Why does this only get 40 months?!

[Aaron]

A 19-year-old British woman endured a 13-hour torture session at the hands of friends who thought she had stolen their mobile phone.
Katie McNamara had her hair chopped off and was forced to lick her own blood off the floor after being repeatedly kicked, punched, stabbed, burned and then locked in a cupboard during a violent bashing last November, London's Daily Mail reported.
McNamara was hospitalised for four months and her hearing was permanently damaged.
Among her attackers was 18-year-old Francesca Raby, a former friend who had lured Katie to a house under the guise of patching up their broken friendship.
Raby had accused McNamara of stealing her mobile phone but called the 19-year-old later that day to apologise and asked her to go to a house.
When McNamara arrived with another friend, Raby and her 26-year-old companion Kelly Louise Garrity wrenched Katie into the kitchen by her hair and began beating her.
McNamara's friend was forced to flee the house after being threatened when she tried to intervene and stop the attack.
The pair then took McNamara in a taxi to another house, where she was also beaten by two men.
Raby and Garrity burned McNamara with cigarettes and hurled a kitchen knife at her before locking her in a cupboard.
The two women then showed off their work to a female neighbour who visited the house the next day.
"I thought I was going to die. They were going to keep me another night if the neighbour had not turned up," Katie told the Daily Mail after Raby and Garrity were convicted on assault and false imprisonment charges.
"I kept asking them to stop but they carried on, laughing at me. I was really scared when they were stamping on my head.
"I couldn't escape - they had locked the front door and there were two of them, I had no chance.
"They cut my hair and then put my face into a mirror and said 'you don't look so pretty now'. Maybe they were jealous of my looks.
"I will never forgive them for what they did."
The neighbour contacted police despite being told she would die if she told anyone.
Garrity was sentenced to four years' imprisonment last week after pleading guilty. Raby was sentenced to 40 months in a young offenders' institution.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/teen-bashed-forced-to-lick-own-blood/2008/09/22/1221935491274.html

[Akira]

Does Australia consider an 18 year old a minor?

[gmoneyguy]

It happened in Britain.

[McP3000]

damn liberal countries not giving out worthy sentences


those women should be hung by their toe nails!!

[hismajestythepope]

what the ****? they did that to her over a cell phone she didnt take?

people ****ing suck

[Aaron]

Does Australia consider an 18 year old a minor?
It happened in Britain, yeah, but Australia considers 17 and under a minor [18+ is adult].

[Reaganista]

better question why are we so pumped up to lock people up for gigantic portions of their lives that we can say stuff like 'only' 40 months

[Det_Nosnip]

Hmm no that's not a better question, sorry.

[Aaron]

Er, because they do horribly violent things for seemingly no reason at all??

[Iscariot]

bitch was asking for it

isn't that what we say in here when people get assaulted?

[Reaganista]

Hmm no that's not a better question, sorry.
it's a much better question for a variety of reasons

Er, because they do horribly violent things for seemingly no reason at all??
they had a reason they thought she stole a phone cant you read

[Iscariot]

just because it's a bad reason doesn't invalidate it as a reason right

[Aaron]

If people aren't able to act appropriately in society [ie non-violently] they should be removed untill they are a) punished, and b) educated to a level where they sincerely understand what they've done is wrong.

[Reaganista]

ok great i dont see why that stuff couldn't be achieved in a long weekend in this case
or like a week or two maybe

[Aaron]

Are you being serious or trolling?

[Reaganista]

im always serious

not to imply that the answer to that question has any impact on any questions i asked you or arguments i may make

[Aaron]

I was just wonderings, wasn't meant to be a jab at ya.

I think that the key point is that those girls obviously thought it was normal behaviour, ie showed their neighbour. Anyone who is that out of step with society needs to be removed.

[808]

Um, stealing a phone is not reason enough to be tortured.

[Iscariot]

it is in the middle east

[Reaganista]

I was just wonderings, wasn't meant to be a jab at ya.

I think that the key point is that those girls obviously thought it was normal behaviour, ie showed their neighbour. Anyone who is that out of step with society needs to be removed.
well if that's true that would suggest life in prison i hope you dont favor that just for a beating

Um, stealing a phone is not reason enough to be tortured.
to the contrary it is in fact the reason she was tortured
well suspicion of stealing a phone

[Aaron]

Depends on each individual case.
Torture is more than just a beating.

[Reaganista]

in this case she was tortured by being beaten

[Aaron]

How long would you lock them up for?

[Reaganista]

i wouldve given probation and community service if it was up to me

[Mr. Ron]

damn tway, what do people have to do to get actual jail time in your book :p

[808]

I don't believe you.

[Reaganista]

jail is a bad idea we should avoid using it

[Mr. Ron]

Yeah well theres certain people that would be better off separated from people they want to harm.

[Reaganista]

kill em

[808]

So it's community service or death.

Cool.

[Reaganista]

i think most people would pick community service idk

[Mr. Ron]

kill em

I don't believe in the deff penalty you know this

[Reaganista]

well then i guess you could make jails where you just keep people sentenced to life without parole but that seems counterproductive imo

[808]

Forced labor.

[Reaganista]

honest americans are having a tough enough time competing with mexicans how can you expect them to compete with slaves

[808]

If they are competing with Mexicans for jobs, maybe they shouldn't be living at all.

