If you don’t want to throw something (and then cry), stop reading now.

What? Just what? She was 10!

What sort of evidence made the judge believe that the girl “probably agreed”? I’m disgusted that anyone would even consider that an excuse. Underaged laws exist for a reason. It’s ridiculously easy to manipulate children. I’m betting emotional manipulation.

I hope the poor girl at least got a credible therapist.

… I’m staring in horror.

they pleaded guilty and got off? she’s ten years old!

Well, I’ve already met my rage quota for the week and it’s only Sunday.

How on earth did this judge determine whether or not the girl “agreed”? Even if by some minuscule chance that she did (can we say pfft?), they plead guilty!

but I suspect Judge Bradley is dealing with a lot of competing moral conflictions in this case.

Doesn’t look like that to me, seems that she has no moral conflict at all; the child was at fault, the child asked for it, the accused did nothing to earn punishment, hence the lack thereof.

We’re quite familiar with racism in the legal system and the need for rehabilitation. Blaming the victim and letting the perpetrators off who made the victim have nothing to do with dealing with racism or rehabilitation.

Get a clue. Oh and, who’s wailing here? All I hear is your whining.

One hopes the perpetrators are given intensive classes on why one shouldn’t have sex with 10 year olds during their probation.

Sorry, the term the 10 year probably agreed sends out a very dangerous message. The balance has shifted on the side of the perpetrators and the blame went to the victim. Good going.

[quote]While the feminists wail, the other social justice lawyers who are worried about racism and criminal defense are likely quite relieved that Judge Bradley understands the utter sickness of shunting people into the prison system without being really certain that that is the only solution.[/quote]

What an outlandish thing to say. If not prison, then suspended sentences? Even if we take for granted that shunting people into the prison system is a “sickness,” surely probation and a suspended sentence is not the only alternative. One of the attackers is a serial child rapist, which makes the judge’s claim that the girl “probably” consented even more laughable and disturbing.

I’m deeply disturbed that you’d even write “while the feminists rail…” The gang rape of a child is a disgusting crime that should be abhorrent to all of us, not just wailing feminists, as you describe them.

I’m also bothered by the ignorance of these crimes and their perpetrators you and your friend the judge both describe. Sex crimes are not typically born of the same causes as other violent crimes. A bad neighborhood with a lot of gang activity, for instance, doesn’t necessarily produce more sex criminals than a well-off neighborhood. The interventions you could perform on juvenile gang offenders in lieu of prison–e.g. diversion programs , neighborhood task forces, foster care improvements, individual caseworkers–would produce little to no change in the behavior of a budding sex criminal.

The sex criminal often comes from a home with few or no boundaries, is a victim him or herself, and starts their offending early. Most require years of therapy to understand and confront their behavior. Know which sex criminals have the highest recidivism rates? Child rapists. These are big-time crimes. The impact on the victims is immeasurable. The most terrifying aspect in this regard is that some victims themselves develop boundary confusion and will go on to become offenders later. They, too, will require care–as much as the child’s attackers, in some cases.

So this is not the case to go wailing (can I use that word, too?) about the problems in the criminal justice system. Two little girls have been deeply wounded here. These perpetrators raped a child. Isn’t that the sort of offender we want in jail?

I’m quite proud to call myself a wailing feminist, actually. That wasn’t an aspersion I was trying to cast on anyone. I struggle to reconcile the desperate need to have the criminal justice system take crimes against women much more seriously with my ubiquitous horror of prison systems. I think jailtime is a terrible solution to anything, so even when men do really really awful things, to respond saying they should be sent to prison more and longer is untenable cognitive dissonance to me. I do think that suggesting the girl consented is a blaming the victim problem, but I don’t think letting off punishment is also a symptom of blaming the victim. I think that’s about different values coming into play.

I think jailtime is a terrible solution to anything, so even when men do really really awful things, to respond saying they should be sent to prison more and longer is untenable cognitive dissonance to me.

