US Sailor Receives 2.5 Years In Japanese Prison for Rape
This guy is quite the scumbag to have found a passed out Japanese woman in front of his hotel room and instead of notifying the hotel manager he decided to carry her into his room and rape her:
A U.S. sailor must serve 2½ years of hard labor for raping an intoxicated Japanese woman at a Naha hotel, an incident that sparked anti-base protests and contributed to tightened liberty restrictions on Okinawa.
Seaman Apprentice Justin Castellanos, 24, was sentenced Friday by a three-judge Naha District Court panel. His family was required to pay $21,789 in restitution to the victim, in addition to $2,842 from the U.S. military. Both amounts have been paid, officials said.
Prosecutors had sought a four-year prison term, but the chief judge said a lower sentence was accepted for the corpsman, who is assigned to Camp Schwab, because he had pleaded guilty and shown remorse for his actions. [Stars & Stripes]
Here is the part of the article I am surprised about and makes me wonder if this is part of the Japanese legal system where actions by the victim are taken into account to mitigate the sentence of the perpetrator?:
Judges also said the woman was partly to blame for becoming incapacitated and passing out in the hallway by the sailor’s room.
If this happened in the US we would be treated by a week long news cycle on victim blaming.
So if I understand the Stars & Stripes article … this knucklehead rapes this girl … leaves her in his bed … (presumably) he also goes to sleep … the girl wakes up and the shizz hits the fan … the guy makes a run for it … but then later returns to the scene of the crime and gets arrested.
@Guitard, yes that is basically the summary of what happened. I guess the guy figured he was going to caught regardless considered he was registered at the hotel and was on security video footage so returned to the scene of the crime.
“If this happened in the US we would be treated by a week long news cycle on victim blaming.”
There SHOULD be more victim blaming in the world.
Many “victims” bring their misfortune upon themselves through poor life decisions.
Getting passed-out drunk in the hallway of a love motel in the middle of the night is BEGGING for misfortune. Victim blaming should be used as a tool to discourage that level of stupidity and reduce the number of victims.
People should be held to some degree of accountability for their actions even when they are their own victim.
That being said, the victimizer is an unassociated case… meaning, with some exceptions, the punishment should not be reduced based on the actions of the victim.
Spoken like someone that’s never been raped. Unless this woman was a super rare case of someone who fantasizes about being raped it’s extremely unlikely she thought to herself “hmm.. almost back to my room… nah gonna lie down here and wait for a raping!”.
Seriously man, begging for it? Someone being careless is no excuse for another to commit a major crime. pR0n aside, rape’s pretty bad; it’s basically enslavement. To levy accountability on the victim is quite ignorant even if the intent is to reduce rapes. If you really want to reduce rapes, start cutting off the c&b’s of the rapists. We can’t even appropriately punish murders in this day and age so yeah that’s probably not happening either…
Smokes… you obviously read what I wrote… yet somehow perceived some unrelated preconception.
Let’s try again.
The situation of the criminal and the victim are not related.
The criminal should be punished for his crime. This punishment, in most cases, should not be lessened by the actions of his victim.
In this case, considering his crime, there is no real difference in dragging her to his room or breaking into hers. A clear case of rape occurred and he should be punished accordingly.
Before you get all needlessly piss-hearted at me, are we clear on that now?
But let’s look at the “victim”.
There IS a difference between a girl sleeping in her locked room and a girl lying drunkenly in a public space meters away from where drunken men fantasize over sex.
In the first case, she is a clear victim.
In the second case, there is a shocking lack of personal responsibility which deserves as much ridicule as it does the reward of victim status.
The term “victim” in this case evokes misguided pity, removes responsibilty, and encourages poor life choices… as we see over and over in society…
…a great example are all the “victims” who “don’t deserve to get shot and killed” for a bit of minor resisting arrest or jumpy behavior and restless hands.
As for rape, there are true victims in the privacy of their own homes and there are “victims” who drunkenly get naked into bed with a guy as “just friends” after a night of sexy talk, dry humping, and empty promises.
The actions of the girl passed out drunk in a hotel hallway are near the bottom end of that scale…
…but as an unwilling participant, the punishment for the perpetrator should be unaffected.
If you belive her actions to be consistent with good personal responsibility or you believe a gross lack of personal responsibilty should be ignored or rewarded, I await your argument.
Related? 2.5 vs. 15? Of course, the Vanderbuilt guy’s “apology” was really all about him…
http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/32452287/ex-vanderbilt-football-player-cory-batey-sentenced-to-15-years-in-rape-case?utm_content=sf31093989&utm_medium=spredfast&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=WMC&sf31093989=1
@#$%^ aging PC finally STB the other night… 😡 CPU socket is f00ked. Never again will I buy a Master Cooler, #$%^ thing looks like it was engineered by hobos… Anyhoo… you are correct, I misinterpreted your point. While I don’t go as far as agreeing that the victim label is a reward, personal responsibility plays a part and can’t be ignored. I’d like to say more but I hate my wife’s laptop and it’ll need to wait until I get some free time at work. :shutmouth:
“While I don’t go as far as agreeing that the victim label is a reward”
Not in every case… but too often people are called “victim” who COMPLETELY brought their misfortunes upon themselves… but are absolved of responsibility… both in society and in their own minds.
Examples range from all the foreign “victims” of North Korea who innocently littered with bibles or mischievously crossed the border… to career criminals engaged in a felony who get shot by cops doing their job.
These people are not victims… they are culprits… but after being labled victims, the pity and the money flows… and society champions their bad behavior rather than condemn it… as nobody wants to be accused of victim-blaming.
This trend needs to go and people need to be honest… especially with themselves.
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
By Kipling, of course…