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April 23, 2014
"Are female sex offenders treated differently?"
The title of this post is the headline of of this new Salon article which carries this subheadline: "A light sentence for a teacher suggests courts still don't get it about women predators." Here is how the piece begins:
It’s an all too common story – a high school teacher facing sex abuse charges involving students admits to the wrongdoing and faces the criminal justice system. But was a sentence of just one month in custody at a Community Correction Center sufficient punishment for a 39-year-old educator who has sex abuse investigations dating back six years? And could the slap on the wrist sentence have anything to do with the fact that in this case, the teacher sentenced is a woman, and the victim is a boy?
In a case that involves charges of abuse from two male students, Oregon teacher Denise Keesee has acknowledged multiple sexual encounters in 2008 with a then 16-year-old student, and currently faces a $5.1 million lawsuit from another male student. According to Oregon Live, court documents show that “Keesee told detectives she kissed [the other student] several times in 2012 when they were alone in her classroom. She also reportedly admitted to sending him photos of herself, including one of her naked.” Because that student was 18, no criminal charges were filed.
The justice system doesn’t lack for stories of male abusers who get off with relatively light punishments. And it’s important to note that every story involving sex abuse is unique. But at the same time that Denise Keesee is facing just 30 days of confinement for what happened between her and a 16-year-old, a male teacher in her same state was last week sentenced to nearly three years in prison for “an inappropriate sexual relationship” with a 16-year-old female student. Last month in Idaho, a special education teacher was sentenced to five to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing two adolescent girls.
April 23, 2014 at 10:09 AM | Permalink
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Comments
When I suggested a woman teacher should get ANY criminal punishment for being involved in sex acts with multiple students, various people here made me out as some sort of Puritan. At least one honestly noted it would be different if a guy teacher was involved.
Posted by: Joe | Apr 23, 2014 11:41:41 AM
Unfairly or not, society sees sexual acts between adolescent males and adult females quite differently than it does the reverse. As a result, there is generally less of a societal produced by the former. The younger the victim the more likely male and female victims would be treated similarly (not sure what the numbers say).
Posted by: Jesse Lemon | Apr 23, 2014 1:08:24 PM
It's not the incarceration nor even the felony, it's the subsequent registration that will prove to be the main detriment to these individuals' lives. Should the initial charge be harsher? Most people would concur, which would be entirely justifiable and constitutional.
However, the registration is where the real punishment happens. (Note I don't even put quotes around "punishment" anymore; we are way beyond the point where the registry is regulatory and relatively innocuous for the average registrant.)
Posted by: Eric Knight | Apr 23, 2014 3:31:14 PM
The vile feminist lawyer and the male running dog are on display here. They want to show their piety and fairness by prosecuting female teachers.
1) These vile feminist lawyers believe all sex is rape anyway. They dominate 100% of our benches. Their view is cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, ding.
2)A crime should cause damage. One may not have a crime that result in a huge benefit.
So ask the callow lad, what was his damage? He replies, best day of my life ever. He then goes on to brag about his experience to anyone who will listen.
There is no crime.
3) Lads over 14 are consenting adults according to nature, and to 10,000 years of human history. Many cultures and religions have adult initiation ceremonies at the age of 14, or earlier, none at the age of 18. The vile feminist lawyer age of consent is fictitious. Fictitious evidence violates Fifth Amendment Due Process.
The above are intuitive to the average sane person. So these cases bring opprobrium on the justice system, and make the criminal law look idiotic. These cases are all brought so that the prosecutor may see her face in the paper.
The prosecutor should be forced to testify about the onset of its sexual experiences, and with whom.
Nature has also been busy. Because they are so well fed, girls have had progressively earlier onset of puberty and menstruation (ability ot have a child), going from age 15 down to below age 13.
None of these cultural and biological changes, none of the factual reality of sex have been reflected int the age of consent laws and in the prosecution of these laws.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 24, 2014 2:15:19 AM
Eric Knight:
You are exactly right, Registration is the actual punishment. So these females are sentenced to essentially the same punishment that males are.
I know you are very familiar with what has been going on in California over the recent years where thieving criminal governments all over the state have been falling all over their moronic selves to pass more and more laws to harass people on their hit list. It is an outrage that no American supports.
In honor of the BS Registries and the lying, thieving terrorists who support them, I have been spending practically all of my free time living anonymously around random people and children all over the place. I haven't broken a single law to do it and it is trivial. I have ensured that the Registries are worse-than-worthless and have also legally retaliated in many ways. In my case, the Registries have unquestionably harmed the U.S. overall. Every family that is listed on a Registry should do the same thing always. This is a civil war.
Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Apr 24, 2014 9:53:41 AM
SC/FRT:
In these matters, you speak the truth. Our SO laws are so misguided that they are making us a poorer, dumber country everyday. Until the baboons in black pajamas have the guts to enforce obvious, self-evident and over-riding constitutional doctrines in these matters (gosh, I can use qualifiers too, and I am not a lawyer), we will continue on the road to hell in a habdbasket.
Posted by: albeed | Apr 25, 2014 9:06:17 AM
Those who say the registry is punishment is correct, but remember a court in Massachusetts had ruled that because females are less likely to re-offend a woman who did a trafficking crime should be off the list. What if the court had said that blacks or hispanics should remain on the less, obviously gender is different, but to bring the argument that female hormones are the defined all of women, aka women can never be violent, or scientists or commit crimes is not true, and we don't sentence females to different prison on convictions for many crimes as per statue.
SC makes a great claim, but although physical and mental maturity and not the same, keep in mind that men would have likely been younger because folks long ago didn't on average past their 40s. We do accept 18 however as the age of responsibility, so in any case I don't see a need for a huge penalty if someone is 14, in face it could be a simple violation or civil. In addition advocates for such laws often turn a blind eye if a defense lawyer uses that same logic for a client who may be mentally retarded, when in fact the very principal of the law has a section regarding mentally incapacitated folks.
Posted by: alex | Apr 27, 2014 5:17:07 AM
