Homosexy wrote:Snoefsnuif wrote:I would advocate that rape be reclassified. In this country's legal system, it's a second-degree offense out of three degrees with maximum punishment a fine and five years in jail. I believe rapists sentence their victims to... well terrible things for the rest of their life, while the rapist escapes with only five years (theoretical maximum!) in prison. I can't imagine one'd have fond memories of being raped.
And those are the ones that were reported, and THEN get "guilty" in court, so it's a staggeringly low number in comparison to how much rape there is.
And then a lot of them get out early, for one reason or another. Put on parole, on good behavior, etc.
They don't get punished hard enough.
The weak link is reporting. Conviction conditional on reporting - in the US or UK - is fairly good for rape. The main thing keeping figures down is failure to report the crime. Early release is normal for all varieties of crime; it has a lot to do with prison overcrowding and the war on drugs. Most violent criminals released unexpectedly early can be laid at the feet of the War on Drugs, whose mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines have left much less room in jails for actual menaces to society.
In the UK, rape carries an average sentence longer than that of manslaughter. In the United States, this is also true. (This, by the way, may have something to do with the low rates at which rapists and murderers commit a new crime after having been convicted once; they're generally in there for a long time compared to other offenders.)
The justice system is not soft on rape in general, although there have been numerous local exceptions (e.g., Philadelphia circa 1970s-1980s). The cops may give you a hard time, and they may personally not all be paladins, but unless you recant your report or you happen to live in a particularly rotten jurisdiction, you should have faith that they will - as an organization - pursue the case with all the rigor available to them.
