[Catwoman]

Brian I understand your point. Cyber I understand your confusion. I would like to try and explain my reasoning in more detail.

My difficulty with the justice system is that it treats the symptom not the cause. It sees a crime and imposes a suitable punishment. A punishment to fit the crime, not the cause of the crime. It's like taking a headache pill. The more severe the headache, the stronger the pill, or the more pills you take. It will make the headache go away. But it won't stop it coming back.

If the headache has been caused by dehydration, you should drink. If it has been caused by tension, learn to relax more, or get a massage. If it has been caused by a tumour, a more involved method of treatment will be required that could take years.

Treating every similar crime the same is like prescribing varying quantities and strengths of pills for every kind of headache. Sometimes a pill just isn't the answer. In fact, it almost never is.

Motivation is the single most important factor of law. If we remove the 'why' we remove any chance of redemption, or change. I do not advocate criminality, but I do feel very strongly that attempting to segment crime into easily manageable chunks defeats the object of any kind of treatment, if that is what it is. If we truly wanted to respond to crime, to reduce it, to prevent it, our justice system would not be based on revenge and retaliation. Does no one agree that this is in no way constructive?

Cyber, to address your point, I think the boy's willingness to hop on automatically reduces the crime from rape to a technicality with regard to his age, and I am merely questioning that technicality. Again, this is not necessarily my personal opinion. I'm sure I would feel differently if like 99 I had a son myself.