Because the main reason that sexual assault is considered such a serious crime (e.g. one worthy of decades in prison) is that it is seriously traumatizing to victims. If you remove the element of trauma from the situation, how is a non-traumatic sexual assault different from jaywalking, failure to clean up after one’s dog, or second degree mopery?
So raping a toddler should not be considered a major crime? It’s well established that very young children will not be traumatized and will have no memory of the crime.
These are very good points. Once she is in “the system”, how do you think it will handle her? Most sex offenders are generally given very stringent restrictions and subject to frequent, mandatory therapy. How much of that is really necessary for Ms. Stubblefield? Given the grooming pattern that we saw, I would think that simply revoking her license to practice clinical psychology might be enough to prevent her from committing similar crimes in the future (which is the goal of sex offender management anyway).
I’ve read the article, and I find the most fascinating and disturbing aspect of it is how obvious it was that Anna (or her subconscious) was speaking, not DJ- and the way that Anna proceeded to fall in love with herself! She unconsciously turned DJ into a mirror saying the things she wanted to hear. This is a tragedy for all involved, victim and perpetrator.
As for the effectiveness of Facilitated Communication, It is woo- but the author of the article goes to a FC convention, and meets a man who started with FC, but now types unassisted, so in at least in some cases it is not totally useless.
If it is not traumatizing to the child and the child will have no memory or after-effects of the crime, then why is it a serious crime? I’m asking from a philosophical perspective. How is it worse than a hypothetical “offense” of Wearing a Blue Hat While in Possession of an Accordion With Intent to Play Celtic Music (WBHWPAWIPCM)? Who was harmed as a result of the offense? No one? Bueller?
There’s an element of morality here that doesn’t jive with the idea of the criminal justice system existing to protect the weak. Is it because we are just disgusted by the idea of sexual behavior with children? If so, then why do we not impose long prison sentences for other “disgusting” behavior like eating too much fast food or having too many body piercings?
Because eating too much fast food and body piercing are not harmful to others, and not objectively considered disgusting. I am not a proponent of the punishment aspects of sentencing for crimes, but an important factor here is deterrence. If we assume raping children is not a major crime because there will be no long term damage to the victim and perpetrators are given light sentences then there will be little dissuade rapists from acting. There is also the concept of right and wrong to consider, should people be allowed to rob the rich because they won’t be seriously affected by a small loss? Although I think theft should not be the kind of crime it is now considered there is still a need for justice. In addition criminals should be incarcerated, not simply to protect the public, but to achieve justice by denial of their rights just as they have denied the rights of their victims.
Now do you think a 10 year sentence is too harsh in this case? That is the minimum sentence for the crimes here, and I don’t know how much of that would be actually served in this jurisdiction.
Based on what I know of this subject (which is not comprehensive) in any case where FC is useful it is not the only means of communication and is not limited to a single facilitator.
I became familiar with the concept of FC in the early 80s when a local operation in New York was reporting remarkable results using facilitated typing with seriously autistic children. Among other suspicions about the process one parent was distraught that she could not facilitate communication in her own child while with the help of the ‘expert’ facilitators the child was producing incredibly lucid writing. It soon all fell apart as not one of the children were able to communicate in any way beyond the abilities they had before FC was started. There are no expert facilitators because there is no established training or any science to support the viability of the concept. The facilitators always fall back on the common woo excuses as Anna did. The author in this case has made the common mistake of giving equal weight to science and anecdotes.
The reasons that “facilitated communication” cannot be replicated mechanically is that it is all based on a bunch of psychological BS. It’s not just supporting their hand that matters, you see – you have to be supporting them emotionally as well. And of course, some mechanical device could not be doing that. Furthermore, it may be that only one or two individuals are able to achieve the “results” desired because other individuals apparently just aren’t sufficiently “supportive.” Hence in this particular case, neither DJ’s mother or brother were ever able to communicate with him in this way. Only Anna, Anna’s mother (a true believer in the technique) and one other true believer could achieve this. And then, of course, there’s the whole psychology of “testing” in the first place. How dehumanizing and degrading to even suppose that the disabled person was not truly communicating. So when you run what is clearly a 'test" of course the dissabled person refuses to cooperate and produces nothing. Like all pseudo-science FChas already worked out in advance a complete defense against any kind of legitimate confirmation.
As far as “mens rea” goes – I hope most commenters here realize that a huge percentage of child molesters believe (that is, have convinced themselves) that they did no harm and really, in a lot of ways, helped their victims. See Jerry Sandusky et al. The human capacity for rationalization is limitless.
I think you can view FC as an attempt by able-brained people to deny the existence of intellectual disability. It’s too disturbing to imagine that some people just can’t do things like read or form complex sentences. We would have a hard time seeing such people as fully human, so some choose instead to believe that they are all suffering from a version of locked-in syndrome.
I also have a gut feel that the potential sentence is way to high. I read the NYT article and it does seem as though she has genuine feelings for the guy. It makes no sense at all to me that she has sexual and/or romantic feelings for the guy, but it seems clear see does. And I don’t believe that she wanted to hurt the guy in any way.
I’ll add this. If the sexes were reversed, and she was disabled, they’d draw and quarter the guy, sew him back up and then burn him at the stake.
Isn’t there a right to some amount of bodily integrity? After all, by that rationale, if someone’s unconscious, it’s OK to do whatever you like to them as long as it isn’t detected by them and they never become aware of it.
“The guy is unconscious in a coma and you don’t have the guts to kiss his girlfriend?”
“I didn’t know what the coma etiquette was.”
“There is no coma etiquette. See, that’s the beauty of the coma, man. It doesn’t matter what you do around it.”
