Tori’s Law
Back in University, my class was asked by our professor: “Who thinks that the penalty for sexual assault should be stiffer.”*
Most of the class raised their hand.
“Now,” said the professor, “if you know what the current prison term for sexual assault is, lower your hand.” One person did so.
The point was that — when it comes to serious crimes — our instinct is that what is out there is not enough, no matter what is out there. The death penalty is too good for them; too bad we don’t have the death penalty. And so on. As human beings, we do not take that moment to reflect on the current penalty and decide if it fits the crime. It is automatically insufficient.
Some politicians make careers from this fact alone.
For those of you who are not Canadian, you may not know the big news headlines in Canada these days: It’s Tori.
Tori — Victoria Stafford — is a child who was kidnapped, and presumably killed. Possibly sexually assaulted.
Yesterday, I noticed a friend on Facebook joining the Tori’s Law group, which states, in beautiful ALL-CAPS that BY JOINING THIS GROUP YOU PLEDGE YOUR NAME THAT YOU ARE DEMANDING CHANGE TO THE CURRENT LAWS INVOLVING CHILD OFFENDERS, YOU DEMAND HARSHER PENALTIES, WITH NO CHANCE OF PAROLE UNTIL SENTENCE IS SERVED IN FULL. Not being one to delve too deeply into the newspaper articles, I assumed that the accused in the case was previously convicted of something and had received a light sentence and/or been released early, only to re-offend.
A quick glance at The Toronto Star says otherwise:
While most describe him as intelligent and even funny, “weird” and “odd” are also common adjectives. But the thought Rafferty could be capable of kidnapping and killing a little girl never existed.
So what do harsher sentences mean? They would not have prevented this crime. And the crimes Mr. Rafferty has been accused of carry the harshest measures available in the Canadian Justice System.
The petition is pointless. There is nothing about it that would have prevented Tori’s abduction or murder. Nothing about it that would ensure the perpetrator will be more thoroughly punished. So why are there 61,000 members of the group (and counting).
Because we are outraged. And outrage is an excellent opportunity to grandstand.
If you want to make a change that counts, look to contribute (constructively) to changes to the Amber Alert system, which failed in this case.
Contribute thoughtfully. No knee-jerk reactions required.
(* I’m paraphrasing here. And now that there is a horrible pun there, I cannot reimagine the phrase.)
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