AIBU to think these boys should have been incarcerated?

[newrubylane]

BBC News - Teenage boys sentenced for raping lone girls
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clypg68e2neo

I've never started an AIBU before, but I'm genuinely really shocked. I'm just not sure how this sentence is justifiable. Their actions were premeditated and deliberate, they were carrying a knife and they filmed themselves. They're obviously a danger to women/girls, and probably to other boys too.

If anyone knows how and why this sentence might have come about, I'd be interested to hear it.

I think the jury were courageous. I would like to thank them.

What action do you expect the Labour Party to take? Do you want to live in a country where the ruling party can overrule courts? Really?

The Attorney General will review the case and likely ask the Court of Appeal to re-consider the sentence. This has nothing to do with politicians.

Well done everyone who asked for the review. This case has left me so angry and upset. Those poor girls.

I agree SCHs are better, but as I say I’d imagine that wouldn’t be an option for boys of this age convicted of rape. It wasn’t when I was in youth justice anyway.

Hassockfield closed in 2015. You might mean Oakhill? STCs were conceptually good but proved disastrous. Oakhill is no better than Feltham A. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgnmpgx383o

I agree we should have better custodial provision, but custody is also itself a problem, which is why it should be a last resort.

I didn't - it was Pigeonpoodle who started talking politics.
I absolutely appreciate she was displaying her anger with the way women and girls are treated - which is precisely why I could not let her comment go unanswered in light of the fact that she (quite rightly) feels deeply for women's rights but is clearly misguided if she thinks that Reform are the party to safeguard women.

They are reviewing this:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/22/teenage-boys-non-custodial-sentences-rape-unduly-lenient-jess-phillips

I wish so much they’d review the Manchester case where the 12year old was raped by three boys, it was so awful. They walked free because she didn’t say “no”
explicitly enough.

Any convicted rapist should face significant time behind bars. Otherwise what is the point? The victim goes through all the stress of a trial, the rapists are found guilty and are allowed to walk free? It just makes a mockery of the legal system.

You're absolutely right and I apologise. I must have had it in my head when I mentioned Feltham (very sleep deprived here). I should have said Aldine House.

I understand but you are doing it again, reform doesn’t matter here , labour doesn’t matter here , no party does, only the girls matter and countless others matter.

No need to apologise. Aldine yes, that was a good one.

I agree that politics doesn't matter in this case and I reiterate that I wasn't the one to bring up that subject in the first place - I was merely flagging up somebody's misguided belief that voting for a particular party would be safer for women, when in fact it would be the exact opposite. So in the interests of safeguarding women (which is the purpose of this thread) I think my post was necessary and entirely appropriate

Those boys were six, and killed a child in a game gone wrong with no premeditation. This is entirely different.

Actually they are from Fordingbridge which is as white as you can but same point.
It’s a lovely small town in the New Forest.
Hardly an area of deprivation in case anybody tries to suggest that either.

Hasn’t it already been reported that they have a traveller background? But we probably cannot speak much more about that …

There have been a couple of mentions on this thread about holding the parents more responsible for the clear failing in these boys’ upbringing, which a lot of the time has been summarily dismissed as “lol you can’t punish one person for another’s actions”

Yeah, ok. But do you know what you can punish
someone for? Being a shit parent, to the point where the human beings you were supposed to - by law - love, nourish and teach are now raping girls in secluded areas, face-down with their leggings cut off with a knife, filming it and publishing it. Repeatedly.

If that’s not a sign that something is going very wrong at home, not sure what is. These little shits have learned these behaviours from somewhere, and it’s not unreasonable to look first at their immediate family.

Incarceration in a YOI may not be much of a chance at rehabilitation, or a deterrent (although as people have rightly pointed out it’s not all about the personal growth of troubled young men, fs). What MIGHT be a deterrent is seeing your mum and/ or dad behind bars. Not because of your behaviour, necessarily, but because they were neglectful, abusive, enabling, and displayed behaviour that you, wrongly, were conditioned to believe was ok.

it might also give pause to some parents who are supposedly at a loss for what to do about their stupid rapist asshole sons. The threat of their own incarceration might inspire some ideas.

Being discussed now on R4. There are moves to review and increase the age of criminal responsibility already. Judge is mentioning the brain maturing late and young offenders institutions are beastly and they're not getting educational training. This is all very lovely and humane but unfortunately there are and will be scrotes who hear this and think: " rape a teenager, get an apprenticeship"

When you say last resort, organised gang rape must be the very definition of a crime that calls for the last resort? Other than murder, I can't see much worse than this. Violence, brutality, coercion, sadism- all premeditated.