Debra Lafave: The New Face and Symbol of Women's Sexual Criminality
Michael Kuehl
Partly published on Moraloutrage.net, full text sent to Ipce (which added some heads). Mary LetourneauIn 2004, Mary Letourneau was released from prison after 7˝ years of abusive and degrading captivity. Given her initial sentence of 6-months in jail, this "all-American girl" and ex-teacher and mother of six children was enslaved for a total of 8-years, almost a decade of her life, far longer than the average time-served for men convicted of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, and roughly twice as long as the average time-served for men convicted of all violent crimes: aggravated assault, rape, robbery, and homicide. [* Note] Most appallingly, Mary served more time in "the hole" for trying to contact Vili Fualaau - reputedly 9-18 months of solitary confinement, 23-hours a day in a toilet with bars - than myriads of thugs serve in jails and prisons for committing violent felonies. But, ironically and incredibly, for millions of people she is still a symbol of how women are "coddled" by the criminal justice system, ostensibly punished far less harshly than men for crimes of identical or comparable severity.
Mary was now in her mid- 40s, old enough to be a grandmother, and unless she "fell in love" with and had sex with another young man under age 18, or murdered someone, or the like, her wedding and marriage to Vili was likely the denouement of the Letourneau saga. Mary was "old news." So a culture and media obsessed with affairs between women teachers and their male students was eager to find another lovely villainous to replace Mary: a new golden girl, a new symbol, a new face, a new story. Debra LafaveAnd the same year that Mary was released from prison, another pretty blonde teacher , Debra Lafave, became the face and symbol of women's sexual criminality and, more crucially, a symbol of how women are "coddled" and men are crucified for engaging in acts of consensual sex with underage teenagers. And Debra was not only pretty but a "super-hottie," arguably the most sexy and gorgeous of all the infamous schoolmarms, ludicrously defined as "rapists" and "pedophiles" and "child molesters." Ergo, national coverage of her case was great for ratings, and also for "proving" that the sexier and prettier the woman "sex offender," the more indulgently they're treated by the criminal justice system.
At age 23, Debra succumbed to womanly emotions, and perhaps the lure of "naughtiness," and developed a "school-girl crush" on a strapping six-foot adonis of 14. Then, according to the "experts" and their dupes and agents in the media, she "seduced" and "abused" and "raped" and "molested" and "traumatized" the "child" and "little boy" - i.e., transported him to sexual elysium by virtue of a few consensual acts of fellatio and intercourse. For this she was charged with felonies that carried a maximum sentence of decades in a Florida hell-hole and torture chamber and a life-sentence of government supervision. Writes David Steinberg:
Crime? Rapist? Pedophile? Victim?I've already explained, on this and other websites, why women like Debra are not "rapists" and "pedophiles" and "child molesters"; why the young men they have sex with are not "victims of child sexual abuse"; and why such intrigues and dalliances are victimless and mala prohibita offenses that should either be criminalized as low-level misdemenors or not at all. And those not blinded by morality and/or ideology can imagine the reaction of a young stud lucky enough to have sex with a woman as ravishing and voluptuous as Debra. "Awesome" indeed! Understandably, this is especially true of men who've yet to be enlightened by "masculists" and CSA victimologists. Steinberg quotes a random selection of quotes from the internet:
|
 | Matt Lauer, NBC News: What's the reaction you get from people who recognize you? |
| Debra LaFave: Snickers and stares. Mothers would hold their children tightly. |
| Lauer: Obviously. Do it in front of you? |
| LaFave: Obviously? |
Mothers would grab their children and hold them tightly when they saw her in public!
And Lauer says "obviously," as if such responses were prudent and rational and somehow necessary, and not manifestations of propaganda-induced hysteria over an entirely chimerical danger.
Exactly what did they fear when they saw Debra? That when they weren't looking, or perhaps after a violent struggle, Debra would grab a child or maybe two, a girl in one arm and a boy in the other, and abscond in her high heels to the nearest wooded park, vacant building, or back alley and do what exactly: molest, "rape," torture, and murder their children?
"Obviously"! Such risible hysteria, paranoia, and panic - the irrational fear of something which Debra would never even think of doing and, moreover, would be physically impossible under the circumstances - is of course a result of defining women like Debra as "rapists" and "pedophiles" and the young men they have sex with as "victims" and "children" who are basically indistinguishable from 10-year-old girls. Because Debra had sex with a young man of 14, she would abduct and molest and even kill their pre-pubertal children!
Ironically, if I had young children, I'd much rather have Debra baby-sit them than her "victim" or any other male of whom I knew little or nothing. And so would any minimally rational person.
Objectively, Debra is less a threat to the children of such mothers than any male of whom they know little or nothing. Yet Debra is prohibited by law from even having unsupervised conversations with young women of 16 and 17.
(For violating this order and engaging in "girl talk" with a 17-year-old female, Debra was just arrested and compelled to appear before a judge for sentencing. Happily, for me and not a few others, she was not incarcerated.)
Debra also told Lauer that she was raped. I have no idea is this is true or if her lawyer told her to say this to enhance the likelihood of a "lenient sentence." Yes, sexual abuse begets sexual abuse, and Debra became a "rapist" because she herself was raped and thus the judge should be merciful. But Lauer found it "ironic" that she wanted to inform and instruct students about rape. Assuming that Debra was in fact sexually assaulted, why is that "ironic," unless you believe that Debra is indeed a "rapist." So Lauer must believe that Debra is a "rapist" or, at the least, that her transgressions were comparable to violent-forcible rape.
Debra also told him that her "victim" pinned her against the wall in her classroom and forcibly kissed and fondled her. Lauer found this allegation "implausible." And in explaining why, it was clear that he wasn't merely implying that Debra was lying about this particular incident, which is possible, but also suggesting that such an act was generally implausible.
Lauer pointed out that Lafave was a tall woman - as if this proved that she was lying, since so big and strong a women could easily fend off a "child" and "young boy" of 14! Debra is 5' 7" and appears to weigh about 110-115 lbs. A truly fearsome Amazon! Her "victim," the "child" who she said did this to her, was 6-feet tall and much stronger than Debra in the upper body, probably twice as strong in the upper body and possibly three or four times stronger if he was muscular and big-boned and lifted weights.
Does Lauer believe that few young man of 14 or 15 would do such a thing and that such assaults are so rare as to be almost nonexistent? He should talk for a few hours or days with girls and teachers, particularly those who attend and work in our worst high schools. In fact, predators and brutes as young as 13 and 14 and 15 have committed hundreds of thousands of rapes and millions of sexual assaults over the last 50-years.
