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Missouri Sentencing Commission: Children are acceptable risk |
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Sunday, 22 April 2007 19:00 |
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There's an arcade game where players, holding a large mallet, face off against enemy groundhogs. The object is to quickly spot and beat down the varmits as they pop out of one hole after another. The groundhogs never stop coming. And if you want to win, you never stop hammering. It's kind of like life.
So we're not surprised to see that the Missouri Sentencing Advisory
Commission found nothing better to do in 2006 than write a report
justifying and encouraging special preferential treatment for child
rapists who prey on their own children. These people just never quit.
The Commission scoured the country to find jurisdictions -- from
Washington State to Maricopa County, Arizona -- where intra-familial
abusers and those "who have established a relationship with the victim"
are considered "low-risk" and diverted from prison.
Before you grab a mallet of your own, take heart that PROTECT is
changing the rules of this game. We don't believe in spending a lot of
time chasing varmints back into their holes. We have our eye on any politician foolish enough to take advice like this.
From the Missouri Report:
"Sentencing laws... allows [sic] the courts the option to adjudicate
low-risk sex offenders ) i.e., those who preyed upon intra-familial
victims, who have established relationship with victim, who have
exacted no bodily harm to victim, etc.) to punishments other than only
a period of incarceration. Commonly, offenders are given a sentence of
probation....
"Empirical evidence suggests that, using recidivism rates and sentence
revocations as a gauge, the correctional practices utilized in the
locations described above are effective alternative method [sic] to
punitively control low-risk sex offenders." (Read entire report)
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