Assuming the crime was handled by law enforcement/the courts, did anyone ever contact you and ask you what you believed was a fair outcome or necessary, prior to a final ruling/judgment being made?
If the person was locked up, did you generally agree with the length of the sentence? Did you want other outcomes for the person (restitution, counseling, etc.)? Did these happen?
Did you ever have the opportunity to speak to the person responsible for committing the crime? If you did, in what forum/format (victim impact statement, mediation, etc.)? Are you glad you did it? If you haven’t been able to do it, would you want to do it if you had the opportunity to now?
4, If the person wanted to directly apologize to you in person and explain himself/herself (and you could also speak and talk about the crime and its affect on you) would you be willing to meet with him/her? Assume safety is not an issue and someone will be present to facilitate or moderate the conversation.
In the immediate weeks/months after the crime was committed was your perspective on what’s fair/just/right for the penalties/sanctions/sentence the person must do similar to what you think now? In other words, has your perspective changed significantly in any way in terms of what you believe is an appropriate outcome to the case?
This probably goes without saying but please do not share specific identifying details (names/dates/specifics of crime).
My brother got ‘mugged’ or ‘strong armed’ (I can’t recall the proper name for it) and I was a witness. We were 15/16 at the time, as was the defendant (and the gang of people who were with him were the same age).
We contacted the cops, went to trial, and the defendant stood up before a judge and pled guilty.
No one asked my opinion of the outcome nor what I expected to happen.
He wasn’t locked up - he was put on probation. He got locked up for another crime later and his prior actions contributed to a harsher sentence then. I think he was 18-20 at that time though.
The person, as I said, got probation and I think that was about it. I don’t recall having any strong feelings at the time one way or another about the ‘justice’ of it. I didn’t expect him to go to jail (he was a minor as well). No restitution/counseling happened.
No. I didn’t know him prior to it nor after. If he was still alive and he wanted to make amends for it, I would allow it, but it wouldn’t matter to me either way. I don’t really think about it that much. I file it under the ‘kids being incredibly bad kids’ category, not as some sort of cosmic injustice towards my brother or I or a delinquency of justice or something to that effect. There are some bad apples out there. This guy was one of them.
I would probably have met with him.
I don’t think it impacted me much - I think at the time I thought things went the way they should have gone. I guess, contra to my prior answer, I thought it was ‘justice’ but I don’t think I would have being thinking along those lines.
My perspective about life in general, about what people ‘deserve’ and about ‘justice’ has radically changed since those times, but not because of them.
They informed me that they were dropping the charges because “The government has invested a great deal of money in his security clearance and a conviction would cause him to lose it” I was too young and too scared to do more than sit in stunned silence. They told me this minutes before what I expected to be our court appearance.
Clearly no.
I had many opportunites to speak to him. He did not show any remorse and in fact sent mutal friends to my hospital bed to tell me what a horrible person I was for pressing charge.
If he decided to apologize now I would certainly be willing to listen. As it’s been 25 years I suspect that it will not.
I don’t know that I ever had a specific sentence in mind either then or now. In general I feel like the entire situation had been minimized unfairly and I suspect that the sociatal view has changed enough that were it to happen today the outcome would have been different.
Short non specific summary - I had a very young and very short marriage. We never actually lived together as we both were in the Air Force and were married specificially to impact our future postings so we could live together. Unfortunately (fortunately?) he beat the hell out of me on a visit before we could be posted together. I was hospitalized with some fairly minor issues thanks to a neighbor who I had never previously met who stood outside my apartment door yelling that he had called the police and that he wasn’t leaving until they arrived. It’s been a very long time and I try to forget and most of the time I do.
This was for an attempted armed robbery in 1999. Two men tried to hold me and rob me at knife point outside of my Boston apartment. I fought back for some reason and won so I didn’t lose anything or even get hurt. They were caught and labeled as dangerous repeat offenders. They had just recently gotten out of prison for a more violent crime and they went right back for longer this time.
Assuming the crime was handled by law enforcement/the courts, did anyone ever contact you and ask you what you believed was a fair outcome or necessary, prior to a final ruling/judgment being made?
No
If the person was locked up, did you generally agree with the length of the sentence? Did you want other outcomes for the person (restitution, counseling, etc.)? Did these happen?
They got 3 and 5 years in maximum security prison. The one that got three years got less because he plead guilty right away. Those two belong in prison for as long as they can be put there each time they commit another crime according to the police and D.A. They are dangerous habitual offenders. The crime rate in the area drops while they are locked up and they will probably kill someone someday and had already tried.