And does he believe that most women are big and strong enough to resist such assaults, assuming they aren't so immobilized by fear, so terrified by the threat of violence and of being killed or seriously injured by such "children" and "little boys," that they simply freeze and can't physically resist?
Such idiocies are a result of defining young men under age 18 as de-sexed and androgynous "children" and, apparently, visualizing them as having the minds and bodies of girls and boys ages 8-10. Only someone who idealized and visualized this pubescent teenager, a young man almost half a foot taller than Debra and much stronger and more aggressive, as a "child" could say and/or believe something so ludicrous.
Maybe Lauer watches Jay Leno and saw a sketch featuring the silhouettes of a teacher and her diminutive male student behind a white curtain. The shapely teacher, holding an apple (an invocation of both the Bible and Norman Rockwell's America), towers above the student. Albeit the woman is bending over to facilitate eye contact, the top of the boy's head is at the level of her ample breasts.
The average woman is 5' 4" or 5' 5". Few if any teachers wear 4-inch spike heels, or even shoes with 2 or 3 inch heels. I guess that would make the child about four-feet tall or a few inches shorter or taller depending on the woman's height. So the joke implies that women teachers are having sex with the tiniest of boys ages 6-9 in the first four grades of elementary school and possibly even kindergarteners.
In fact, virtually all of these affairs involve teenagers, many as old as 16 and 17 and now even 18. Thus in nearly all such cases, the teacher and student are either of roughly equal height or the "victim" towers over his schoolmarm "rapist" and "child molester" by 6-12 inches.
With the exception of Vili Fualaau, pictures of these "victims" are never shown to the public and they are rarely described physically, yet they're almost invariably described as "children," and often as "young boys" or even "little boys" by Nancy Grace and her ilk. As we've seen, some women even call them "babies" and "infants."
A Vizu.com poll asked this question: "What should sex offender Debra Lafave sentence have been for engaging in sex with her 14-year-old student? The results (vizu.com, 7-10-2006):
| (40.7%) Less of a sentence than she received; |
| (15.3%) What she received: 3 years house arrest & 7 years probation; |
| (1.7%) More than 3 years house arrest with no prison time; |
| (5.1%) Under 3 years in prison; |
| (13.6%) 3 years in prison as requested by the boy's parents; |
| (10.2%) 4-10 years in prison; |
| (1.7%) 11-29 years in prison; |
| (8.5%), The maximum 30 years in prison. |
I have no idea if this poll is at all representative of America's population. Nonetheless, it's encouraging that over half of the respondents were opposed to imprisoning Debra. Yet roughly 40% wanted to imprison her, all but 5% from 3-30 years, and almost 10% are so insane that they believe she should be caged like an animal for 30-years in a country in which the average time-served for men convicted of violent felonies is approximately 4-years!
How refreshing to quote the truths of John Derbyshire:
"...Ms. Lafave is a very pretty young woman. I was a 14-year-old boy myself once. It was a while ago, but I can still remember what it felt like. I would have been thrilled to be seduced by Ms. Lafave, and I would have been the envy of my peers. I would go so far to say that is it the sweetest dream of every red-blooded 14-year-old boy to be seduced by an attractive older woman..."
And when he scoffs at the notion that the young man
"was 'traumatized' by the experience. Believe me, gentle reader, there are 14-year-old boys all over America yearning to be so 'traumatized'..."
(March Diary, National Review Online, 3-31-2006)
If the young man in this case was in any sense "traumatized," "scarred," "damaged," "screwed-up," etc., it was by the hysteria of adults and the involvement of the criminal justice system, by iatrogenic therapy whose purpose is to make him see himself as a "victim of child sexual abuse"
(he can only be "cured" by realizing that the pleasure and affirmation of having sex with a beauty like Debra was actually a profoundly shattering violation),
and by local and national media which covered this negligible and innocuous affair as though it were an historic event comparable to 9-11 or the assassination of JFK.
I exaggerate only slightly. How many people recall the Virginia Tech massacre of 37 students and faculty or could tell you the name of the deranged gunman? Besides Muhammad Atta, how many people could tell you the name of even one of the 9-11 terrorists? But Debra is currently as famous as JFK and more infamous and despised than Muhammad Atta!
Ironically, the only true sexual abuse and violation in this affair was committed against Debra when three cops, apparently all male, essentially put her in bondage and took pornographic photos of her vagina. For "evidence," of course! But of what? Material verification of a "crime" she admitted perpetrating? That she suffered lesions or bruises when she "raped" her "victim" by having him vaginally penetrate her?
Writes Steinberg:
"Officers of the Temple Terrace police department proved to be as susceptible to Debra Fever as their non-professional counterparts. While Lafave was in custody, three detectives from her case arranged to have a series of nude photographs taken of her: close-ups of her genitals (described meticulously in one police report as a "shaved pubic area leaving a strip of hair") while Lafave was in stirrups. The officers allegedly intended to shoot a series of close-ups of her breasts as well, but were interrupted before that could occur... It was only when Lafave's attorney learned of the photos and complained to Judge Timmerman that the photos were seized and sealed.
Under Florida's liberal public access laws, they would otherwise have been available to any and all interested parties, which is to say they would have been all over the internet... The media, delighted to have new lurid details in the case, were given even more grist three days later when one of the detectives who authorized the photos of Lafave was arrested during a sting operation by Tampa police, allegedly offering a woman $140 for sex. (Steinberg, ibid.)
"The officials from the Temple Terrace Police Department took photos of the genital area of my client," Debra's Lawyer told the press. "Very explicit photos, pornographic photos, and then attempted to photograph her breasts... She's not even safe with the police."
Another dogma of CSA victimologists and those they successfully indoctrinated is that such liaisons and mere dalliances are "traumatizing" to the under-aged teenager because of an imbalance of power based on maturity and experience, an unequal power relation that is even more damaging if the adult is a teacher in a position of authority.
Steinberg quotes Judith Levine:
"Judith Levine, author of Harmful to Minors, a thoughtful and comprehensive look at the effects of public policy on the sexuality of children and adolescents, notes that "almost all of the teachers (who engage in sexual relationships with high school students) are young. They're not that far from the kids in terms of life experience. The impulsiveness is typical of people that age. It makes perfect, non-pathological sense that they should be attracted to these students. It's probably unethical, but it's not pathological, and certainly shouldn't be criminal."
(Steinberg, ibid.)(And even if it "must" be criminal, it should not be "jail-worthy, as Derbyshire argued in respect to the Lafave case in a debate with Kathryn "K-Lo" Lopez on nationalreview.com's "The Corner.")