You’re acting like calling for jail time for these men–especially the 26 year old–is a kneejerk reaction that doesn’t address the realities of imprisonment. But if that’s the argument you’re trying to make, this is a piss-poor case to make it on, especially when economic class is so obviously an overwhelming factor here.

Great. Now these rapists will see that they face no circumstances for this crime….they may take it as a license to commit more crimes against more people. Nice going, Judge Bradley.
:( :roll:

I am sick! a 10 year old consenting to gang rape? c’mon, lets be real now-rape is rape.

I don’t understand Australian law. I hope she will survive all of this. I hope someone is there to help her and to get her story out so that this doesn’t happen again.

This is what bothers about both the more jail time crowd, and the more jail time isn’t the answer crowds. Yes, there are certain criminals who would be far better served with intervention, but one side refuses to consider it. The other side refuses to consider that there are criminals who need to be kept separate from society. Which requires either institution in a mental facility or a jail.

Yes, some criminals can be helped and some can’t. The real problem comes in distinguishing them. It shouldn’t be just sentencing them blindly or giving them reduced sentences are the only answers to everything.

Duder, let me be the first to say: Go fuck yourself, you shitsucking cockwaffle.

“Probably agreed” to sex? Is that like “a little pregnant”? She either consented to group sex (yeah, right) or she didn’t. There’s no middle ground here.

She’s TEN. How can she be informed enough to provide consent? There was a twenty-six year-old man involved, obviously someone who could be seen as an authority figure as someone else pointed out above. If she “consented,” it was probably because she did as she was told to do. That’s why it’s called abuse. That still makes it RAPE!

And what does a 26 year-old man want with a ten year-old girl? How does this not send red flags up to the judge that this is a predator? Ugh. I do want to throw stuff now!

Woah.

So, they basically admitted to their crime and said they were GUILTY of raping a 10-yr-old girl, but the judge was just like “Nah, she probably wanted it anyway.”

That’s fucked up on so many levels. And what kind of message is this going to give to people?
Probably that you can:

1. Commit an especially heinous rape (on a young child even)
2. ADMIT that you committed the crime
and
3. Still walk away from it, completely free of well-deserved charges.

wow.

Ugh… between this story and Duder, I don’t know if I can possibly be more nauseus…

But the community outcry has been (as you would imagine) hugh. The judge is being hauled over the coals by the media, and I understand the QLD Attorney General is reviewing the case.

Oh, thank God. Finally some GOOD news.

(And thanks for banning that prick Duder, Jill. WTF was that, anyway? I’m finding myself a bit mystified by trolls lately–are they really so insecure that they must come to sites they disagree with and spew their filth? Ugh.)

Well that just fucking great. Times like this even my atheist ass whishes there’s a hell for them to burn in.

I want to amplify something Zuzu said.

Now, I’ve been a vocal proponent of “romeo and juliet” exceptions to statutory rape laws, and I’ll get back to that. But we need statutory rape laws and we need ages of consent.

It does not matter if a ten year old consents to sex. There’s a reason it doesn’t matter. Sex brings with it responsibilities that children are not prepared for. Obviously, sex brings up the risk of sexually transmitted infections, and the need for protection, and someone having sex should be prepared to engage with that and make informed choices. That’s why all of us here support comprehensive sex ed, whether in schools or in families: so that by the time they need to, young adults can think about and make those decisions. Of course, PV intercourse also raised the issue of pregnancy, and for almost all teens will raise the issue of pregnancy prevention. Someone having sex will also need to engage with that and contend with the health consequences and risks of various methods. In the event of a contraceptive failure, a young woman will need to make decisions about medical care, including back-up hormonals, medical or surgical abortion, or the major life-event of carrying a pregnancy to term. That’s why we all believe in comprehensive and available reproductive healthcare.

Beyond infections and pregnancy, sex raises something else: it is partnered, physical intimacy. That’s not the easiest skill set to learn, and expecting children to jump into the deep end of the pool is unrealistic. Partnered sex involves understanding, communication and empathy: at least, done right it does.

