We, as citizens of the United States, do not agree with pedophilia and think it is a crime. For example, there was a case a couple of years ago in which a teacher got in trouble for having sexual relations with a student. Because of how inappropriate and illegal this situation was, the teacher was put on trial.
However, the teacher only received three years of house arrest and seven years of probation. This was very interesting, since this person broke the law — a law most people get very upset when it’s broken. But this person’s light sentence could have an explanation.
The teacher’s name was Debra Lafave. That’s right — a woman. A woman having sex with an underage boy is still illegal. Something to consider: If the tables were turned and an adult man was having sex with an underage girl, that is still the same crime. The latter, for some reason, seems to get people more upset. Apparently, it is worse to have a relationship with a minor if you are a man, but if you are a woman — “she was suffering from mental illness,” “she was going through a hard time” or “her husband was not fulfilling her needs” seem to be lines people like to use.
However, after Stacey Rambold, a male teacher, raped a fourteen year old girl and served thirty days in prison, none of those lines were used. “There’s clearly a double standard between the two genders. The general public seems to feel more sympathetic, and thus lenient towards women pedophiles than men,” said pre-business freshman Consuelo Mercader.
Look at it this way: In no way, shape or form should pedophilia be condoned, whether the person is female or male. “If the same crime is committed by two criminals of different genders, then the same punishment should be enforced,” Mercader said. However, their punishments by the courts seemed to not be “gender-blind.” Lafave, a female, received less of a punishment than Rambold, a male. Same crime under the law — just different punishments. Lafave, a female, had the public’s sympathy and support while Rambold, a male, received the public’s backlash and outcry.
In both senses, there is still inequality in not only our social system, but our justice system. Both pedophiles have committed an awful crime that deserves the harshest of punishments. Mercader feels “the only justifiable way to punish a pedophile is through a life sentence in jail.” It is true. A pedophile, regardless of gender, deserves the toughest punishment available — if a pedophile will commit the crime once, there is still a chance he or she will commit the crime again. Therefore, they must be stopped.
Opinion columnist Blake Mudd is a journalism freshman and may be reached at [email protected]
You are right that men and women should get the same punishment for the same crime but were too lazy to do the research to find out that women actually are punished more harshly than men when it comes to these types of crimes (when taking severity and number of victims into account). http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2006/01/teachers_pets.single.html
Further, Rambold’s initial punishment for the rape was the opportunity to have all charges dropped if he completed a three-year treatment program for sex offenders. That sounds pretty similar to the ” three years of house arrest and seven years of probation” Lafave got. Actually it sounds better since he could have had no conviction if he had just followed the terms of his agreement.
The 30 days was for violating those rules. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/montana-judge-criticizing-teen-rape-victim-stupid-wrong-article-1.1440163
So what would happen if Lafave violated her probation? Would she get 30 days or would she spend the rest of her probation in prison? Either way, it would seem that your premise that women get it easier is grossly mistaken.
The idea that women are punished more harshly than men, for sex offenses, is fantasy.
“Recent studies by the University of Michigan School of law show that women are treated MUCH more leniently than men for the same offenses.
If you’re a convicted criminal, the best thing you can have going for you might be your gender.
A new study by Sonja Starr, an assistant law professor at the University of Michigan, found that men are given much higher sentences than women convicted of the same crimes in federal court.
The study found that men receive sentences that are 63 percent higher, on average, than their female counterparts.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742.html
The idea that you rebutted my point is fantasy. If you bothered to click through to read the actual study instead of just the headline, you would see that the dataset said nothing about sex crime convictions because “[t]o reduce common support concerns, offense categories that were over 95% male were dropped.” These offenses were “weapons, sex and pornography, conservation, and family offenses.”