Yes, intrinsic sexual differentiation aside, high school students and their young teachers are far more alike than different: they
| watch the same movies and TV shows, |
| listen to the same music, |
| visit the same websites, |
| talk the same, |
| often look the same age, |
| dress the same, |
| have the same desires, thoughts, etc. |
Not long ago, historically-speaking, before the invention of "adolescence," both pubescent teenagers and people in their early-mid 20s would have been categorized as "youths" rather than differentiated as "adults" and "children."
Referring to police recordings of phone conversations with the "victim" intended to entrap and incriminate Debra, Steinberg notes her immature, naive, innocent, adolescent-like nature:
"On the tape, Lafave sounds surprisingly young, even younger than the student... While it's hard to compose any meaningful or detailed picture of the quality of the relationship between Debra and her student, what's striking about the information publicly available is the extreme innocence and naiveté of both parties, particularly Lafave.
In the public mind, sex between teachers and adolescents is assumed to be an interaction between a manipulative, predatory adult and an innocent, traumatized victim. Transcripts of the phone calls between Lafave and her student, statements given to police by the student and his cousin, and Lafave's childlike voice on the tape recordings, make it difficult to view Debra Lafave as a devious predator. If anything, she seems astoundingly immature, and remarkably unaware of the gravity of her situation, or the dire consequences that will result if she is discovered..."
(Steinberg, Ibid.)
But even in cases in which the adult is significantly older, more mature, more experienced, etc., precisely how does an imbalance of power based on age and experience render the sex "traumatizing" for the young man? How is a young man under age 18 "traumatized" by having sex with an adult women but not a girl his own age simply because his lover is 5 or 10 or 20 years older?
In affairs between adult women and under-aged teenage males, the paramount reality is not the age of the woman but the age and nature of the young man, i.e., that he's not a "child," biologically, but a young man, a biological man who experiences the sex exactly as a young man of 19 or 21 or 26 would experience it. And in many if not most instances, he's the predator, and often manipulative.
Once again, I quote Steinberg:
"In a thoughtful article in The New York Times ("The Siren Song of Sex With Boys," Dec. 11, 2005), Kate Zernike writes that, in cases like that of Debra Lafave
'because many of those named as victims refused to testify against the women in what they said were consensual relationships, not everyone agrees that the cases involve child abuse.'
Zernike cites the Rind study and notes that in Canada and in much of Europe, the age of consent for sexual relations has been lowered to 14, following recommendations of a series of national commissions studying the subject.
Harmful to Minors author Judith Levine agrees that age of consent laws are often arbitrary and run contrary to what is known about adolescent sexuality and the psychological effects of sexual relationships between adolescents and adults.
'Age of consent laws,' says Levine, 'have little to do with scientific research. They're really about the preservation of feminine purity. People are not worried about boys in the same way that they're worried about girls'." (Ibid.)
Generally, Levine could not be more wrong. Although it's obviously true that "not everyone agrees that the cases involve child abuse," dissenters and heretics are marginal, ostracized, demonized, and powerless. Amongst the ruling elites and governing classes, those with power and/or influence, virtually everyone agrees (or pretends to agree) that such "cases involve child abuse."
And such people control and shape the opinions of the general public. Obviously, anonymous "insensitive" comments on the internet about "lucky little bastards" hitting "lotto" and "knocking boots" with "hot fantasy teachers" have absolutely no influence on professional CSA victimologists, politicians, prosecutors, judges, social workers, mainstream editors, respectable commentators, etc.
It's probably true that not even CSA victimologists are worried about boys in exactly the "same way that they're worried about girls." How could they be?! Not even "masculists" and "equity feminists" can deny that only girls are penetrated and often impregnated. But virtually everyone with power and influence is generally "worried about boys in the same way that they're worried about girls" or pretends to be so "worried" for cultural and/or professional reasons.
And even if the ruling classes are not exactly as concerned with preserving the "masculine purity" of "boys" as the "feminine purity" of girls, they're still generally as concerned with protecting the "innocence" and "immaturity of "boys" from women "predators" as vice versa.
(The one exception, of course, is "masculists" and some "equity feminists," who are far more obsessed with protecting "boys" ages 13-17 from female "rapists" and "child molesters" than they're "worried" about protecting nubile girls ages 13-17 from male predators.)
And thus "masculists," "equity feminists," "anti-rape feminists," CSA victimologists, the religious right, the "righteous right," the forces of moral purity, "Crazy Joe" Farah and World Net Daily, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Nancy Grace, ad nauseam, and the millions of people they've brainwashed were all outraged when Debra Lafave was "coddled" and given "straight probation."
"If what comes out of this is that there is some sort of re-examination of age of consent in general or even a small shift of opinion," say Levine, the Debra Lafave case "might in the end have some sort of positive effect on public policy."
(David Steinberg, "Beyond Predators and Victims: The Not-So-Sensational Story of Debra Laface and Her 14-Year-Old Stud," getunderground.com, 7/21/2006.)
Don't bet on it. Given the Zeitgeist, left and right, the opposite effect is far more likely.
Why wasn't Debra sentenced to months or years in jail or prison? One thing is certain: the judge wasn't a "masculist," "equity feminist," or CSA victimologist. Some other likely reasons:
Because of politics and demographics, Florida's jails and prisons are among the most hellish in the nation. Moreover, because the population of Florida is among the most violent and criminal in the nation, all prisons and jails are overcrowded. Debra's Lawyer, John Fitzgibbons, told the court:
"To place Debbie into a Florida state women's penitentiary, to place an attractive young woman in that kind of hell-hole, is like placing a piece of raw meat in with the lions. I don't think Debbie could survive it."
The judge might have found this argument persuasive. Perhaps he didn't want to go to bed at night worrying that Debra might be assaulted, maimed (e.g., her beautiful face disfigured by a kitchen knife or some other sharp object), sexually abused or even raped by male prison guards, and possibly even murdered. And perhaps he feared that - whether as a "piece of raw meat in with the lions" or in "protective custody" or solitary confinement for 23-hours a day - Debra might lose her mind and never recover. And for a "crime" that her "victim" described as "awesome"!
And there were "mitigating" factors. Debra was a first-offender. As mentioned above, she claims to have been a victim of rape herself. Moreover, she was abused and degraded by three male cops who took pornographic photos of her vagina. And as her lawyer noted, "Debbie has some profound emotional issues that are not her fault." To quote Steinberg:
"Lafave's older sister and close confidante, five months pregnant, had been killed by a drunk driver in an automobile accident three years earlier. According to testimony by Lafave's mother, in the wake of her sister's death, 'Debbie has been pretty much of a basket case.'"
