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.

Improve the YOIs, is the answer to that.

Organised gang rape isn't a fucking accident. Its not something one just chances upon.

Being as generous as is possible, these boys have serious mental problems and issues that need serious interventions. Treatment should be part of that, even leaving aside the punishment and protection of society elements of custody.

It's an affront to suggest that this brutal and organised and devastating crime is something that a naive boy would just lean into. I think most teenage boys of this age would agree, considering the response locally to a boy of the same age being accused of rape.

Which is always another thought. Without prison, what is the community response likely to be? If they consider the boys got off scot free? Again, custody could be protective for the boys, too.

Yes, I heard this. There seems to be a lot of focus on the perpetrators in these discussions , wringing of hands and talking about how we mustn't send them to these awful institutions where they will be treated terribly.
What about the victims? They were treated terribly, first by those boys and then by the courts. They are stuck in another sort of prison for the rest of their lives if they aren't offered the support and therapy that is needed to help them move forward.

So no,they need to be punished for what they have done , they committed two separate gang rapes 7 weeks apart and I have no doubt they would have committed more until stopped.

They deserve to be shown that their actions have consequences and that their freedom is no longer guaranteed when they do these awful things to other humans.

And if, as this former judge stated on R4 these institutions are so awful I can understand why - because they are full of people like these perpetrators. That's where they have to go unfortunately, that's their punishment.

Yes, I agree and have said that these boys should go to prison.

They’re travellers, according to the Daily Mail.

Usually Travellers get harsher sentences, and certainly it’s rarer to have long community sentences because there’s a (perceived a real) sense that there will be non-compliance. So it’s another quite surprising thing in this case.

I’m so sick of all this.

We’ve had three terrible cases in Fife involving teenage sex offenders.

Incredibly, one of them agreed to plead guilty to murder if the rape charge was dropped. He’ll be out by now, under another identity.

He raped and murdered an octogenarian. He should never see the light of day.

I’m his case, I believe he has a decent sibling and at least one good parent. (I used to live in the area. The murder took place close to my late mother’s home.)

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/great-grandson-murdered-pensioner-left-10060055

SM certainly plays apart, they filmed to put online... but Phillips said many things, not least that the sentence given was wrong and too lenient.

Why mis quote what she said on such an important matter? you obv do not care about the victims, just political points scoring.

The trouble is, with children, the normal 10 to 12 year sentence is slashed, 4 or 5 years at most, what then?

Personally, i'd throw away the key, i think too much emphasis is placed on them being "children" they know right from wrong but do not care.

I’m all for rehabilitation, it was my career for many years. But there has to also be punishment. The question of whether any rehabilitation can occur during the punishment, well that’s a systemic issue that needs to be addressed, but it does not mean that you forgo the punishment completely. The victims deserve justice and crimes need to be properly punished.

Having supervised community sentences for many years, including 18 year olds transferred from youth offending services. I can say that for the vast majority of people, a community sentence is not a punishment, not to any great degree. It is almost solely focused on the offender and their needs. There is victim work but it’s often quite limited. You can’t force someone to feel empathy for their victim, if it’s not there.

Of course there are situations where a community sentence is appropriate and the right thing to do. For those who do go to prison there is a licence period where rehabilitation work can take place. It’s not prison or rehabilitation, you can have both even if they don’t happen at the same time, which of course would be the ideal.

In my view, if you can’t have both at the same time, then the punishment has to come first. It just has to. If it has a negative effect on the offender, well they should have thought of that before committing their crimes! It is their work to do, to rehabilitate. They have agency. They are not mindless beings. Prison forces them to reflect. Whether they then take responsibility or continue to blame others is on them. But the responsibility of rehabilitation does not lie solely with society, the person has to choose it for themselves and they have to do the work.

Yes, that will continue to happen, but the kind of boys who do this are most certainly not reading news articles ... it will continue because there are too many bad or lazy parents who don't do their job and so the feral kids run amok.