motherfucker
If there's one thing I hate about the justice system in Finland, it's the incredibly mild sentences you get for things like rape or child abuse. Just today, there was an article on YLE News and MTV3 News, among others, that detailed the sentence a 44-year-old man got for "aggravated sexual crimes" (the headline for YLE News). My first throught was that wow, someone's finally woken up to the fact that the punishments for sexual crimes are really mild in Finland. And then I clicked the YLE News link and read the article.
This man had
- repeatedly and over the period of "many years"
- physically abused seven family members (five of whom were children)
He had also
- raped (and physically abused) two of the children
- weekly for ten years ever since the children were four years old
Wanna guess how many years this man got?
Twelve.
The prosecution was aiming for thirteen years (which was also the maximum allowed by the law, as twelve years is our ~life sentence~ [when there are multiple charges brought against the same defendant, they get a "discount" on the amount of time they have to serve. e.g. one count of aggravated sexual abuse of a child will get you, according to Finnish criminal law, a minimum of one(!) year in prison (the maximum is ten), so if you consider that this man raped two kids at least once a week for ten years, you'd end up with 1040 rapes -> at least 1040 years in prison]). Furthermore, the man's actual sentence is in reality just eleven years and three days because - again according to Finnish criminal law - the number of days the defendant has already been detained must be reduced from the actual sentence. And finally, if the man's a first-timer with good behavior, he'll probably only serve half of his actual sentence.
As a fun comparison, this one dude who burned down a church a couple of years ago got six years and six months.
Fuck you, Finland.
P.S. I'm not even going to think about the fact that, according to the YLE News article, the court ruled that his actions caused psychological damage to only some of the people he abused. Jesus wept.
This man had
- repeatedly and over the period of "many years"
- physically abused seven family members (five of whom were children)
He had also
- raped (and physically abused) two of the children
- weekly for ten years ever since the children were four years old
Wanna guess how many years this man got?
Twelve.
The prosecution was aiming for thirteen years (which was also the maximum allowed by the law, as twelve years is our ~life sentence~ [when there are multiple charges brought against the same defendant, they get a "discount" on the amount of time they have to serve. e.g. one count of aggravated sexual abuse of a child will get you, according to Finnish criminal law, a minimum of one(!) year in prison (the maximum is ten), so if you consider that this man raped two kids at least once a week for ten years, you'd end up with 1040 rapes -> at least 1040 years in prison]). Furthermore, the man's actual sentence is in reality just eleven years and three days because - again according to Finnish criminal law - the number of days the defendant has already been detained must be reduced from the actual sentence. And finally, if the man's a first-timer with good behavior, he'll probably only serve half of his actual sentence.
As a fun comparison, this one dude who burned down a church a couple of years ago got six years and six months.
Fuck you, Finland.
P.S. I'm not even going to think about the fact that, according to the YLE News article, the court ruled that his actions caused psychological damage to only some of the people he abused. Jesus wept.