What is more, perhaps the judge realized that it was not only unjust but also absurd to sentence a woman to months or years in jail or prison for having consensual sex with a 14-year-old stud who experienced and described his putative "vicitmization" as "awesome" and his theoretical "victimizer" as "hot." How many victims of aggravated assault, attempted murder, torture, muggings, armed robbery, home invasions, car-jackings, violent-forcible rape, etc., describe their experiences with words like "awesome" and other positive adjectives?
Perhaps the judge realized that Debra is not a "rapist" or "pedophile" and that her offense was a victimless crime that her definitional "victim" obviously enjoyed and craved. How many people enjoy being violently assaulted, raped, robbed, etc.? Or envy those who are so victimized? But if this is what the judge really thought, he was too prudent to express such opinions while passing sentence - lest he incite mass protests, a fusillade of indignant op-eds, outrage letters to the editor, tirades and jeremiads, solemn righteous proclamations, etc., calls for his impeachment, the usual demands for apologies and groveling to keep his job and salvage his reputation, and possible subjection to months of "sensitivity-training" and CSA victimology indoctrination.
And since the judge was not a "masculist" or CSA victimolgists, I'm sure he realized that Debra was nothing like the criminals who usually appear in his courtroom: nonviolent, college-educated, middle-class, not a "threat to society" or a "danger to her fellow citizens" in the sense of violent and habitual criminals, and beautiful, feminine, and sweet. Her ex-husband, the man she cuckolded, told Larry King that he wished her no "ill-will" and described her as "very sweet person" and "very compassionate" and the like.
For all or some of these reasons, the honorable Wayne Timmerman approved a plea bargain that didn't involve incarceration. But since Lafave and her "victim" had sex in two counties, the plea bargain also needed to be approved by Judge Hale R. Stancil. Stancil, apparently misogynist and prudish if not a "masculist" or "equity feminist," rejected the plea bargain on Dec. 8, 2005 and set a April 10, 2006 trial date.
"Every time I have had an attractive white woman client and there has been a chance of of jail time," said defense attorney Charles Holloman, "Stancil throws her under the bus."
Andrew Fischer observed that "the claws of cable TVs newswomen sprang out like those of jungle cats last week, at the news of the junked plea bargain" for Debra Lafave. And none of the girls was more vicious than the ineffably odious Nancy Grace, the Kewpie-doll rabid dog, with the angelic face of a puppy and the bloody fangs of a Doberman, whose simplistic Manichean philosophy of criminal justice combines the worst elements of the "law-and-order" right and the feminist left.
According to Fischer, Grace "had nothing but hysterical venom for Debra, '... This grade school teacher had a school boy in the back of an SUV, having full-blown sex with an under-aged child. She went across the county lines from Hillsborough to Marion. OK. The Hillsborough judge swallowed the deal, again, like it was chocolate pudding. It tasted great going down. The Marion County judge said,
"Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. This is sex with a minor. You're not getting straight probation."
(Andrew S. Fischer, "Leave Debra Alone, Already," Lewrockwell.com, 12-15-2005.)
But prosecutors in Stancil's county undermined his ruling by dropping the charges against Debra in their jurisdiction and, moreover, he was overruled by the State Attorney's office. The plea bargain was finally official.
In closing, however, it should be emphasized that although Debra was not sentenced to months or years in jail or prison, she was nonetheless punished and sentenced as if she were a uniquely dangerous criminal, a uniquely dangerous criminal for committing a victimless and mala prohibita "crime" that her theoretical "victim" described as "awesome"!
Though she was not incarcerated, Debra is being punished and controlled by the state of Florida in ways that don't apply to even the most brutal and vicious felons who've never been convicted of a sexual offense. She must endure restrictions on her liberties and intrusions into her private life that are not suffered by those convicted of aggravated assault, gang shootings, robbery, home invasions, even murder, attempted murder, and non-sexual torture. (Of which more shortly)
But since Debra received "straight probation" and avoided incarceration, it's now assumed by millions of people that virtually all women convicted of having sex with young men under age 18 receive "little or no punishment" for their outrageous crimes, while men are typically sentenced to 10-30 years in prison. And Debra Lafave - afforded leniency not only because she's a woman but also because she's exceptionally attractive - is not simply a woman who had sex with a young man of 14. She's a symbol of injustice and discrimination.
Large segments of the public are "conditioned" to react like Pavlov's dog to particular sti
| "misandry, |
| " anti-male "sexism," |
| "double-standards," and |
| systemic
pro-woman favoritism. |
| "If she were a man, they'd put her away for life"; |
| "she'd get 20 or 30 years," |
| "she'd be hanging from a...," |
| "If a man had sex...," ad nauseam. |
As with Mary Letourneau's initial 6-month jail sentence, all those who are furious that Debra Lafave received "straight probation" have apparently never heard of Anthony Mason.
A decade ago, while a member of the New York Knicks, the 6', 8", 260 lb. power forward had an orgy with two under-aged teenage girls, ages 14 and 15. This from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
"Anthony Mason of the Charlotte Hornets was arrested on assault charges early Saturday after a fight outside a bar in New York... Mason has run into trouble with the law in New York before. During the league's all-star weekend in February 1998, he was charged with two counts of statutory rape and was later sentenced to 200 hours of community service after a plea bargain to a lesser charge... Mason was arrested in 1996 after fighting with New York police officers over a parking ticket, later pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct charge, and has faced several lawsuits from bar patrons who accused him of assault at Manhattan nightclubs."
(Mason arrested once more in New York," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 27, 2000, p. 4C.)
Mason is a common thug with a long history of violence and prior criminality. He assaults police, he assaults people in bars and elsewhere; I'm sure he had an extensive criminal record as a juvenile - to say nothing of crimes (assaults, theft, robbery, rape?) for which he was never even arrested - and I doubt that he was a "choir-boy" and "boy-scout" as a college athlete.
But despite his extensive criminal record -including "two arrests for assaults on police officers," "a half-dozen alleged fights that resulted in arrests or threatened lawsuits," and a "sexual assault complaint" - the charges were "bargained down to endangering the welfare of a minor" and Mason was given 200-hours of "community service" (which he probably didn't even serve).
He didn't serve a day in jail. He got "straight probation," just like Debra Lafave, but obviously not three years of house arrest wearing an electronic ankle-bracelet 24-hours a day and other draconian and Orwellian penalties.
(Steven A. Smith, "NBA has few guidelines to deal with felonies," philly.com, July 11, 2002.).