“So you’re saying his girl, his car, his clothes, it’s all up for grabs. You can just loot the coma victim.”
"I give them twenty-four hours to get out of it. If they can’t get out of it by twenty-four hours, it’s a land rush.
(Seinfeld, “The Suicide”)
You’re a better person than I. I went straight to Kill Bill.
.
I think that in general, the sentence should reflect the harm inflicted and the risk of future harm.
In cases of violent, traumatic rape, then yes, please do throw the book at them, and I might not actually mind that much if the book is barbed with razor blades and throwing stars. If the harm inflicted is more theoretical than actual, then the punishment should be proportionately lower.
In this case, yes, I think 10 years per act is a bit harsh. Yes, there was a criminal sexual assault. No, this is not one of those back-alley rapes that leaves their victims catatonic and unable to engage in human relationships anymore. Let’s be rational here.
Yes, I do, but then this is because violations of bodily integrity result in harm. If a victim can’t be said to have suffered ill effects, whether physical, emotional, or social, then I would be of the opinion that the “violation” was trivial.
Before you stop and say, “Wait, the victim is going to face emotional issues later when they find out what happened to them as a small child, that the victim will be discriminated against later in the marriage market due to being perceived as ‘damaged’, or will otherwise suffer later!”, then we have come full circle and admitted that the initial premise (that the act didn’t cause harm) was actually incorrect and that serious punishment may actually be appropriate.
It is disturbing in a way to try to imagine being one of those people. I literally cannot remember ever not being able to read fluently, and I have verified memories going back to at least age 4. Later on, I remember sitting in school “learning” the alphabet that I already knew and had always known. It’s been such a part of my life that I often have a feeling that it’s just normal and natural, even though I know intellectually that it isn’t.
40 years seems a bit much for a delusional woman who thought her patient loved her back. Even if FC is fake, could an argument be made to lessen the sentence by proving she believed it? In that case, it wouldn’t require that FC be proven real, just real enough that it could fool her. Why not bring in someone else who believes in FC to see if they can let the patient corroborate the argument independently?
To be clear, do you think 10 years is enough for the kind of back alley rapes that you describe?
I’m really horrified that my OP could be interpreted as “oh it happened to a man, so it doesn’t matter.” I could’ve sworn I addressed that very point–that I genuinely don’t think I’d be less conflicted if Stubbenfield were male, but on the other hand, the reason I’m conflicted is because I do have some instinctive concern about the mens rea (thanks again for providing another term I should’ve used when I was talking about ‘intent’) and whether it should apply here. I quite sincerely don’t know the answer to that, and it bothers me that I don’t. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned my own doubts.
I’m sure for others, your lives are certainly easier because you are, well, certain; such cases are black and white, easy to call, no shades or anything. Unfortunately, my life is full of uncertainties and second-guessing, and I guess I need to stop admitting that I don’t always know things, because now I look like a man-hater and a rape apologist. I must suck at expressing myself. Which is rather embarrassing for a writer, sigh. Maybe I need Augmentative and Alternative Communication, ha ha.
(BTW, thanks for providing that term as well, WhyNot–and also thanks for not embarrassing me by accusing me of believing in FC just because I didn’t know the correct official name for what I was talking about.)
Anyway. To address one point–the idea of “was damage done if he wasn’t traumatized?” I suppose that’s a “tree falling in the forest” question. But what frightens me about using that as a defense is… we don’t know he wasn’t traumatized. We can’t know. D.J. is apparently unable to communicate in any meaningful way, so how can he express his trauma to anyone? Does he feel used, does he feel hurt that she’s gone if he had some kind of equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome (where he grew attached to her despite her inappropriate behavior because she was so responsible for him), was he frightened, did he even understand what she was doing? We don’t know. Even a three-year-old kid would be able to express shame or pain (ignoring threats or whatever psychological manipulations are used by his/her abuser). D.J. doesn’t even have the ability to put voice to his feelings that an average child would.
She treated him like a Real Doll ™. I think I just want Stubbenfield studied, treated in a mental facility, because to me it’s incomprehensible that anyone could fall in love with, as someone said earlier, her own delusional conversations with herself. Much less that a so-called professional could fall into such a dynamic with a helpless client–and her supervisors (if she had any?) never noticed anything in her reports! I mean, she doesn’t appear to have any history of this before. (I hope; doesn’t seem to have been brought up at trial, but then I guess prior acts might not have been admissible?)
Putting her away in prison for however many years is fine as punishment, but I guess I think she should be treated and analyzed as well. If nothing else, so that other facilities might better recognize the signs of an employee who is crossing the line to such a hideous degree (preferably before it gets as far as this did).
Okay, shutting up before someone next accuses me of condoning child abuse.
This isn’t the first time I’ve shared my honest uncertainty and had it turn against me by people who see things much more clearly and definitively. I suppose I need to look at myself and how poorly I must communicate–if this is an ongoing problem, the fault is clearly mine.
choie, I’m sorry if I sounded that way to you. I didn’t see in your posts anything that sounded like you were a clear cut sympathizer or that you would be less sympathetic for a man. I understand what you are saying about uncertainty. That makes me pretty useless in a lot of these debates because I often see both sides of the issue and have difficulty coming down hard for one side or the other. This just happens to be one of those cases where I do feel it is a black and white issue.
…Annnnnd I also suck for a) mistaking the name of the therapist. Stubblefield, not Stubbenfield and b) realizing it too slowly to get past the edit window. Sigh.
Edited to add - yay, got the window! - thanks, TriPolar. I appreciate that, and I also appreciate that this is a crime so yucky and wrong that many, probably even most, people are able to see things more clearly.