[Reaganista]

only if they commit crimes and then refuse to do community service

[Mr. Ron]

Forced labor.

this reminds me

where they hell is steve?

[Aaron]

I think if someone commits a serious crime, after detention, they should have to work to pay for their crime to the family of the victim; ie, someone is murdered, the murderer should have to donate 10% of their earnings to the family for their entire career.

[Reaganista]

that doesn't even make sense
if the victim wants to sue them they can do it themselves
and the percentage thing makes no sense either why should a person get more money because a rich guy did a crime to them

and you're giving felons another incentive not to get a real job and therefore just go on doing crimes
all around horrible

[McP3000]

Tway is my new favorite psychological analyst.

[Charlie Daniels]

Only 40 months?

That's 3 1/3 years. I turned 18 about 3 and 1/3 years ago and if I was in prison since my 18 birthday I would have well and truly learned my lesson now. Years are a long time to be in prison people.

I'm not trying to say whether it's just or injust, but I think saying ONLY 40 months kind of implies that it's some how a short period of time... when it's not :-S

[Aaron]

Well for something as severe as torturing a person I think it's short.

[Reaganista]

if the goal is only to teach them a lesson i think it would be a long time for literally any crime

[Iscariot]

Well for something as severe as torturing a person I think it's short.

it doesn't take 40 months to teach someone a lesson

a couple of months would suffice

submerging them in a facility dedicated to housing criminals for several years is only going to expose them to a broader understanding and capacity for crime

[Smokey D]

My guess is she wasn't 18 when she committed the crime and the Daily Hate fudged it in the original article so it looked like she was.

Also, sounds like there were some pretty incompetent prosecutors if all they got them on was kidnapping and basic assault.

[Aaron]

Punishment is part of the detention as well, not just rehabilitation/education.

[Iscariot]

turning someone into an even more likely candidate for crime is more a punishment for society than the offender

[Aaron]

Well fix the jails then, don't compromise of the punishment then.

[Iscariot]

if fixing the prison system were an easy task it would have been done years ago instead of still being a hot topic for political debate

prison reform would cost more money and demand more resources than are available

a more intelligent and achievable response to the number of re-offenders coming out of prisons in all westernized countries would be a stronger focus on rehabilitation and actually understanding the cause of the crime and how to correct that behavior instead of simply throwing someone in a giant cage with a bunch of other criminals and expecting them to learn their lesson

[Smokey D]

Aren't you also advocating prison reform?

[Iscariot]

in a sense, but not on the financial level that those more liberal than myself want to see

all i'm suggesting is a shift from expecting rehabilitation to engaging in it

[Smokey D]

Prison is a tricky issue because you have a about four legitimate interests that more or less pull in opposite directions which prison is trying to solve. Rehabilitation is a nice idea (within certain constraints) but it is exceedingly difficult to do since in so far as crime has social origins it is social pressure outside the prison which exerts the most influence on people's decisions to commit crimes.

[McP3000]

using prison/jail as a form of rehabilitation is a joke

[Smokey D]

It's not so much that it's prisons need to be a lot more specialised for the purpose.

Which is to say if you commit a relatively low level crime you should not be put in a prison with hardcore criminals where most of the resources go to punishment and control and weak personalities slip through the cracks and get abused/indoctrinated into more crime.

[Iscariot]

using prison/jail as a form of rehabilitation is a joke

why

[McP3000]

because it is

the notion makes me laugh

[Iscariot]

ok let's try this again

this time use your brain to answer the question

[Reaganista]

My guess is she wasn't 18 when she committed the crime and the Daily Hate fudged it in the original article so it looked like she was.

Also, sounds like there were some pretty incompetent prosecutors if all they got them on was kidnapping and basic assault.

or some prosecutors who correctly excercised discretion because of extenuating circumstances we arent aware of
or incorrectly

[McP3000]

ok let's try this again

this time use your brain to answer the question
right now my brain is laughing

dammit

[Sunshine]

But you still haven't given an actual reason for WHY it's a joke.

"Because it is" doesn't mean anything.

[Jude]

Why does it always seem like British teenagers do way more ****ed up **** than Americans

[spitfirejunky]

The victim spent 4 months in a hospital? If this story is accurate, she should consider handing out revenge beatings since the justice system blatantly failed her.

[Det_Nosnip]

Why does it always seem like British teenagers do way more ****ed up **** than Americans

Yeah, but they fail on frequency. Our f'd up **** is daily, whereas their's is once in a blue moon.

[Iscariot]

Why does it always seem like British teenagers do way more ****ed up **** than Americans

they don't have guns so instead of just shooting another person they do this sort of thing

[hismajestythepope]

most american teens dont have guns either, and i guarentee you theres british teens with guns

[sweboy]

actually, the kids cut each other with knives in britain, it's been a pretty big problem recently

[2muchket!]

they don't have guns so instead of just shooting another person they do this sort of thing

oh wow

so are you oblivious to this so called knife crime epidemic in our country ?

[Iscariot]

no where did i hint that i was

they don't have guns so instead of just shooting another person they do this sort of thing

can encompass any non-gun violent crime

violent crimes committed without a firearm have a habit of being much more brutal and tortuous

[2muchket!]

Fair enough.

It's just our tabloids are doing their usual knee jerk reaction to the subject of knife crime. There's been an inconsistency with the way crime and data on it has been collated but in terms of a real genuine problem, I don't think there is.