Just as significantly, the misdemeanors to which Mason was allowed to plead guilty, "endangering the welfare of a minor," is a non-sexual misdemeanor. Thus Mason's sentence did not involve compulsory "sex offender treatment," uniquely intrusive supervision, and registration with the police as a sex offender. So despite a history of violence and prior criminality, a "statutory rape" charge and "sexual assault complaint," Mason's mug shot, name, and address are not on the internet.
Unlike Debra Lafave, Mary Letourneau, and many other women who've never committed a violent act or any other mala se felonies, Mason is not defined or monitored as a uniquely perverse and dangerous criminal for having de facto consensual sex with under-aged teenagers.
Unlike Debra, he wasn't subjected to "sex-offender treatment," 3-years of house arrest, followed by 7-years of quasi-totalitarian supervison, and 20-years to life of "sex offender registration."
For Debra Lafave, a nonviolent first-offender, 20-years to life of state control; for Mason, a violent and habitual offender, a literal "slap on the wrist" and nothing else!
Though a violent and dangerous recidivist, his offense was treated as a bit more serious than a minor traffic violation and far less serious than a repeat shoplifting conviction. Technically, despite the statutory rape charge and a prior "sexual assault complaint," Mason isn't even classified as a "sex offender"! Officially, he's as sexually innocuous as a 72-year-old grandmother in Bismarck, North Dakota who was a virgin on her wedding night and never had sex with any man other than her husband during 53-years of marriage.
So, though luckily avoiding incarceration, Debra Lafave (who never committed a violent act or any other mala se felony) was punished far more severely than Anthony Mason. How ironic that the woman who symbolizes the pervasive pro-woman favoritism of the criminal justice system in cases of "statutory rape" and all other felonies was given a far longer and more punitive sentence than a violent, dangerous, and recidivist male criminal whose act of "statutory rape" alone was far more serious than her legally comparable transgression.
Even if one argues, like "masculists" and "equity feminists," that girls of 14 and 15 being vaginally, orally(?), and anally(?) penetrated by a 6' 8", 260 lb. man is identical to a woman teacher being orally and vaginally penetrated by a young man under statutory age; and even if one insists, even more insanely, that a violent, dangerous, and recidivist male criminal having sex with with girls of 14 and 15 is identical to a nonviolent and first-offending woman teacher having sex with a male student of 14, one must still concede that Debra was punished far more harshly than Mason.
But, strangely, all those "masculists" and "equity feminists" who were so outraged by Mary Letourneau's initial 6-month jail sentence were either silent on or ignorant of Mason's misdemeanor plea bargain and sentence of 200-hours of "community service." Or would still have been mute even if they knew about Mason's sentence. And how often was he called a "rapist" and "pedophile"?
Is Mason's sentence so rare as to be statistically meaningless? Nothing could be further from the truth. Three years later, Utah Jazz forward DeShawn Stevenson received a comparable sentence:
"After being charged with statutory rape for having sex with a 14-year-old in June 2001," he "received two years of probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of having sex with a minor."
(Stephen A. Smith, "NBA has few guidelines to deal with felonies," The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 11, 2002.)
Apparently, he didn't even serve a day in county jail. Unlike Mason, at least he was convicted of a sexual misdemeanor, but possibly one that doesn't involve "sex offender registration" and other quasi-totalitarian penalties.
If so, then Debra was also punished far more harshly than DeShawn Stevenson. And like Mason and unlike Debra Lafave, it's reasonable to assume the Stevenson had a history of violence and prior criminality.
How peculiar that "masculists" and "equity feminists" didn't write any articles decrying this or the Mason case. How peculiar that one won't find the names of Stevenson and Mason and similar men in "masculist" literature or on any "men's movement" websites.
Why the silence, if they're so disturbed and angered by sex between adults and under-aged teenage "children," and when they claim to be religiously and fastidiously "gender-neutral"? Or do they believe that women teachers have far more power over innocent, helpless, and vulnerable young men under age 18 than rich and famous professional athletes have over under-aged adolescent girls?
And in 1997, the year that Mary was vilified as a "rapist" and "pedophile" and ultimately sentenced to 7˝ years in prison, we had the case of the late Michael Kennedy - he died at age 39 acting like a 12-year-old on the ski-slopes of Aspen, Colorado - who wasn't even arrested for having sex with his 14-year-old babysitter. According to Wikipedia:
"In 1997, the news broke that Michael Kennedy was having an affair with the family's former babysitter. Allegedly, the affair had begun three years before when the babysitter was a fourteen-year-old teenager, and Kennedy was placed under investigation for statutory rape. However, the babysitter did not cooperate with prosecutors.
Shortly after the scandal began, Michael Kennedy and his wife separated. After the affair, Michael Kennedy checked himself into a rehab center for alcoholics... Michael Kennedy died later that year in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado. He was skiing with several other members of the Kennedy family when he hit a tree while they were playing football on skis..."
(wikipedia.org, 12/13/2007)
"The babysitter did not cooperate with prosecutors." Translation: he wasn't charged because he was a Kennedy. If Vili had refused to "cooperate with prosecutors," do you think that Mary would not have been arrested, charged with "child rape," convicted, incarcerated, and so forth? And so, too, with Debra Lafave and all other women teachers. And have you ever heard of R. Kelley?
But what about men who aren't rich and famous and powerful? In fact, since the advent of the "sexual revolution," untold myriads of men convicted of "statutory rape" have received sentences as indulgent as Mason's and Stevenson's or, in many instances, have not even been arrested and/or prosecuted, just like Michael Kennedy.
Conversely, for those of us who realize that Debra and similar women are not "rapists" or "child molesters," her punishment is not only absurdly excessive but also completely gratuitous. For Andrew Fischer, the plea bargain that outraged millions
"... isn't much of a bargain ... Ms. Lafave would have had to lose her teaching license forever, endure three years of house arrest, then seven years of probation. She would have to register with the state as a sexual predator, and not have any contact with any children on the planet. She wouldn't be allowed to profit from the sale of her story or personal appearances. How is this a great deal for the woman? Yes, she avoids incarceration, but how is she supposed to earn a living?"
(Andrew Fischer "Leave Debra Alone, Already," Lewrockwell.com, 12-15-2005.)
To those of us who know the difference between males and females and, just as crucially, the difference between pubertal teenagers under age 18 and young pre-pubertal children, there's no need to subject Debra to 3-years of house arrest wearing an electronic ankle-bracelet, "sex-offender treatment," Orwellian restrictions of her liberty and intrusions into her private life, and 20-years to life of "sex offender registration."
