vermont to provide a sex offender treatment program within the State Prison system. However even this would lack the necessary persuasive element often needed to get sex offenders to admit their problems and to cooperate with treatment.

Goose,
with respect, the sort of people who go into military prison are not your average criminal and the system doesn't measure the number of people released from the 'glasshouse', discharged from the military and ultimately finding themselves in a civilian system.

In the US military service is sometimes an option, last week I was in Court behind a case where serious charges were dismissed because the defendant had signed up for active service and completed basic training. I'm not wholly convinced this is a good idea, the military is a profession after all.

There is also a long history of 'hard labor' and 'boot camp' style systems - pretty much all of which have been demonstrated to be ineffective - and expensive.

An effective treatment program is far more onerous than most prison sentences. Also most prison systems are little more than warehousing projects where you put all the 'bad guys' together and let them hang out at the tax payers expense. With sex offenders this is particularly bad because they share stories and documents and get further sexual gratification from the process.

Prison has its place, but it should not be the default setting for serious crimes. The fact that reoffending rates here and in Britain are so high is an indication of its lack of success. If we had any other public service that cost so nuch and failed so miserably we'd be demanding change.

Actually research indicates that castration does't work. the problem is in the grey matter between the ears rather than in the pink oviods between the legs. I've no idea what 'American Justice' is, but suspect it is some popular TV show. As such it probably isn't the most reliable source of information.
As to your guy in Texas, if he voluntarily sought castration - he was already admitting a problem, which is the first and most difficult step of any treatment program - thus it is perhaps unsurprising it worked for him.
Emperical research shows that treatment can and does work, but like any disease or disorder it isn't 100% and people relapse. Hence lifetime parole.

And BTW - the cops aren't my buddies, they're my opponents and yes I have children - which is why I want a system that is effective rather than one that gives the false impression of effectiveness.

I do understand what your getting at with your post and they do make perfect sense with what your saying. Yes the right wing media has ran with it and it is the legislators in Vermont we need to look at more so than the judge. Being a resident there as well as in law yourself you understand the ins and outs with cases.

Castration does work. The male brain reacts to the testorone produced, but it is the means of gratification that lies between the ears. To me therapy for REPEAT offenders is a waste of time, more less trimming the branches of a very ugly tree. Castration gets to the roots, the testorone that gives males "that drive" when eliminated practically takes away "the drive". The guy in Texas admitted he had a problem he couldn't control and was tired of doing something he didn't want to. After having it done he said it crossed his mind but the drive to act on it had been eliminated because his sex drive had diminished so low.


American Justice is on A&E cable and satellite dishes get it. Check it out sometime it gives very good court cases on hot topics in the criminal justice system. Pedophiles, death penalty, and more. Being in law yourself it would be interesting to you perhaps. It is on alot it seems like maybe everyday. Excellent show though.

The judge alone did let us down, everything else here is a side note to that, that's why I'm so outraged.

Rob, you seem to be arguing with yourself a bit. First of all you say that offenders should be allowed out with the risk of serving the complete sentence if they commit another offence, then you admit that reoffence statistics are high. There already are penalties for commiting a first offence and a sex offender is well aware of that so obviously the threat of serving a complete sentence is going to have little effect.

Admittance that they have a problem is the first step to helping them? I'm pretty sure that they are aware that it is wrong before this enlightenment. I'm sure castration boy wouldn't have got the chop if he hadn't been caught. So its not a case of seeking help for his perversion, he's fed up with getting arrested.

You also manage to insult most of us "laymen" who quite obviously don't have the intelligence to understand the situation. What I understand is that there is a madman allowed to walk the streets after a 60 day punishment for the rape of a small girl and he gets help for his little behavioural problem. He will reoffend in some way. Long term prison is the only answer for things such as this. How can the prison system not work? He is unable to commit a crime, how is that not working?

I do understand what Rob s is saying, but disagree with the 60 days. Sex offenders have a higher rate of re offending than most, even with such things like the sex offender register. If this judge is sooooo sure about him not re offending maybe he would like this guy moving next door to his grand kids.
Castration has had some reoffenders as well, and they tend to be more violent in their actions.