175 years in prison

[Cauliflowersqueeze]

For the gymnasts’ doctor in USA and an assurance from the judge he would not see daylight again.

Meanwhile Worboys out in 9 years from an “indeterminate” sentence.

Why is the UK system so tolerant?

Throughtheforest why? Why shouldn't they be deprived of their freedom when they have taken/destroyed forever not just their direct victims lives but also those that loved them.

Then ADD the high recidivism rates/likelihood of people like Worboys would you want them living next door to you?!

We should not be imprisoning people literally for their whole lives, just because we suspect based on the statistics that they may in the future commit domestic violence against other women / have sex with a prostitute / that they may have committed and got away with prior offences. That's not a proper justice system.

It's not simply about punishment and justice it's also about keeping other people safe. Yes, yes, we could keep someone in prison who is a threat to others. Why is it unfair? They're not being tied upside down in a cave, it's a British prison. Future victims will deal with the abuse they suffer their whole lives, they won't get early release. You'd be happy with your daughter dating Worboys on release I suppose?

Prison is meant to: 1) punish, 2) protect the public, 3) rehabilitate. I don't think that we should assume that there is no possibility of rehabilitation, based just on the type of crime / on general statistics which say that some or many commit crimes after release. This should be based on the circumstances of the individual prisoner. I don't think that we should assume that the public need to be protected by locking a man up until he dies as a decrepit 90 year old, and regardless of any progress he may have made in prison and safeguards that can be put in place if he is released. And personally I don't think that the punishment for rape should be life imprisonment or execution.
NB. I have nothing positive to say about Warboys, but I don't agree that he destroyed forever his victims' lives and those of their loved ones. He certainly did great damage to his victims' lives, but it is going too far to say that he destroyed them, let alone those of their loved ones. Far worse crimes have been committed. Even in the case of Myra Hindley, I would review her case after however many years, because I think that a society that locks people up in prison and never reviews their case but simply throws away the key is barbaric. Reviewing a case does not mean that you release that person. It means that you update yourself on them and on whether they need to be kept in prison.

We don't know why they decided to release Warboys. We're not in a position to decide that they made the wrong decision, because we don't know the factors that they took into account.
If we put or keep in prison all the men I would not want my daughter to date, we're going to need to build a lot of new prisons.

A society that behaves as some of you are advocating towards sex offenders is likely to behave in ways you're not so keen on towards other categories of citizens. Be careful what you wish for.

A society that behaves as some of you are advocating towards sex offenders is likely to behave in ways you're not so keen on towards other categories of citizens.

I would love to live in a society that cares about violence against women.

I'd much prefer it to one that prioritises violent men like we live in now.

I think VAW is barbaric and our society barbaric. I can see you think you're very clever and much more evolved than the rest of us with our pitchforks, but you're simply prioritising violent men. That's not new or more right on than expecting dangerous men to be kept where they cause no harm.

I would be interested to hear how you think that men should be punished. What level or category of crime should lead to life imprisonment without review?

Throughtheforest have you BEEN or KNOW a victim of rape or csa?

I am a survivor. I wasn't raped but other things. It's now over 30 years later and YES I am still dealing with the feelings, fear, self blame...

I find your views BAFFLING and not a little disgusting and ignorant.

You know what - it just hit me, I'm guessing you have a friend or relative that's been accused/convicted of a crime like this?

There is more to sentencing than the impact on the victim(s). The Warboys case is very disturbing, and it sounds as though it's been handled badly in more ways than one, however it is not true that sentences in this country for serious offences are 'a joke' or 'pulled out of a hat'. there are very strict sentencing criteria.

Whole-life terms are more common than they were, and life sentences have been mandatory for murder for a while now. Longer minimum terms are more common too. On the whole this is a good thing but there has to be room for rehabilitation in the system. The US system is unjust and brutal compared to ours and certainly no more effective.

The "life sentence" is a complete misnomer many murder convicts serve less than 10 years - that is an insult to victims and their families and the British public as a whole.

When the death sentence was being debated the British public WERE promised that criminals like this would NOT be freed to hurt others - that promise was soon reneged on.

I have no personal issue here. Just a woman with daughters. Stating what the justice system in this country is supposed to be about. The US gives out extremely harsh punishments, and they have a sky high crime rate.

Life sentences are not the same as whole life sentences.

Do you have many examples of murderers being released after less than ten years? Genuine question.

26 of those released in 2010/2011 served less than 10 years.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm121031/text/121031w0004.htm#12103179004068

The average sentence served is 16 years which is pathetic.

"Life sentences are not the same as whole life sentences."

Then they shouldn't be CALLED life sentences it's deceptive and misleading.

Thank you Graphista, I'm at work but will read later.

I have no personal issue here. Just a woman with daughters. Stating what the justice system in this country is supposed to be about. The US gives out extremely harsh punishments, and they have a sky high crime rate.