Not only does Debra pose no unique or singular danger or "threat to society and children," she poses no threat of any kind to anyone or, put differently, no more of a threat than any other women who's never committed a violent act or any other mala se felony and less of a threat than 90-95% of all the males in Florida.
Unless one is in thrall to the myths and delusions of "masculists" and CSA victimologists, who would you prefer as a neighbor? Debra or a family with four sons ages 12-17? Debra or a creepy-looking man of whom you knew nothing? Whom would a realistic and rational person most fear in respect to one's safety and that of one's children, spouse, pets, property, etc.? To say nothing of violent, dangerous, and recidivist male criminals who were never convicted of a sexual offense.
But despite such realities, the quasi-totalitarian supervision of her private life includes a mandatory prohibition against unsupervised contact with any "child" under age 18. And because of this silly and gratuitous "no-contact order," and because she was given "work-release" privileges and was employed by a Tampa restaurant, Debra was back in the news in Dec. 2007. Actually, it's more accurate to say that she was back in the spotlight.
This time she was arrested, and faced a maximum prison sentence of 15 years, because she violated the rules of her probation by engaging in "girl-talk" with a 17-year-old female co-worker. Writes "Outrage":
"Debra is in the news once again but this time not for any sexual exploits. This time it's for normal conversation - that's right, normal conversation with a 17-year-old co-worker.... (T)his situation is so asinine that it's unimaginable. The excessive waste of taxpayer dollars continues."
("Lafave Arrested for a Personal Conversation with Underage Girl," Moraloutrage.net, 12-5-2007 And he quotes Molly Celaschi:
... Debra was arrested recently after having several personal conversations with a 17-year-old girl... Her probation states she cannot have unsupervised contact with minors. Debra and the girl both worked at the same restaurant in Tampa. They were reportedly talking about boys, gossip, and sex...
Last month, Debra's probation officer ordered her to quit and now she works as a receptionist in her mother's hair salon... Debra's lawyer said she was having a normal conversation with a co-worker and nothing was going on. He said, "It was a workplace relationship - no more, no less."... Debra could face up for 15 years in prison for violating her probation. (2snap.tv.)
Lamentably, after decades of CSA hysteria and a decade of hysteria over sex between young men under age 18 and adult women, such "asininity" is not "unimaginable." And, once again, I'm sure that millions of people were enraged that Debra wasn't sentenced to years in prison or at least months in jail for engaging in innocuous "girl talk" with a "minor" only a few months or weeks short of legal adulthood.
Certainly, a male teacher convicted of having sex with a 14-year-old girl would have been sentenced to 5 years in prison or at least a year in jail for violating the rules of probation by talking about the Super Bowl or NBA playoffs with a 17-year-old male co-worker.
Incidentally, since Anthony Mason was allowed to plead guilty to a non-sexual misdemeanor, "endangering the welfare of a minor," and is thus, technically, not a "sex offender," I assume he's free to talk to girls ages 2-17, and even to have sex with girls of 16 and 17 in those states in which the age of consent is still 16. "Double standards" indeed!
Given the fate of Kennedy, and the sentences of Mason, Stevenson, and countless other men, how ironic the hysteria over Debra Lafave and, far more so, Mary Letourneau's initial 6-month sentence. How ironic that "masculists," "equity feminists," and millions of others would have been livid even if Debra had been sentenced to "only" 6-9 months in county jail or even 3-4 years in prison -since they believe that men are typically put away for 10-15 years and often 20-30 years for identical offenses. And even more ironically, imagine the screaming and fuming and raving if Debra's "crime" had been "bargained down" to a nonsexual misdemeanor, as was Anthony Mason's orgy with girls of 14 and 15, or if she had not even been arrested, like Michael Kennedy!
The reason for this ignorance and hysteria is that TV and radio and the internet are rife with voices and words decrying the "scandalously" lenient punishment of Debra while virtually nothing is said or written about the far more "scandalously" lenient punishment of Anthony Mason and other men convicted of "statutory rape,"
Though Mary Letourneau was sentenced to almost a decade in prison in 1997 while Mason was convicted of a nonsexual misdemeanor and given 200-hours of community service in 1998, millions of people are still enraged by Mary's initial sentence of "only 6-months in jail while the "coddling" of Mason, Stevenson, and Michael Kennedy is all but forgotten and the similar "coddling" of many obscure males was never even known outside their cities and towns.
Consequently, tens of millions of people know that Debra was given a sentence of "straight probation" while few people are familiar with the cases of Anthony Mason, DeShawn Stevenson, and myriads of other men (virtually all of whom aren't rich and famous and powerful) who were given sentences as indulgent or even more indulgent that that of Debra Lafave; and hundreds of thousands of men who were given sentences as "lenient" or far more lenient than the initial sentence of Mary Letourneau -not only for "statutory rape" but also the molestation of pre-pubertal children and many nonsexual violent crimes.
And, of course, Debra is a symbol of what millions now perceive as "bias" and injustice while Mason and similar males are symbols of nothing. The irony is not simply that Mason was a violent, dangerous, and recidivist criminal while Debra was a nonviolent first-offender; or that Mason's orgy with two underage girls, even apart from his history of violence and prior criminality, was objectively far worse than Debra's "fling" with a strapping 6-foot Adonis - to say nothing about the differences between men and women and male and female "adolescents"!
What's even more ironic is that Debra was an obscure 23-year-old teacher, completely unremarkable apart from her beauty, whom nobody had ever heard of while Mason was a rich and famous athlete and member of the New York Knicks, a star in the "media capital of the world." So, simply because she's a woman, and particularly a sexy and beautiful woman, not only is Debra's "crime" far more infamous than Mason's act of "statutory rape" and all his other crimes, but Debra herself is now far more famous than Mason.
So because Debra received straight probation, and because her case was not only given far more publicity than that of all men convicted of "statutory rape" put together but also symbolized, politicized, generalized, propagandized, millions of people now believe that women convicted of having sex with young men under age 18 are always or nearly always given "staight probation" or short jail sentences, even though far more men than women receive similar penalties for "statutory rape" and often even violent felonies. And that pretty women like Debra and Mary are never sentenced to prison -at least not initially.
