Random News Stories

[roar]

Perhaps, because they generally aren't predatory?

[David]

[stui magpie]

Most 16 year old boys would have carried a barely concealed weapon pver a female teacher. My 16 year old neighbours son got jiggy with his teacher near 20 years ago. She lost her job, he had the shits with his mum for reporting it, left school and left home. Last thing I heard he was a sparky in Qld and hadn't spoken to his mum since then.

Women are less likely to be predatory than males and are more likely to be used to being the object of desire from males, so better equipped to defuse the clumsy advances of a horny 16 year old lothario. Some don't, as in this situation.

She gets punished in accordance with the law. I don't really think it's comparable with a male teacher grooming and basically raping a juvenile girl.

[David]

I do appreciate the argument that we’re prone to making sexist assumptions in cases like this: the teenage boy with the older woman was living out a fantasy, whereas the teenage girl with the older man was helplessly manipulated and used; men are predatory, women aren’t. Malka Leifer, for one, puts the lie to the latter – so does it take a female victim for us to acknowledge that?

We should challenge those stereotypes (particularly as they’re used to downplay male victimisation) and recognise that they can be wrong in both directions – indeed, many of these teacher / older student cases likely contain elements of agency as well as exploitation, regardless of the victim’s gender. Female sexual desire is no less powerful than its male counterpart.

Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that gender power dynamics are evident in at least some of these cases – including this one – and it’s not wrong to consider that when deciding the extent of offending. The important thing is to be able to look at all of the available facts of the case and see how it stacks up against others of its kind, and the judge seems to have performed that duty here. Those decrying the non-custodial sentence should do likewise. All crimes have gradations, after all.

[stui magpie]

Oh I've seen it work both ways, I'll go back to Highschool in the early 80's.

1 girl in Yr 12 was rooting the arts teacher who's wife worked in the library. Everyone seemed to know about it but nothing happened til the end of the year when he left his wife and took off with her.

Another girl had a part time job that turned into the business owner dumping his wife and kids to shack up with a 17 yr old schoolgirl.

I don't know how their stories ended but at the time, neither of those girls had Victim emblazoned on their forehead. The latter one showed up to the Yr 12 formal wearing an outfit described by most of the other girls as being "Too Adult".

[pietillidie]

I remember from the growth rates it was likely to happen, but here it is:

[stui magpie]

Tatura. 20 odd km west of Kialla, very close to Shep. Nice place to live. You can keep London.

[think positive]

[think positive]

[What'sinaname]

The soft on crime Labor government are raising the criminal age to 12 and then to 14.

What could go wrong, right, especially with surging youth crime from teenage gangs.

[stui magpie]

As a general principle, I absolutely agree with raising the age of criminal responsibility. No 10 year old should be sent to a kids gaol.

The devil is in the detail as usual, you would want to have the ability to mandate counselling or other services, remove them from a toxic environment (which they already have) or provide limits.

[David]

Well said. Calling this decision "soft on crime" is laughable. People like What'sinaname want delinquent (literal) kids in and out of prison for the rest of their lives, with absolutely no strategy for reforming them or giving them opportunities to get the help they obviously need if they're in that position at such a young age.

It's people like that who are actually "soft on crime" – because, by being dumb on criminal policy, they're only ensuring a lot more crimes occur down the track. Real toughness means doing the hard work (and yes, it is $£$%^%%$ hard) to fix these problems, not just chucking kids behind bars and giving them a first-class criminal apprenticeship in the process.

[What'sinaname]

Prison isn't the only option. But this removes prison as an option.

It's soft and we'll see a huge increase in crime by 10-14 year old.

[David]

Here’s a random news story featuring yours truly:

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/melbourne-city/iconic-film-magazine-metro-is-on-the-brink-of-shutdown-after-more-than-60-years-in-the-business/news-story/4d9a119961bed47e67e10d43a2691867

If anyone here would like to donate, by the way, anything you can offer would be deeply appreciated. I don’t post about it much on here, but this publication means a lot to me and I’m desperate to do whatever I can to save it: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-australias-oldest-film-publication

[David]

A more detailed article on the campaign here:

https://www.artshub.com.au/news/education-student-news/metro-magazines-future-under-threat-2629951/