so disgusted reading this story today. this man got a fully suspended sentence for pleading guilty (when he initially lied to the cops and said she attacked him, and only admitted it when CCTV footage was produced), and because the judge wants to save his precious army career while the victim has lost her job due to her injuries. he also bragged about beating her on snapchat and the reason he did it is because she asked him to stop calling people slurs. i hate it here
not interested in a struggle session about this lol. this guy deserves to be beaten to death, that's not mutually exclusive with fixing systemic problems don't be a dumb dumb
The solution to [punishment] being full of corruption and targeting the wrong people is totally [more severe punishment] without fixing the other measures!
It's a decently prominent line of leftist thinking, going at least back to Angela Davis. I agree it's a bad talking point, though. Virtually no one means abolition abolition, so any conversation on the topic immediately gets sidetracked with a semantic debate. It's also silly to re-define what abolition means then use it as a slogan, especially when there's a closely related conversation about how we didn't actually abolish slavery due to the 13th amendment carve-out for prisoners.
If you consider like Crime and Punishment and stuff, isn't prison abolition, while not achievable just like immediately under capitalism, a really important goal for a communist society to work towards?
Apparently this decision came days after a report showing violence against women in Ireland to be at an all-time high.
Judges are always the biggest pieces of shit, I swear. "Got to give him credit for coming forward!" No, not when he only did it to minimize punishment after he realized he couldn't get away with it entirely, as evidenced by the fact that he initially lied to cover his ass.
A suspended sentence doesn't mean you get to walk free. It means you're released into the community but subject to a probation order which if broken will have you sent to prison. The conditions always have a "peace and good behaviour" obligation but can also include onerous restrictions. Anyone who works with offenders knows that the conditions imposed by a suspended sentence can be deeply intrusive and severely curtail people's privacy and freedom of movement, to the point where they may sometimes be harsher than fines or even imprisonment
Providing for suspended sentences for first offences is consistent with the criminal justice system's commitment to rehabilitation, even if it arguably is of a lesser deterrent value and doesn't satisfy the desire for vengeance among much of the public.
I'm unfamiliar with Ireland's criminal law, and the judge may have been more lenient than they had to be, but its not impossible that there's enough mitigating factors that the sentence will not get appealed. If Crotty breaks the terms of his suspended sentence, and commits a similar act in the future, his sentence will almost certainly be considerably harsher.