Child rapist gets community service

Nessie

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Nessie
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A man who, when he was 17, raped a 13 year old in a park, and carried out a number of assaults, has been sentenced to 270 hours of unpaid work and will be on a sex offenders register for 3 years.

https://news.stv.tv/east-central/ma...community-payback-order-at-glasgow-high-court

This the result of a change in sentencing practices in Scotland in January 2022, whereby anyone under the age of 25 is considered a young person, not necessarily full mature and rehabilitation is prioritised over punishment

https://www.scottishsentencingcounc...ng-young-people-guideline-for-publication.pdf

Quite how a community payback order, which usually involves tidying up gardens and litter picking, will rehabilitate a child rapist, is beyond me. That he will be on the sex offenders register just means he gets occasional visits by the police to check he is behaving. It is not rehabilitation either.

It looks like Scotland is trying to emulate the Nordic countries rehabilitative systems, but without bothering to include the rehabilitation part.
 
From the Scottish Sentencing Council

"The exercise of sentencing a young person is different from that of sentencing an older
person1, in particular because a young person will generally have a lower level of maturity,
and a greater capacity for change and rehabilitation, than an older person."

That reads as if it is about what was the legal definition of a young person in Scotland, which is someone up to 16 years old, or 17 if they are in care, not someone up to 25 years old. The guidelines acknowledge that;

"The best interests of the young person should be considered in every case, and must be a
primary consideration when the young person is under the age of 18, in accordance with the provisions of the UNCRC"

When did 18 to 24 year olds start to be considered kids?
 
“This offence, if committed by an adult over 25 you attract a sentence of four or five years."

The tariff for this type of offence seems pretty low.

"Court papers state Hogg carried out assaults at Dalkeith Country Park on various occasions between March and June 2018."

Serial offender then, yet walks free. Astonishing.
 
The science has been pretty clear that the human brain doesn't develop a full appreciation of consequences until 25 and at that point criminality drops off pretty quickly. Which is probably why Scotland is doing that.

In this case it may be unsaid in the news source that the 17 year old is required to attend counseling as a condition. That would be pretty standard and here would be part of any supervised release and seems implied by the court's comments.

The article really seems cherry picked in a way to create the very reaction it is getting. Who knows what other factors are at play.
 
Suddenly said:
The science has been pretty clear that the human brain doesn't develop a full appreciation of consequences until 25 and at that point criminality drops off pretty quickly.
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Can you link to anything?

If that really is the case, why is criminal responsibility only aged 12 in Scotland, and a young person was up to 18?

Which is probably why Scotland is doing that.

In this case it may be unsaid in the news source that the 17 year old is required to attend counseling as a condition. That would be pretty standard and here would be part of any supervised release and seems implied by the court's comments.

The article really seems cherry picked in a way to create the very reaction it is getting. Who knows what other factors are at play.
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Possibly, but I have never heard of counselling for sex offenders other than in a prison environment.
 
Nessie said:
Can you link to anything?
Click to expand...


It is well established that various morphological and physiological changes occur in the human brain during adolescence. The term “adolescence” is generally used to describe a transition stage between childhood and adulthood. “Adolescence” also denotes both teenage years and puberty, as these terms are not mutually exclusive. The second surge of synaptogenesis occurs in the brain during the adolescent years. Hence, adolescence is one of the most dynamic events of human growth and development, second only to infancy in terms of the rate of developmental changes that can occur within the brain. Although there is no single definition of adolescence or a set age boundary, Kaplan4 has pointed out that puberty refers to the hormonal changes that occur in early youth, and adolescence may extend well beyond the teenage years. In fact, there are characteristic developmental changes that almost all adolescents experience during their transition from childhood to adulthood. It is well established that the brain undergoes a “rewiring” process that is not complete until approximately 25 years of age.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/

It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet.

The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.

In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.

In teens' brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not always at the same rate. That’s why when teens have overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling.
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https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051

If that really is the case, why is criminal responsibility only aged 12 in Scotland, and a young person was up to 18?
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It's not a switch that goes off.

I'm not going to speculate as to how and why Scotland treats the sliding scale of maturity. I just recognized the age of 25 as an endpoint and that's it's pretty established science.
Possibly, but I have never heard of counselling for sex offenders other than in a prison environment.
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I guess you have now. It's pretty standard in the US, especially with juveniles.
 
On the other hand, we generally expect children to grasp the basics of good citizenship, including "don't rape", long before their brains finish maturing.