We cannot expect children to do these things at adult levels.

Any bright-line rule will admit of exceptions, of course. There are plenty of adults that cannot deal with communication or contraception like adults: but a state that gets to give out licenses to adults to be sexual is too frightening to contemplate, so at some point we have to just take the training wheels off and let people make their own mistakes. Most states do that around age 17 or 18. And there will be exceptions the other way, too. I know women and men who have mature approaches to sex earlier, and it’s tough to expect consenting partners who go to high school together to wait, so I’m in favor of decriminalizing that activity: say, four- or five-year age differences among partners fourteen or older; an approach commonly called a “romeo and juliet” clause.

But I am not going to support looking the other way to let older teens or adults have sex with pre-teens. The disparity of power and ability to coerce are too great to consider the situation voluntary in any meaningful sense, first of all, no matter what the younger child says. Second, admitting even of very rare exceptions (like kids who complete college as preteens, it has happened); preteens cannot make mature decisions on contraception or sexually transmitted infections; and we cannot expect them to be able to identify their emotional needs or set boundaries the way we expect adults to, either.

It is not only women who are abused, though of course it is overwhelmingly men doing the abusing. Self-identified het men, overwhelmingly, BTW. There are both women and gay men who molest children, but they are a small proportion. (Disagree? Find me a metholodogically sound statistic or shut up.) But even in the cases of women having sex with underage boys, I have a big problem with it. Vili Faulaau was a father as a teen, with stepchildren his own age and a partner with a prison record trying to run away with him. That’s a prime example of a kid who was thrust into decisions and responsibilities that he was unprepared for.

Finally, I’ve known hypersexual preteens. Rarely, of course, folks start early on their own because of a high sex drive — that was me, in fact. But more often, sexually active preteens are those who have been sexualized early by predation. There’s a thread on Feministing now about how sexual abuse and assault survivors sometimes hypersexualize in reaction; that’s hard enough to navigate as an adult. If some girl has been molested, and then society hand-waves at the conduct of a bunch of teenagers penetrating her, we’re victimizing her twice: and that would be true even if she really did want it, even if she made a conscious choice to get those guys together for group sex. (Not that I’m buying that story — but even if.) We shouldn’t let children experiment freely with driving, either: and we don’t. We set an arbitrary age limit, make them learn a bunch about it, tell them the dangers, discuss the rules very explicitly, and then expect them to practice before we turn them loose. We certainly don’t say, “well, they obviously felt ready.” Now, cars endanged those around them and not just the driver and passengers, but would we really just say, “eh, who can she hurt?” if that were not the case?

So, when some guy, or some teen, fucks a ten year old, I don’t want to hear “she consented.” That’s not a defense. That’s not even a response. That’s an irrelevancy.

it’s possible that they also considered the age of the rapists when making the call. Just as 10 year olds can’t consent, 14 year olds aren’t as culpable as adults. (statutory rape laws are designed to defend against predatory adults and don’t always apply to predatory children.) But that should exhibit itself, generally speaking, in reduced (juvenile) sentences, not no sentences. Which is part of why this makes no sense.

The other reason is the adult. I don’t approve of it, but in theory I could see having unusually light sentences for the younger assailants if the state made a compelling case that they, too, were somehow coerced into their actions by the adult. But that only makes sense if the adult gets the full punishment.

I am confused by the light sentences for the boys.
I am much more confused by the light sentence for the adult.
I am furious at the fact that nobody seems to be getting punished for this, pretty much at all. WTF?

I am furious at the fact that nobody seems to be getting punished for this, pretty much at all.

Oh, but the girl is being well and truly punished. I’d say that being gang-raped and subsequently removed from her home and homelands qualifies.

But how does it matter that the judge is white? Am I missing something? Unless it is because she is white, and the men were aboriginal, she gave them lighter sentences as Mnemosyne stated. In that case, I honestly have no clue what to say to that.
Should anything like that even apply when it comes to crimes against children, irregardless of their race?