(Like Mary's 7˝ year prison sentence, Pamela Rogers' 9-year prison sentence for sending her "victim" racy pictures on the internet doesn't really count because she was initially sentenced to "only" 9-months in jail.)
| Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall: sentenced to 4-years in prison for
having sex with a teenage criminal who initiated the "affair"
by raping her and then sustained it by threats and manipulation. Has any
male teacher ever been sentenced to 4-years in prison, or even 4-days in
county jail, for having sex with a female criminal who initiated the
affair by sexually assaulting him?! |
| Laurie Mosher: sentenced to 2˝ years in prison with no
chance for parole for having a love affair with a 17-year-old male
student. How many male teachers have been sentenced to 30-months in prison or longer for having a love affair with a 17-year-old female student? |
| Lori Hanson: sentenced to 2-years in prison for having sex with a
16-year-old student. |
| Julie Feil: sentenced to 7-years in prison in 1998 for having a
love affair with a 15-year-old male student in a state, Minnesota, in
which the age of consent was 16. ("Ex-teacher sentenced for affair with student," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 1, 1998, p. 3A.) |
At the time, Minnesota had the second lowest incarceration rate in the United States (North Dakota was first) and, almost surely, the nation's most indulgent sentencing policies. 80% of Minnesota's convicted felons (including myriads of violent, dangerous, and recidivist criminals) aren't sentenced to prison. Some habitual criminals have over 20 felony convictions, and literally scores of probation violations, and haven't served a day in prison.
So Julie Feil (a nonviolent first-offender who "fell in love" with an under-aged teenage male) received a longer and more punitive sentence than at least 90-95% of Minnesota's convicted felons: including murderers, violent rapists, armed robbers, muggers, car-jackers, burglars, predatory child molesters, brutal assailants, etc.
(James Walsh and Dan Browning, "Empty Threats," Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 19, 1999, pp. A1, A22.)
William Saletan jokes that the
"new public enemy is the bespeckled babe who teaches our kids math in the classroom and sex in the parking lot. Dozens of female teachers have been caught with male students in recent years, and the airwaves are full of outrage that we're letting them off the hook. On cable news, phrases like "double standard" and "slap on the wrist" are poured like pious gravy over photos of the pedagogue-pedophile-pet-of-the-month.
'Why is is when a man rapes a little girl, he goes to jail,' CNN's Nancy Grace complains, 'but when a women rapes a boy, she had a breakdown?'"
(Willian Saletan, "Teacher's Pets? Are Teachers Who Sleep with Boys Getting Off?" slate.com, Jan. 16, 2006.)
Saletan, like Nancy Grace and other CSA victimologists, obviously believes
| that consensual sex between young men under age 18 and adult women is not only "vile" but a serious crime; |
| that such women are "child molesters," "pedophiles," and "rapists" who must be charged with felonies and punished as harshly as comparable men; |
| that young men under age 18 are too young and immature to consent to or knowingly initiate sex with adult females and, consequently, are "victims" of "sexual abuse"; |
| that physical differences between the sexes are irrelevant, legally if not factually, and |
| that males and females are psychologically equivalent, etc. |
Nonetheless, he compellingly refutes ...
I hate to change the subject from sex to math, but this frenzy - I'm trying hard not to call it hysteria - reeks of overexcitement.
| Sex offenses by women aren't increasing. |
| Female offenders are going to jail. (He means prison, M.K.) |
| And while their sentences are, on average, shorter than sentences given to male offenders, the main reason is that their crimes are objectively less vile. |
By ignoring this difference, we're replacing the old double standard with a new one...
Are women getting lighter sentences? It's not clear they ever did. In the 1991 study Women and Men Who Sexually Abuse Children: A Comparative Analysis, researcher Graig Allen studied 75 male and 65 female offenders in the Midwest.
"Relatively similar proportions of female and male offenders had charges pressed against them (52% and 55%, respectively)," Allen reported. "However, more female offenders (30%) were put in jail than male offenders (25%)." (Saletan, "Teacher's Pets?")
But, regrettably, it's not clear if this study is referring to pre-pubertal children, pubertal teenagers under statutory age, or both.
Saletan refers to a few Nexis searches:
At the other end of the gravity spectrum, two of the women confined themselves to single victims 16 or older. One got a two-year sentence; the other a one-year sentence - an average of 18 months. Did they get off easy?
Before you answer, look at the four men who, like these women, targeted single victims 16 or older. They drew an average sentence of 14 months. For comparable crimes, men got less jail time than women did...
The two women the media seized on as examples of lenient sentencing - Debra Lafave of Flordia and Sandra Beth Geisel of New York - turn out to be exceptions... Geisel is the only multiple-victim offender who got less than a year behind bars. The rest got three years of more...
| Sarah Bench-Salorio, the teacher who had sex with a 12-year-old and two 13-year-olds, got six years. |
| Tani Leigh Firkins, who assaulted a boy dozens of times beginning at age 14, got nine years. |
| Sylvia Johnson, who plied multiple victims with drugs and alcohol, got 30 years. (Ibid.) |
Is Sarah Bench-Salorio even guilty? How many other women convicted of such "crimes" are as innocent as Melissa Bittner
(whose case I discuss on this and other websites)
and Stacy Klein
(whose case I'll discuss in another article).
Tani Leigh Firkins "assaulted" a young man of 14 "dozens of times." Unless she used a gun to compel his submission "dozens of times," he must have loved being "assaulted."
Sylvia Johnson, a pathetic drunken women who wanted to be "cool," was sentenced to 30-years in prison for giving a pack of 16- and 17-year-olds the sex and drugs they craved and demanded!
"Plied multiple victims with drugs and alcohol"! What did she do? Force it down their throats at gunpoint to render them susceptible to being coerced and manipulated into engaging in "unwanted sex"?
And Anthony Mason pled guilty to a nonsexual misdemeanor and was sentenced to 200-hours community service and nothing else! Talk about "double standards"!!
"By the time Bench Salorio came up for sentencing this month," Saletan observed, "the uproar over sexist leniency had reached such a pitch that prosecutors used it in court. Women shouldn't get lighter sentences just because they're women, the deputy district attorney attorney told the judge... Nor should they get heavier sentences than their crimes deserve, just because we're trying to look tough on women."
(Ibid.)
"Equity feminists" and "masculists" and others juxtapose and contrast the sentences of Debra Lafave and a few other women with those of men sentenced to 10-30 years in prison.
The same propagandistic and rhetorical trick can be played by juxtaposing and contrasting the sentences of men like Mason and Stevenson with those of Sylvia Johnson, Tani Leigh Firkins, Julie Feil, Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall, and many other women, thus implying that men are "coddled" and women crucified for similar or identical acts.