If they're still getting a slap on the wrist at 25, then maybe we should withhold adult privileges and responsibilities until that age.

"An unattended minor at age 24 naturally gets into trouble, like raping people, because they're too young to know better" just doesn't make any sense.
 
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Nessie said:
From the Scottish Sentencing Council

"The exercise of sentencing a young person is different from that of sentencing an older
person1, in particular because a young person will generally have a lower level of maturity,
and a greater capacity for change and rehabilitation, than an older person."

That reads as if it is about what was the legal definition of a young person in Scotland, which is someone up to 16 years old, or 17 if they are in care, not someone up to 25 years old. The guidelines acknowledge that;

"The best interests of the young person should be considered in every case, and must be a
primary consideration when the young person is under the age of 18, in accordance with the provisions of the UNCRC"

When did 18 to 24 year olds start to be considered kids?
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It is true that the brain can go on developing until a much later age than was once thought. In particular the parts of the brain involved in regulating and behavior and inhibiting impulses may go on developing into the early 20s.

I'm not really seeing how that translates into giving somebody community service for a serious sexual offence, however. Rehabilitation doesn't have to mean a non-custodial sentence for serious offences; it should address the way that penal institutions operate.
 
Elaedith said:
It is true that the brain can go on developing until a much later age than was once thought. In particular the parts of the brain involved in regulating and behavior and inhibiting impulses may go on developing into the early 20s.

I'm not really seeing how that translates into giving somebody community service for a serious sexual offence, however. Rehabilitation doesn't have to mean a non-custodial sentence for serious offences; it should address the way that penal institutions operate.
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That is very much my problem with this. A community pay back order means doing work such as tidying the gardens of the elderly and sick, litter picking and graffiti removal. I know that, because I know people who work as community service supervisors.

The sex offenders register just means being honest and telling the police where you live, if you are going on holiday, occasional visits or signing a book at a police office.

There is no actual rehabilitation. Not like Norway, with it usually prison based programmes. The Scottish government have dodged the expensive part of rehabilitation, the actual rehabilitation part.
 
theprestige said:
On the other hand, we generally expect children to grasp the basics of good citizenship, including "don't rape", long before their brains finish maturing.

If they're still getting a slap on the wrist at 25, then maybe we should withhold adult privileges and responsibilities until that age.

"An unattended minor at age 24 naturally gets into trouble, like raping people, because they're too young to know better" just doesn't make any sense.
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That's certainly not the case in this instance or in any of the legal systems in the UK. A prosecution decision and trial of any kind must establish that the person does know right from wrong as often if they don't there would be no criminal act committed. That is why we rarely put people with severe cognitive deficits on trial. There was no consideration in the report in this case that the young person didn't or doesn't know right from wrong.

Recognizing that young people have not obtained "full rationality" (yeah as if all us over 25 have!) does not mean they can't know right from wrong.
 
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The Scottish Tories are out in force condemning the SNP's soft touch system, without batting an eyelid that under them, even less money would be available to fund a rehabilitative criminal justice system.

This has come about, because the SNP want to an independent Scotland to be one of the Nordic countries, but on the cheap, which cannot work.
 
Nessie said:
That is very much my problem with this. A community pay back order means doing work such as tidying the gardens of the elderly and sick, litter picking and graffiti removal. I know that, because I know people who work as community service supervisors.

The sex offenders register just means being honest and telling the police where you live, if you are going on holiday, occasional visits or signing a book at a police office.

There is no actual rehabilitation. Not like Norway, with it usually prison based programmes. The Scottish government have dodged the expensive part of rehabilitation, the actual rehabilitation part.
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This has to be key point. Personally I think it should be one of the two key aspects of our justice system (the other is to protect society) and as we know it isn't in the UK no matter the lip service that might be given, never mind of course how any hint of being "soft on crime" by saying "hang on perhaps if we don't treat a prisoner like a caged beast and equip them to live outside of criminality we might be able to reintegrate them into society at a later date?" is vilified.

Will there have been pre-sentencing reports generated for this case? Perhaps he is already in a rehabilitation programme? (That is of course a clutching at straws hope.)

My view - on the information currently available - is that the sentencing was wrong, there is no indication nor reason to believe that this person is now safe to be in general society.

Sadly sending him to prison will of course also not ensure (within what we can expect from good rehabilitation) that he will be safe to be in general society when he is released as he will simply have been locked up for the duration of his sentence. But at least for a few years society would be safe from him. Bad outcome all round.
 