Shouldn’t, maybe, but does. We are not always aware of our biases. Again, what I know comes from a North American context, but Australia and Canada have a lot of similar history so I expect some of it can be generalized. And what happens in Canada is that white judges have absorbed stereotypes about Aboriginal people that make them inclined to believe things they might not believe about white people — like that Aboriginal women and girls are always up for sex, like that Aboriginal men can’t control their impulses.

All this happens in a context, is my point.

I’m absolutely appalled at this story… and at the same time it’s “same old, same old”.

To those querying the “racism” problems (and further to Elinor’s excellent explanation of colonial racism in the dominant system):

The Northern Territory has the highest density of native population for any state in Australia and was a BIG deal in the media here during our recent election. The ex-PM decided in his infinite wisdom (*sarcasm*) that since underage sex, rape and prostitution were becoming SUCH major problems in the area (ignoring the fact they’d been problems for years, and were apparently being contributed to by the white Australian workers on the outskirts of the Aboriginal communities) that sending in the army “to enforce law and order” and banning all pornography and alcohol from them was a great idea. Cape York is in the neighboring state to the Northern Territory and also has a high native population and (the media tells us) similar problems. Though the army hasn’t been sicced onto them yet.

Add to that the fact that there is a VERY great disparity between the percentage of white population incarcerated across Autstralia versus Aboriginal population, there have been reports filtering out over the past few years of police brutality towards and high numbers of suicides in custody by those of Aboriginal background and rising racial tensions that were tacitly encouraged by our previous government (Cronulla race riots anyone?) and you begin to get a clearer picture of how Aboriginality is framed within current Australian society.

All that said I cannot believe this has happened – what on EARTH was the judge thinking and how could a ten year old child ever be able to “consent” to sex as an adult would?

Well, reading more on it, it appears that the judge may have been afraid of being labeled racist if she punished them harsher. I can’t search for it, but there was a British case where the judge returned abused children to a Pakistani parent citing culture because the guy threatened to make a racism complaint if they were not returned to him.

Aboriginal Elders have been calling bullshit on the “it’s a cultural issue” apologists. SBS news interviewed a group of Elders last night who stated that lenient sentencing was racist and that there is no way such inappropriate comments and sentencing would have been made if the victim had been a 10 year old white girl.

I tend to agree.

But action is being taken (if far too late). Anna Bligh (the QLD Premier) is has ordered a review of all sentences handed down in the area of the past two years:

“I also announce that the DPP has agreed to my request to conduct a review of sentences handed to offenders over the last two years.”Ms Bligh says she is alarmed that the men and boys involved in the rape were given suspended sentences and probation orders.”This case may be an unusual one-off but I am not prepared to take that risk,” she said.”I want to satisfy myself that the people of Cape York and the people who live in remote Indigenous communities are receiving the same level of justice as we can expect in any other community in Queensland.”

The other thing is the disproportionate number of Aboriginal people in jail. I don’t know the numbers for this in Australia, but if it’s anything like Canada, the prospect of sending even more Aboriginal people to jail is pretty troubling for anyone with progressive values.

It’s one thing to make that argument for property crimes, drug crimes, and minor assault. But this is rape of a child. In the absence of true rehabilitation programs, the only way to treat sex offenders is to lock them up as long as possible to keep them from offending — for at least as long as they’re in prison.

Just when I thought the Jamie Leigh Jones vs KBR regarding her gang rape was the worst. I find this entry. Thank you, the more we are aware, the more I hope that we can gain justice and civility. It is truly disgusting.

Please support Jamie Leigh Jones!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19299185190

Where have the media been, up until Monday?

It is good that this rage has been let loose now. BUT this sentence was handed down on the 24th of October. Why has it taken over 1 1/2 months for this case to hit the air waves.

If this girl had been non-aboriginal the media would have been all over it, even though the court is in a remote part of Australia.