Tuesday, February 6

Rape Sentencing: US vs. Finland

It was the headline of the story that got my attention:

Young man gets lengthy jail term for multiple rapes

Since this was news from Finland, I was interested to know what they considered 'lengthy'.
The Helsinki District Court has convicted a 22-year-old man of several rapes he committed last summer in Helsinki. Edwin Aseda Opudo was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison, for four rapes and one assault.

According to the District Court, Opudo raped four women aged between under 30 to slightly over 40 at the turn of the months of July and August 2006. The man was ordered to pay compensation to the women for mental anguish as well as pain and suffering. The largest individual sum is EUR 7,000, ordered for one woman's mental suffering. The assaulted man did not demand any compensation. - Helsingin Sanomat
That comes out to 11.25 months per rape, with the assumption that he would have received no jail time for the assault. (Lets just call that a hunch)

Less than a year for rape sounds kind of low to me, so I did a quick check and found Massachusetts Sentencing Guidelines. A person with no record/minor record can expect five years if convicted of rape in Massachusetts. And that is from a liberal state.

(Click to see the full grid.)

But wait, this is not Mr. Opudo's first rape conviction.
In October 2005 the man had been convicted of raping a woman in the Kaisaniemi Park in the previous summer. He was released on probation just a few weeks prior to the new rapes for which he was now convicted. - Helsingin Sanomat
Lenghty or not, it does not sound like he got enough time in jail for his crimes. Five rapes in total. Why was he let out of jail at all, considering that he was recommended for deportation. (He is a citizen of Kenya) No word on whether that will happen before of after serving his sentence. Whenever it does happen, that is probably the only part of the punishment that he will care about.

They sure are forgiving over there. Wonder if the victims think that the punishment was just.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That truly is disgusting. Scandinavia has so many problems.

Anonymous said...

How sad, especially for the victims. Down here in Texas, we just "stump 'em." Solves the problem every time and doesn't cost much.

Anonymous said...

"scandinavia has so many problems?"

You dunce, Finland isn't even IN Scandinavia.

Anonymous said...

Finland IS in Scandinavia. I think I know, since I live here.

Fred Fry said...

From Wikipedia:

"The use of the name Scandinavia as a convenient general term for the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden is also fairly recent; according to some historians, it was adopted and introduced in the 18th century, at a time when the ideas about a common heritage started to appear and develop into early literary and linguistic Scandinavism. Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elder's writings, and was used vaguely for Scania and the southern region of the peninsula.

As a political term, "Scandinavia" was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s. The popular usage of the term in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as a unifying concept became established in the 19th century through poems such Hans Christian Andersen's "I am a Scandinavian" of 1839. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism and in a letter describing the poem to a friend, he wrote: "All at once I understood how related the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians are, and with this feeling I wrote the poem immediately after my return: 'We are one people, we are called Scandinavians!'". The historic popular usage is also reflected in the name chosen for the shared, multi-national airline, Scandinavian Airlines System, a carrier originally owned jointly by the governments of the three countries, along with private investors.

FINLAND

The clearest example of the use of the term "Scandinavia" as a political and cultural construct is the unique position of Finland, based largely on it having been part of Sweden, thus to much of the world properly associating Finland with all of Scandinavia."


So the answer is 'no' it is not AND 'yes' it is.

Anonymous said...

Scandinavia has so many problems :D haha. Was it Sweden or Finland I still think USA and its citizens got even more problems. There was recently this M.donalds shooting with 3 deads. Someone in the USA populated forum gave comment like this ''If finnish were more civilized they would have death sentence'' how absurd and naive. Thats true we have too soft laws for many things and some are plainly wrong. ie. compare the dept you got for downloading illegal stuff from internet and compare it to rape murder. But death sentence is far from civilized. My brother lives nowdays in NY, maryland so Im aware od the pros and cons of each country.

PS. The average citizen knowledge or ''stupidity is bigger there in US than here in Finland. Well hope people in US learns someday that their country is not the center of the world, and you actually got many own problems to solve before giving stupid comments to internet. Sorry for typos.

Anonymous said...

I think that a quick and easy and surefire way to prevent any further rapes by that African scumbag is obvious: cut off all his equipment and deport him. If he tries it again, well? no go! Also, it won't be Finland's problem anymore!

I can remember feeling safe hitchhiking through beautiful Suomi, from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, in the 1980's. Now, apparently, rapes by nonwhite immigrants is cursing all of Scandanavia. Horrible.

A public arsch-screwing of this man would also be a good idea for the sake of discouraging other such scumbags, before you deport him. Screaming and suffering in public, show the people that the government takes safety seriously!