Did you ever have the opportunity to speak to the person responsible for committing the crime? If you did, in what forum/format (victim impact statement, mediation, etc.)? Are you glad you did it? If you haven’t been able to do it, would you want to do it if you had the opportunity to now?
The police did give me a chance to see them after I identified them in the lineup. I turned it down.
4, If the person wanted to directly apologize to you in person and explain himself/herself (and you could also speak and talk about the crime and its affect on you) would you be willing to meet with him/her? Assume safety is not an issue and someone will be present to facilitate or moderate the conversation.
I don’t want to see them or talk to them. They put us in a situation where I could have been killed if the situation got more out of hand.
In the immediate weeks/months after the crime was committed was your perspective on what’s fair/just/right for the penalties/sanctions/sentence the person must do similar to what you think now? In other words, has your perspective changed significantly in any way in terms of what you believe is an appropriate outcome to the case?
I was happy with the sentence because it was about the most the D.A. could get without me being hurt or actually having anything taken. I haven’'t changed my opinion at all.
We’ve had virtually no contact with the creeps since the incident.
Hell no. They want to talk? They can go turn themselves in.
We got about 1200 bucks out of our insurance. There is no way the creeps will ever have that in their hands at any given time unless they start selling drugs or rob a bank. That, and the the fact that one of them has been wanted for unrelated charges, will have to do.
I was the victim of a sexual crime by my father when I was a minor, that I never reported to the police (my mom and sister found out over a decade after the fact and are supportive, though). The questions about the justice system obviously don’t apply to my situation, but the ones about victim statements etc. do, so I figured I’d pitch in my perspective anyway. Do with it what you will, even if what you will is “nothing.”
n/a
Because it wasn’t reported (and the statute of limitations is long past), there was no trial or sentencing or jail. As far as other outcomes are concerned, I am fairly secure in the knowledge that he regrets it. I’ve heard secondhand he’s sad that he feels he only has one daughter left (crying himself to sleep at night, etc). There is nothing he could do at this point to repair our relationship, as I’ve voluntarily estranged him and that’s how it will stay until he dies. I can’t think of any other outcomes that I want, because nothing he can do or say would repair the damage he has done. I guess I would mostly hope that he never does it again. I was very relieved that it never happened to my sister.
Although my parents divorced shortly after the incidents (it happened on at least three separate occasions) for unrelated reasons, my sister and I spent every Sunday with him until I left home for college. So I spoke with him normally at many opportunities. These days I have no contact with him. There’s nothing I want from him anymore. I expect a half-inheritance check when he dies, and that will be the end of his failed experiment as a father. I know, since I’ve estranged him, that there’s a risk I’d be cut out of his will. Hopefully my sister would see fit to give me half, if that is the case.
He already did, a few years after it all happened. He kinda awkwardly hugged me when I was getting out of the car one day around age 13 or 14 (he wasn’t a big hugger usually) and said he was sorry. I knew what he was referring to. I still really don’t know why he did it (and no plans to ask), although I have a theory that his father sexually abused him and/or his siblings. He was an abusive alcoholic asshole (like his father) in general. Maybe it was a random compulsion that alcohol freed his inhibitions enough to try. I’ll never know, and knowing wouldn’t really bring me any sense of “closure,” whatever the hell that is. I’ve tried to move on with my life. Any further contact with him at this point would not do me good, it would only undo the progress I have managed to make. I’m satisfied that he is suffering the consequences of not having me as a daughter, and from his own conscience.
Perspective regarding the consequences… well if I had known then what I know now, I would have run screaming out of the room and told my mom about it right away. And these days, I’d never refrain from reporting a sexual crime against me, no matter who the perpetrator.
Before it happened, I didn’t really think about sexual abuse as an “issue” at all–I was only a tween. I knew the basics of sex, but I wasn’t having it or anything. I was more concerned with kid shit. So I don’t know how much the question really applies to the “change” aspect, since I’ve never had a perspective on sexual abuse without having been a victim of it. Overall in my life, what happened to me has definitely made me more aware of sexual crimes and their effects than I otherwise would have been. *Particularly *regarding how the vulnerability and immature perspective of a child will often motivate them not to report it, so the adults around children need to be aware of the signs of a sexually abused child.
I also never plan to have children, as a result of what happened to me. I can’t risk passing on these fucked-up genes. Thankfully my sister plans to adopt, or not to have kids at all. I secretly hope she follows through on that (not that I’ve discouraged her from having kids, but she’s a lesbian anyway, so having kids would be a planned and expensive affair). She’s 25 and I’m 27, and we’re his only 2 kids, so the gene pool dying out is looking good for his branch of the family tree. I don’t pray, but dear god, I can hope.
