I am not sure if we give lighter sentences for sex crimes or not in general, but it may be so. We certainly don't have the death penalty (although Steven Harper would like to change that). My first post on this topic mentions that I think the sentence was too light. I was referring to circumstances before the crime was commited not sentencing and referring to comments by other posters.

I had a friend who was literally grabbed off the street and driven to a rural area and raped. She was told she would be killed as well and only her wits and luck seemed to save her. "Luckily" he gave her a nose bleed so when he was found there was hard DNA evidence that he was the offender. For that he got 7 years. I think that is appauling. It would also indicate to me that this judge either sentenced at the low end of the scale or that in my friend's case the rapist was a repeat offender (which would make a mere 7 years even more horrifying).

I do know that there is a huge push on to put in place harsher punishments for any sex crimes involving children and that that legislation is likely to pass. We currently have a minority Conservative government who wants to put that bill through and no other party is going to force an election over a bill like that. It would be political suicide. If they try and push through the death penalty that would almost certainly force an election.

I hope it was somewhat apparent that my post was tongue in cheek. You may notice in my earlier post that I diagreed with the judge and think the sentence was too light. I don't think he should have called her "stupid". I thought my post's worst offence was being off topic but there seems to be some odd speculation, by you and others, about how the fact that this was in Canada affected the situation. I don't deny it gets cold here but when I did finally find the original article there was no mention of the scenario you had painted. In fact, it says she was wearing her pj bottoms and heading to a town that is a couple hours drive away so its quite likely there was a chinook at the time. Common for November and would have meant a lot of people were wearing shorts that day.

I don't think it should be necessary to paint her as the poor little match girl in order for one to have sympathy for her. I think she had a lapse in judgement and did something risky. I have done the same (not hitch hiking) but, luckily did not come to such serious harm. I don't in any way blame her, but at the same time, it behooves us to be be cautious. I think that is what the judge, not so eloquently was trying to get at. It may not be fair that we have to so careful, but we do. I will also point out that I think you are putting yourself at risk by picking up hitch hikers. I believe that is how Aileen Wuoronos found her male victims.

I don't know what time of year this happened but you do know we have seasons, right? We don't always have "freezing Canadian cold". It often breaks 100 up here. Sometimes we can even take off our parkas in the summer when we are walking our seals. Unfortunately, our homes melt in the summer month and we have to live in the woods with our Sasquatches.

I know it makes the story more sympathetic if y'all can visualize the victim as just needing a ride over to her friend's igloo because her dog sled/polar bear broke down or whatever. I can't actually find the story in local media to check the time of year and I certainly haven't come across this story on the radio or TV news so I'll have to take Salon's word for it that this story even actually happened. The American stereotypes of Canada are just a little bit of a yawn.