General News Molly Shattuck Sentenced in Child Sexual Abuse case

The article says she is/will be a sex offender, at least for 20 years. That right there is a nail in the coffin, or should be.

 

I personally don't think the article is too specific. Yes she perfumed a sexual act on a young man but he was old enough to be sexuality active so I would not consider her as dangerous as most sexual predators unless of course it was forced opon him which it does not say so in the article. But than you have age of consent laws but that is a argument for another day.

A only on weekends jail sentence sounds stupid and pointless but whatever.

 

I completely agree with you man. :dry:

 

I assume those fees she has to pay have a lot to do with it. You don't make very much money in jail/prison, and what you can make is severely low, maybe a few cents a day, unless you have somebody on the outside funneling you money. And even then, you have to be approved or allowed to work, something many are pushing to remove from jails/prisons.

If she acts up or doesn't report in for her weekend jailing, she risks being thrown behind bars for the original, full sentence. At least this way she is able to generate the money, instead of sitting behind bars where, honestly, she couldn't -- this is why I find it rather bizarre that people are thrown behind bars for, say, child support, well, how can they pay thousands of dollars when they make petty cents a day?

I do agree with you on the 'if this was an adult male/underage female, there would be a ravenous cry for castration punishment'. But there's the other side of this coin, too, and society should swallow this pill:

Quit shaming girls on sexual matters, while giving high-fives to boys on theirs.

 

Old enough to be sexually active doesn't mean able to consent to an adult. That's really important to keep in mind.

Coercing a minor into sex is scarcely less dangerous than brutally forcing them into sex; both have the capacity to leave massive emotional scars.

I don't understand how such a lenient sentence could have been passed on her; if there was evidence enough to convict her, there should have been a penalty harsher than this.

 

We have far too many double standards. Lady Justice may be blind, but her servants aren't. And, on the jail for contempt/child support issue, I must quote our local child support enforcement attorney "Sure, the Court can't actually make you pay, but it can make you wish you had.

 

I would be interested in knowing the history of the judge. Outside of the registry, what is even the point of this sentencing? Ruining her Satuday brunches?

The argument that this time could be used to pay fees doesn't apply here because the children will be supported regardless. The reason why parents are jailed for consistently refusing to pay child support is that the government oversees child support transactions. If a parent doesn't pay child support, the children are not made to go without. The government supplements the money in most cases and the debit is then owed back to the government. The reason for this is that the government can seize assets while a regular single parent clearly cannot.

If the person who refuses to pay child support attempts to hide all assets from the government, then that is the point that they might be arrested. It is no different than tax evasion. The crime is not not having the money; it is attempted to ultimately dodge court orders and government agencies. The people who are jailed are often given very short sentences and let out on probation for the purpose of teaching that you can't just decide to not pay taxes, child support, etc. I could see it being counter productive if not paying child support resulted in 25 to life.

 

We need reform in the way that we deal with sex offenders, but this is definitely not it. Even a short actual sentence would have been more reasonable because we are releasing her to the public before she has even had a chance to sit down with a prison counselor/psychologist.

~~~​

Though I disagree with something that was said either. Although there is this culture that male victims are lucky for being violated by women, working against the view that treating women as trophies will likely not put an end to this. Sexual crimes are treated so harsh because they are both physically and mentally destructive. We need to create a society that allows males acknowledge the exist of emotion, so that we are reminded of the fact that males can be emotionally and psychologically damaged. Only then will we begin to see the sexual or physical abuse of men as serious crimes.

 

She should be put into some kind of mental institution instead of jail so she can get help. The prison/jail system here is broken, taking advantage of mentally ill.

 

She'd still have to pay somebody. Money would need to be made and provided, even if it is debt. There's a lot to be said about this, as there is on the conditions of American legal facilities, but I feel like a politician by discussing something of secondary importance to the primary issue, here:

What is the appropriate response to this?

That would be helpful, but how does one go about combating the 'violation of any sort is not a man problem' mentality? Some folks, even those who could benefit from such, may have this resistance to "blending" the traits attributed to one sex with the other.

Better yet, how do we get over this 'men choose to do wrong, women are responding as victims' attitude?

 

It would, but realistically I don't see any other options they have. They can give you a year and hope that you start taking the proper proportions out of your check when you are released. Child support is scaled to your salary. When it is a matter of throw people in jail who can't pay debts because they are feeding their children, then that is one thing. Yes, you can't make money in jail, but you also can't make the money that you were choosing to spend on new cellphones rather than shouldering the minimum burden of having a child. It is not a perfect punishment, but it is usually effective for that reason.

By starting to acknowledge emotion in males more often in our culture. Obviously starting with our media and social issue campaigns. We as a society have a hard time empathizing with men and that is a large part of issues such as this. Seeing emotion in men is not something that is as normalized in society and, therefore, it is difficult for many of us to be moved by these stories even if we recognize that they are wrong.

Yes, there is an endless amount of misogyny in the way that we address emotion and sexuality in regards to gender, but we also have to remember that psychology our perception of women is truthfully the accurate perception. People are emotional. People can easily be made victims. Most of our spirits are rather fragile. We are a species of tends to seek validation and struggle with insecurity. We all want to be told we're pretty in the morning!

The point is part of destigmatizing our perception of women is expanding that perception to the point that we associate things such as emotion, vulnerability, weakness, etc, as a part of the human condition in general rather the female. Though changing social perception can certainly take some time, getting to that point improve our degree of empathy to both men and women by destigmatizing these things for both parties.

 

No my response has nothing to with gender i would of thought the same but like i said in my original post i did not get all the facts straight to make a complete judgment. I have a disability so sometimes i miss details so sorry if I did not get it all. In that case she should severely punished. I have different views on what is seen as a minor or not but that is a argument for another day. Lets say it was not a incident where someone really took advantage but someone mistakenly thought someone was older or the person lied about their age and than they get in trouble for a crime they did not intend to commit. Consent laws can be unfair and ridiculous so I take a closer look at these cases before I judge but I do agree this woman is a danger to minors.

---------- Post added 9th Sep 2015 at 07:44 AM ----------

Like I said i did not get all the details but i would say now this woman is a danger to minors knowing those other details about taking advantage of the situation. But let's say this kid lied about his age and said he was 18 and it was not a case of being taken advantage of would we all think differently. I think these laws need reform in some areas but this woman like i said is obviously a dangerous person to minors or what is seen as a minor.

But of course whether it is a minor or not taking advantage of someone sexuallly should be a crime don't get me wrong.

 

I was disgusted by the leniency of the sentence. We don't even have to turn this based on gender. Mary Kay Letourneau went to jail. That was probably a little more serious. She was the boy's teacher and I believe they had intercourse. They are now married. I still think this Molly Shattuck should have seen some real jail time. It was all about money ... the fact that she has been connected and affluent for a good part of her life. Only the family of the boy is grieving this decision. No one out there is protesting or anything like that. But people sure have time to travel and protest anything else under the sun.