Nessie said:
The Scottish Tories are out in force condemning the SNP's soft touch system, without batting an eyelid that under them, even less money would be available to fund a rehabilitative criminal justice system.

This has come about, because the SNP want to an independent Scotland to be one of the Nordic countries, but on the cheap, which cannot work.
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Cargo cult Nordic?
 
The SNP, who have argued 16 year olds are mature enough to change gender are also arguing 24 year olds are not mature enough to understand rape is wrong.

The common factor is the benefit for men over women, especially predatory men. Both SNP rulings make life much easier for predatory men and more dangerous for women and that has come under the watch of a female First Minister.
 
Nessie said:
Possibly, but I have never heard of counselling for sex offenders other than in a prison environment.
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The first consultant psychiatrist I worked with post-qualification set up a unit in Newcastle working with teenage sex offenders (he did the same elsewhere a few years later) in the early '90s. He tried to poach me and another colleague from the CAMHS in-patient unit, but we weren't having any of it: working with abuse victims does not endear me to working with perpetrators.

Such services may be rare but do exist (well, did...).
 
Nessie said:
The SNP, who have argued 16 year olds are mature enough to change gender are also arguing 24 year olds are not mature enough to understand rape is wrong.
...snip...
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No that is not what is being argued. I think it's wrong to mischaracterise the argument if you are interested in rehabilitation as well as protection for society.
 
Darat said:
No that is not what is being argued. I think it's wrong to mischaracterise the argument if you are interested in rehabilitation as well as protection for society.
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It being argued that what the impulsive poor decision-making we associate with teenagers, often continues into a persons 20s and that for under 25s, it would be better to help them understand better by rehabilitation, the consequences of their actions and why they stop offending.

https://www.scottishsentencingcounc...ng-young-people-guideline-for-publication.pdf

"The exercise of sentencing a young person is different from that of sentencing an older person1, in particular because a young person will generally have a lower level of maturity, and a greater capacity for change and rehabilitation, than an older person."

For that reason, this principle;

"The best interests of the young person should be considered in every case, and must be a primary consideration when the young person is under the age of 18, in accordance with the provisions of the UNCRC."

is being expanded to under 25-year-olds. I do not think it is unreasonable to paraphrase that to saying 24 year olds are supposedly not mature enough to understand rape is wrong.
 
Nessie said:
It being argued that what the impulsive poor decision-making we associate with teenagers, often continues into a persons 20s and that for under 25s, it would be better to help them understand better by rehabilitation, the consequences of their actions and why they stop offending.

https://www.scottishsentencingcounc...ng-young-people-guideline-for-publication.pdf

"The exercise of sentencing a young person is different from that of sentencing an older person1, in particular because a young person will generally have a lower level of maturity, and a greater capacity for change and rehabilitation, than an older person."

For that reason, this principle;

"The best interests of the young person should be considered in every case, and must be a primary consideration when the young person is under the age of 18, in accordance with the provisions of the UNCRC."

is being expanded to under 25-year-olds. I do not think it is unreasonable to paraphrase that to saying 24 year olds are supposedly not mature enough to understand rape is wrong.
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Not at all.

An eight year old does something they have been told is wrong. They know they should not do that as it is wrong. You can talk to them and be quite sure they know that action is wrong, and with further discussion that they know the difference between right and wrong. Yet they still did it. When asked why you are likely to at best get a shrug of the shoulders. And they would be right - they do not know why they did the wrong thing. But we do know why, they don't have a fully coordinated impulse and judgement circuit, they acted on impulse.

Anyone who has interacted with teenagers will know you'll see the same from them even for much more serious "wrongs". That is why under 25 year olds have terrible car accident statistics, they know not to speed, they know that it is wrong but they still do it. Because again their circuitry isn't firmed up. It is often summarised as" emotional v rational" reasoning, that is I think too crude but it does get the idea over. For these young people emotional reasoning still has a greater impact in their judgements and decision making. (I say it is too crude as of course many people well over the age of 25 have terrible impulse v judgement v action control and of course some under 25s will have well-adjusted circuitry.)

It is not a matter of knowing right and wrong which means we should consider the punishment for them with some different criteria. It is knowing they simply don't think like someone over the age of 25.

Of course this is a huge pile of generalisations and the research that would be necessary to fully and accurately inform our judgement on policies is still in its infancy.
 