The crime rate is down to a lot of factors, one that people actually go to jail rather than CPS deciding it's not worth the trouble, mental health issues not being dealt with due to poor access to medical care for the poor, the fact that's lots of people are living in poverty and harsher laws regarding drugs, easier access to weapons.

None of that means rapists should be let out of prison.

If a person commits an armed robbery at 18, spends 5 years in prison rehabilitating himself, I am happy for him to be released. Someone with a perversion that leads to raping multiple women, murdering a partner or sexually abusing children is always a risk. ALWAYS a risk. If prison is inhumane it's only because they're with other prisoners. Why should we take on any of their risk, so they don't have to.

I would like to know what Worboys’ sentence would be in America. I’d bet my mortgage it would be a hell of a lot longer.

When you use extreme examples it's easier to say yay or nay, but when we start to zoom in the 'borderline' it gets very messy.

When both people are between 14 and 17 it's a bit complicated as offences still take place, but the law doesn't set out to punish them unduly (say 16 year old lad and 15 year old girl).

Then one of them is 18, or 13, then all hell breaks loose and someone's a sexual offender.

This 'difference' could literally be a matter of hours between 'hmm ok', to 'a danger to society forever' as a sex offender.
Some will say 'ok, but that's not a REAL sex offender, that's a stupid 18 year old lad who made a grave mistake... but that leads on to the next issue... 'so what age would make it very bad, or what sexual act?'

This is why 'lock 'em up forever' sounds good for extreme cases, but we don't know where extreme starts and ends.

scramwich - I'd like to see some proper research on the level of risk before all offenders of a particular type are imprisoned for many decades. Imprisonment without hope of release regardless of what you do has a massive effect on prisoners - you'd need a very special kind of prison. Or perhaps many such prisons?

Can anyone answer this question, which I've asked previously?

Looking at imprisoning people for their entire lives (literally). When would you like that to be the sentence? Eg would it be all cases of rape? All cases of murder? Or some only? Would you imprison for life a man who killed his wife and a woman who killed her husband, or would you do so only for the man, because you see him as a higher risk if he is released?

What punishment would you like to see in the following cases, if it was totally up to you:

1. found guilty, as a first offence, of downloading child porn;

2. young man found guilty of date rape, when he agreed to withdraw before ejaculation but then changed his mind and did not do so

3. man had sex with a prostitute, in accordance with his agreement with her

The USA and their for profit prisons isn't something I'd want my country to emulate. The US department of Justice themselves concluded that the private prisons are less safe, secure and more punitive than the state ones.

However they are bang on with giving people like this long sentences. He has tried to ruin so many lives. We don't need him out in society able to ruin more.

Only yesterday I read an article about a man who exploited multiple 9 year olds in Ireland via social media only getting 9.5 years - last two suspended. That's disgusting. It would be better for the country to lock him up longer.

I was pretty taken aback by the very emotive language used by the judge in the gymnastics case, I did find it unprofessional. But in general the cases I see on television in the US are more of a media circus than you would ever see in the UK. The judicial system is heavily politicized in the US with huge state variations. Your access to justice and how you experience the system varies hugely depending on your socioeconomic background, it is not a system I would want to be part of.
The U.K. system doesn't always work, getting CPS to take sex offense cases to court can be difficult and even using sentencing guidelines the sentences can sometimes be erratic as can judges comments on cases but I believe it is a much more coherent system with less bias.

A child killer will always be seen as worse than a killer of adults, because it's more emotive. Whatever drives someone to kill. The law tries to remove the emotion from things and apply logic, but in theory it is also borne out of the general will of the people, and formed over centuries.

If someone is a deranged killer, and their derangement is to mob gangsters, is that any more deranged than one who sets out to kill prostitutes, or a child? is it any worse?

I can pretty much guarantee a deranged guy who killed mob gangsters would be forgotten about in no time, whilst the one who killed children wouldn't, when both suffered from the same affliction.

My heart tells me one is worse than the other, my head tells me it's not.

Some of the messages on here feel like populism to me. The kind of thing that Trump would say if he were a feminist. Justice needs to be worked out more calmly than that.

I agree Throughtheforest.
There are some who argue the victim should choose the punishment (and I can understand why that argument arises), but when I take myself out of the emotion of it, you set the rules and punishments in the cold light of day, ahead of time, so when the time comes, you make rational decisions as a society.

My other worry is that we are so sure people can't change (a view I sometimes find myself holding!), then how long before we start to say 'they were always evil' - which suggests they were born evil, and THEN what?

If someone deliberately or negligently hurt my loved ones, I cannot deny that I'd have no qualms about wanting to inflict pain on them myself, with my own hands. That is why right now, I already know I should not be allowed to make that choice as the parent of a victim.