Summary
A French court sentenced Dominique Pelicot, 72, to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping his ex-wife, Gisele Pelicot, and arranging for other men to rape her while unconscious over nearly a decade.
Of the 51 co-defendants, all were found guilty, with sentences ranging from less than 10 years to 20.
The trial, marked by shocking evidence, spurred national debate on rape culture and consent laws.
Gisèle’s courage in waiving anonymity has galvanized feminist movements, with campaigners calling her a national hero for sparking societal and legal reflection on sexual violence.
In Germany at least, jail time doesn’t scale linearly with the count of crimes or victims. Jail time isn’t primarily meant as revenge or punishment, but more as the time required to revisit the mistakes you did and to make you again a functional member of society.
It won’t necessarily make a difference if you murder one person or 10 or 100. Typically, the sentence will be 15 years. If the judge thinks you’re too dangerous to ever be released again they can order you to stay in prison after the 15 years end (“Sicherheitsverwahrung”) but also this decision will be revisited at some point.
Dear Americans;
This is what happens when your prisons don’t rely on private profit motives to operate.
Signed: The civilised world.
I always enjoy the Americans having their minds blown when they find out how a rehabilitative justice system works.
It’s crazy to me that they’ve set up a system that essentially requires recidivism in order to keep meat coming through the doors to function, and yet somehow think that that’s normal.
There’s this common myth that some people are ‘just born bad’. I think that might be true for some, but the majority of crime is due to circumstances. Americans as a whole just cannot seem to accept that, plus the lot of them seem to have massive schadenfreude boners over “law and order”.
But if they weren’t born bad, I’d have to contend with the fact that I’m not naturally morally superior to them!
Normally I’m 100% for this, it’s just that this particular case seems so evil and egregious…
Well, I guess it depends on what you want to achieve.
If just you let a criminal rot in jail forever without any perspective, that’s just an inhumane and expensive form of death sentence. If you desire revenge and torture that’s your way to go.
On the other hand, I think 15 years in prison is a pretty long time to realize what you have done, to regret it and possibly change for the better. In a scenario without perspective you as a prisoner feel completely detached from society and instead of maybe having an epiphany one day, you’ll rather feel more and more hatred.
Sure, if you’re still as bad of a person at the end of your sentence, then you can’t be released in order to protect society from you.
If I were a victim, I’d probably feel better knowing that my offender is released from prison, feels guilty and deeply regrets the crime. At least in comparison to someone that is proud of what happened, full of hate and is just waiting for a chance to get at me again.
I was thinking of that guy who raped her multiple times and had HIV. I really need that guy to have more than “some time to think about what you’ve done” because he’d probably jerk off to it. :(
Yeah, I don’t say I don’t understand your feelings. People seeking revenge is a natural impulse. It’s just not what the German system aims for.
Are German prisons as scary as US (from what I’ve seen on TV) prisons or South African Prisons?
I’d rather die than spend two seconds in Pollsmoor prison.
Nope, not even close from what I hear about the US prison system. It still sucks obviously and we just had a scandal in Augsburg where inmates have been tortured (beatings, not enough water provided, forced to stay naked, sleep on the floor etc).
No, I think there are some that are comparable to mid-class hotels and some that are a lower standard. But in general none should be as bad that you’d rather die if you didn’t want to die before your imprisonment.
Yes and rightfully so. The punishment is taking away the freedom to move and not torture or slavery as it can be in the US.
Here’s a great video that addresses US vs German prisons:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CmB0InEf2GM
I’ve seen a 60 minutes episode comparing German and US prisons on YouTube can recommend.
It’s very different.