Intrinsic sexual differences apart - which Saletan denies or trivializes and I emphasize as profoundly significant - the scandal here is,
| first, the outrageously draconian penalties for adults of both sexes convicted of having de facto consensual sex with pubescent teenagers under age 18 and, |
| secondly, the outrageous disparities in sentencing from case to case and judge to judge. |
Finally, the media's 10-year obsession with such intrigues, featuring Mary and then Debra Lafave, also explains the risible and toxic fantasy that our society is vitiated by a "plague" and "epidemic" of such "crimes" - to quote World Net Daily, "a sex-epidemic of women teachers raping male students" - and that women teachers are far more likely than males to have sex with under-aged teenage students.
"According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics," writes Saletan, "women committed only 3.5 percent of all single-perpetrator sexual assaults or rapes in this country in 2003, consistent with their share of these crimes since at least 1996..."
(Ibid.)
And what percentage of these "single perpetrator sexual assaults or rapes" were acts of consensual sex involving salacious young men under age 18 which, not long ago, virtually no one would have defined as "rape" or even "sexual assault."
Saletan continues:
"... In California, where recent teacher-student cases have made news, the number of female offenders convicted annually has stayed flat for years at about 4 percent of the number of male offenders. Even in teaching, where women are highly over-represented, five of seven studies reviewed by the U.S. Department of Education two years ago indicated that 80 percent to 96 percent of offenders were male."
(Ibid.)
If only we suffered from a similar "plague" and "epidemic" of murders and other violent felonies! Since the terrorist attacks and murders of some 3,000 people on 9-11-2001, well over a 100,000 people have been murdered. According to statistics, roughly a million women and girls have been raped and sexually assaulted and, by some estimates, approximately two million men have been raped in prisons and jails. And, collectively, millions and millions of people have been the victims of aggravated assaults, muggings, armed robberies, gang shootings, car jackings, home invasions.
But 99.99% of such crimes, even if reported, are items on the local news, quickly forgotten by almost everyone assuming they were even known in the first place. Nationally, since they're not reported, they don't exist as stories in the public mind. Even mass-murders don't receive nearly as much publicity or induce nearly as much discussion and anger as Debra Lafave's trivial and innocuous "fling" with a young stud who experienced his "victimization" as "awesome." And few if any people see such crimes as symbols of anything.
But if a women teacher is charged with having an liaison or dalliance with a young man under age 18, and especially if she's pretty and/or is given a "lenient" sentence, Nancy Grace, Bill O'Reilly, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Jay Leno, World Net Daily, dozens of websites, etc., tell the world and, in some cases, never stop talking. "It happened again"!
Conversely, male teachers having sex with nubile girls under age 18 are local stories that receive no national exposure. Thus, ironically and paradoxically, people think we are seeing a "plague" and "epidemic" of women teachers having sex with male students, and that far more women than men are committing such transgressions, because such liaisons are in fact so rare as to be statistically negligible and virtually non-existent.
Over 2 million men and women are now enslaved in prisons and jails yet violent crime is on the rise in most cities and, each year, millions of people are still the victims of violent and dangerous felons, and our lunatic society and media is obsessed with a few acts of consensual sex between virile young men under age 18 and adult women, a "crime" from which the "victim" derives more satisfaction, physically and psychologically, than the "criminal."
"Through courts, cops, and corrections agencies, government combats but never comes close to conquering crime, least of all violent crime...," laments John J. DiIulio. "Even on its most aggressive day, the justice system works like a sorting machine, incarcerating only a small fraction even of known, adjudicated, violent criminals...
In 1994, Americans experienced some 4.2 million murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults. That same year, states convicted about 146,000 persons for these violent crimes, but sent only about 95,000 of them to prison..."
(John J. DiIulio, "Against Mandatory Minimums: Drug sentencing run amok," National Review, May 17, 1999, pp. 48-49.)
And in 1992, as DiIulio pointed out in another article,
"Americans suffered 10.8 million criminal victimization, including 4.2 million murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults."
In that year
"about 165,000 persons were convicted of violent crimes, and just 99,000 persons convicted of violent felonies ended up in prison."
(John J. DiIulio, "Abolish the Death Penalty Officially," The Wall Street Journal," December 15, 1997, p. A23.)
As for all felonies, Joseph Perkins concisely summarizes Justice Department figures:
"Of 100 felony complaints filed by private citizens, only 30 result in arrests. Of the 30 arrests, only 20 are prosecuted. Of the 20 prosecuted, only 15 suspects are convicted. Of the 15 convicted, only five are sentenced to prison time of more than one year. And of the five, not even one serves out the full length of his or her sentence."
(Joseph Perkins, "What about the rights of crime victims?" Herald Times-Reporter, September 29, 1999, p. A4.)
And Mary Letourneau spent a full 8-years of her life in a cage like an animal.
And what is the fate, the average sentence, for violent felons who are actually imprisoned. Writes DiIulio:
"Truth-in-sentencing laws pushed the average time served by released prisoners convicted of murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault from 43 months in 1993 to 49 months in 1997. For all types of prisoners, the average time served increased from 22 months in 1990 to 25 months in 1996..."
(DiIulio, "Against Mandatory Minimums," p. 49.)
Thus Mary Letourneau served over twice as much time in prison as the average man convicted of murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault in the early 1990s, and almost twice as much time in prison as the average man convicted of such acts of violence in the middle 1990s! And, to repeat, this is when most states finally resolved to "get tough" on crime.
Moreover, Mary was a first offender who never committed an act of violence in her life and had no prior convictions for violent or other mala se felonies or even misdemeanors other than possible(?) traffic violations.
Of the males who averaged 43 months in prison in 1993 and 49 months in 1997, the year Mary was convicted of "child rape," virtually all of them were recidivists and usually violent recidivists. The overwhelming majority of these thugs had histories of violence and criminality beginning at ages 13-16 and, consequently, many or at least a few prior convictions for violent and other mala se felonies. And most of these brutes, gangsters, predators, and psychopaths were given prison sentences far more lenient than Mary Letourneau!
And what of murder (including no negligent manslaughter) alone?
"It is undisputed that we extend extraordinary generosity to murderers," writes Paul G. Cassell. "According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, the average sentence for murder and no negligent manslaughter is less than six years."
(The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2000, p. A14.) (What he means, of course, is the average time served in prison.)
And Joseph Perkins:
"Indeed, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the average sentence for murder is only 15 years. The average time served for taking an innocent life is a mere 5 1/2 years.
(Joseph Perkins, "Do murderers get off lightly?" Herald Times-Reporter, September 15, 2000, p. A-4.)
And, what is more, the overwhelming proportion of men convicted of murder are violent and dangerous recidivists who should have been in prison for other crimes when they committed murder.