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Would a better paraphrase be, 24 year olds are supposedly not mature enough to know that even though rape is wrong they should not do it.
 
theprestige said:
On the other hand, we generally expect children to grasp the basics of good citizenship, including "don't rape", long before their brains finish maturing.

If they're still getting a slap on the wrist at 25, then maybe we should withhold adult privileges and responsibilities until that age.

"An unattended minor at age 24 naturally gets into trouble, like raping people, because they're too young to know better" just doesn't make any sense.
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There is nothing there about not knowing rape is wrong. The person has been given a sentence that the judge thinks optimal based on knowing the case far better than you or I do from reading a brief article. It's foolish to believe that any news article about any case tells a balanced comprehensive picture of that case.

The 25 year old brain maturity issue isn't solely about culpability. Putting people of that age in prison tends to create more violent crime than it prevents as now you have someone's brain developing in an often violent environment learning any manner of maladaptive behaviors.
 
RolandRat said:
“This offence, if committed by an adult over 25 you attract a sentence of four or five years."
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That's the quote that actually blew me away. Seriously, an adult could grab a 13-year-old girl in a park, force her to go down on him and get a sentence of 4-5 years (which I presume means 2-3 with time off)?

No wonder this kid walked.
 
It appears to me two different issues are entangled here: the perpetrator's age when the crime was committed, which is claimed to be relevant to their culpability; and the age when the perpetrator is convicted, which is claimed to be relevant to the public's interest in pursuing rehabilitation relative to lengthy punishment. Either idea can be argued for or against, but muddling the two is going make such arguments incoherent, as in, "are you saying 24-year-olds don't know right from wrong?" Keep in mind that in the specific case in question, the convict is not 24 but 21, and he committed the rape at age 17.

It seems strange to me that the age at conviction is a factor at all. Can prosecutors get more severe sentences in some cases merely by delaying?
 
Nessie said:
The SNP, who have argued 16 year olds are mature enough to change gender are also arguing 24 year olds are not mature enough to understand rape is wrong.
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No, they are arguing that 24 year olds can be rehabilitated more easily than older people. If you can rehabilitate somebody, you should IMO. It's the difference between having a productive member of society and having a person effectively leaching off the state, either in prison or as an unemployable person outside prison) for the rest of their life.

We should note that, in this case, the rapist is only 21 (not 24) and was 17 when they committed the offence.

That said...

The common factor is the benefit for men over women, especially predatory men. Both SNP rulings make life much easier for predatory men and more dangerous for women and that has come under the watch of a female First Minister.
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In this case, there was a victim who was probably traumatised by the experience. I can't imagine that seeing her rapist walking around the community apparently scot free is going to be good for her mental well being.

There's also the problem of the message it sends to society. It's good that Scotland wants to rehabilitate its young offenders, but to a teenager this looks like "rape is not a big deal as long as, if you get caught, you are convicted and sentenced before the age of 25". If we are trying to teach our young people the difference between right and wrong, this doesn't look like it. Rape is a serious crime. If you want to get that across to teenage boys, the consequences need to be serious.
 
The big problem is that the punishment of community service and signing the sex offenders register, has no rehabilitative part to it.

So, someone whose brain is not yet wired enough to fully understand the consequences of their action, can apparently be rehabilitated by tidying up gardens.
 
jeremyp said:
There's also the problem of the message it sends to society. It's good that Scotland wants to rehabilitate its young offenders, but to a teenager this looks like "rape is not a big deal as long as, if you get caught, you are convicted and sentenced before the age of 25". If we are trying to teach our young people the difference between right and wrong, this doesn't look like it. Rape is a serious crime. If you want to get that across to teenage boys, the consequences need to be serious.
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A large part of the basis for treating younger offenders differently is the lesser capacity to appreciate consequences. Increasing those consequences serves no purpose and interferes with that whole rehabilitation thing.

Plus who knows the context here. It's important to consider that the article is actively trying to make all of this sound as bad as possible.

A man who was found guilty of raping a 13-year-old girl in a park in Midlothian has walked free from court.
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Maybe he's a man now I guess. This is some really sketchy construction meant to provoke a response that wouldn't if they said "A 17 year old who forced a 13 year old to participate in sexual activity must once being found guilty four years later register as a sex offender and perform 270 hours of community service."

While the whole concept of juvenile justice is a fertile area for discussion, this article is a really rotten jumping off point. It's also pretty skimpy on the details. It taking four years is something that suggests something else is going on here...
 
