Soldier walks free after beating woman unconscious and boasting about it on social media
www.thejournal.ie
The incident occurred in May 2022 in Limerick City.

so disgusted reading this story today. this man got a fully suspended sentence for pleading guilty (when he initially lied to the cops and said she attacked him, and only admitted it when CCTV footage was produced), and because the judge wants to save his precious army career while the victim has lost her job due to her injuries. he also bragged about beating her on snapchat and the reason he did it is because she asked him to stop calling people slurs. i hate it here

        • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          25·
          6 months ago

          Yeah the more successful communist revolutions generally at least tried to put people on public trial, even if it was just for show I say it’s a good thing. Lenin was actually angry that the Romanov’s died the way they did. Vigilantism isn’t a good thing.

      • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Killing in retribution for punching is obviously disproportionate. Should we execute Kyle Hayes too?

        Prisons are a colonial introduction, as is capital punishment.

      • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        17·
        6 months ago

        It’s a decently prominent line of leftist thinking, going at least back to Angela Davis. I agree it’s a bad talking point, though. Virtually no one means abolition abolition, so any conversation on the topic immediately gets sidetracked with a semantic debate. It’s also silly to re-define what abolition means then use it as a slogan, especially when there’s a closely related conversation about how we didn’t actually abolish slavery due to the 13th amendment carve-out for prisoners.

        • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          10·
          6 months ago

          Honestly even under FALGSC we’d need to do something with the occasional person who loses it a throws their ex out an airlock or whatever. I mean unless we develop actual brainwashing technology, but that comes with it’s own gross moral implications.

          Also, assuming us commies ever actually take over the U$A, wtf are we going to do with the massive chunk of the population who are totally brain-rotted CHUDs? Renaming prisons “gulags” doesn’t really change the fact you’re detaining a person in a location for engaging in anti-social behavior. The war on drugs has been an unmitigated failure and I believe we should be treating the real root cause of the issue with crime, poverty. I’m also all for trying to make prisons as humane as possible. But you do actually need to do something about violent criminals.

        • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          10·
          6 months ago

          As a long term goal, I think yeah we should seek to use prisons a little as possible and what prisons we have should be humane as possible. I don’t think even under an ideal society we’re ever gonna get to zero, there’s always going to be people who engage in violent anti-social activity.

          But that is really, really long term. In the actual short term, if there was actually a communist take over, we’d probably have to be detaining a lot of people, both fascists and organized crime elements since they’re often a tool of counter revolutionaries. You can say prison abolition is your long term goal but you’re gonna confuse most people when you say that but then also call for gulaging most MAGA Chuds.

                • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  5·
                  6 months ago

                  I mean there is sort of an ironic truth to this

                  Really the best way to reduce crime and therefore for the need for police and prisons is to create a more equitable, prosperous, stable society. Doing that is a long ass process though and there’s a bunch of people out there who have an incentive to disrupt or undo it. So, you have to stop them, which usually means imprisoning them.

      • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        I mean, the story illustrates why prison is a bad idea: the judge couldn’t serve justice because it would have meant creating bad consequences.

  • GnastyGnuts [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    23·
    6 months ago

    Apparently this decision came days after a report showing violence against women in Ireland to be at an all-time high.

    Judges are always the biggest pieces of shit, I swear. “Got to give him credit for coming forward!” No, not when he only did it to minimize punishment after he realized he couldn’t get away with it entirely, as evidenced by the fact that he initially lied to cover his ass.

  • Lester_Peterson [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    19·
    6 months ago

    A suspended sentence doesn’t mean you get to walk free. It means you’re released into the community but subject to a probation order which if broken will have you sent to prison. The conditions always have a “peace and good behaviour” obligation but can also include onerous restrictions. Anyone who works with offenders knows that the conditions imposed by a suspended sentence can be deeply intrusive and severely curtail people’s privacy and freedom of movement, to the point where they may sometimes be harsher than fines or even imprisonment

    Providing for suspended sentences for first offences is consistent with the criminal justice system’s commitment to rehabilitation, even if it arguably is of a lesser deterrent value and doesn’t satisfy the desire for vengeance among much of the public.

    I’m unfamiliar with Ireland’s criminal law, and the judge may have been more lenient than they had to be, but its not impossible that there’s enough mitigating factors that the sentence will not get appealed. If Crotty breaks the terms of his suspended sentence, and commits a similar act in the future, his sentence will almost certainly be considerably harsher.