Nessie said:
The big problem is that the punishment of community service and signing the sex offenders register, has no rehabilitative part to it.
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If that is all he gets, I agree.
So, someone whose brain is not yet wired enough to fully understand the consequences of their action, can apparently be rehabilitated by tidying up gardens.
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I don't agree that a seventeen year old is not yet wired enough to fully understand the consequences of their action. The brain might not have finished its development, but it is a long way through it by seventeen.

Anyway, that's something of a straw man. The court was not arguing that he didn't understand, only that he was still young enough for rehabilitation to have a really good chance of working.
 
Does this mean that laws concerning consent to treatment by teenagers (an area I grappled with every working day for decades) need to be re-visited? Does Gillick/Fraser (yes, I know, English case law) have an equivalent in Scotland?

I regularly, but not always by any means, decided that under 16s were competent to consent and understood the issues we were discussing.

This is a messy area.
 
Carrot Flower King said:
Does this mean that laws concerning consent to treatment by teenagers (an area I grappled with every working day for decades) need to be re-visited? Does Gillick/Fraser (yes, I know, English case law) have an equivalent in Scotland?

I regularly, but not always by any means, decided that under 16s were competent to consent and understood the issues we were discussing.

This is a messy area.
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Complex. As the Gillick case was a ruling by the law lords, it technically applied throughout the UK. Subsequent to this Scotland had the 'Age of legal capacity' act that as an act of parliament would supercede a court judgement. This reduced age of consent in scotland to 16. Below that effectively Gillick competency exists. This in anycase applies to the medical context and not to sexual congress.

The younger person being over 13 means this is not automatically a child protection issue. The older person being below 18 means special consideration should be given although they are over the age of consent (16). There is some suggestion that the 17 year old was considered vulnerable.

Details here.

https://www.gov.scot/binaries/conte...-pdf/0108880-pdf/govscot:document/0108880.pdf
 
Nessie said:
A man who, when he was 17, raped a 13 year old in a park, and carried out a number of assaults, has been sentenced to 270 hours of unpaid work and will be on a sex offenders register for 3 years.

https://news.stv.tv/east-central/ma...community-payback-order-at-glasgow-high-court

This the result of a change in sentencing practices in Scotland in January 2022, whereby anyone under the age of 25 is considered a young person, not necessarily full mature and rehabilitation is prioritised over punishment

https://www.scottishsentencingcounc...ng-young-people-guideline-for-publication.pdf

Quite how a community payback order, which usually involves tidying up gardens and litter picking, will rehabilitate a child rapist, is beyond me. That he will be on the sex offenders register just means he gets occasional visits by the police to check he is behaving. It is not rehabilitation either.

It looks like Scotland is trying to emulate the Nordic countries rehabilitative systems, but without bothering to include the rehabilitation part.
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Presumably Rishi is to blame!
 
Suddenly said:
Plus who knows the context here. It's important to consider that the article is actively trying to make all of this sound as bad as possible.
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This is the context:

"Court papers state that Hogg threatened his victim on various occasions and raped her in Dalkeith Country Park in 2018.

Hogg, of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, threatened the victim and pulled down her lower clothing, before seizing her by the wrists and causing the girl to carry out a sex act on him.

He went on to push his victim’s head down and raped her."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ks-free-after-of-13-year-old-girl-in-scotland

Sound as bad as possible? He raped a 13 year old. It is disgusting that he avoided prison.
 
RolandRat said:
This is the context:

"Court papers state that Hogg threatened his victim on various occasions and raped her in Dalkeith Country Park in 2018.

Hogg, of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, threatened the victim and pulled down her lower clothing, before seizing her by the wrists and causing the girl to carry out a sex act on him.

He went on to push his victim’s head down and raped her."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ks-free-after-of-13-year-old-girl-in-scotland

Sound as bad as possible? He raped a 13 year old. It is disgusting that he avoided prison.
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Because the definition of rape in different jurisdictions varies, I post the Scottish definition, which taken with the description above may clarify the event.

The Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 states that rape occurs when a person intentionally or recklessly penetrates another person's vagina, anus or mouth with their penis, where the victim does not consent and the person responsible has no reasonable belief that the victim is giving consent.
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I will never understand this pedantic sidetrack about regional variances in the legal definition of rape.

We can call oral rape rape, even if Scottish law does not. We can condemn Scottish law for being more lenient towards oral rape (if indeed it is), rather than accept that leniency as a just result of oral rape not being rape-rape under the law.
 
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