FIFTH COLUMN

In January last year, two PhD students in Stanford University chanced upon Brock Allen Turner sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside a frat party. When Brock realized he had been spotted, he tried to escape. Thankfully, he was caught and put on trial, and was convicted last month on three counts of felony, including assault with intent to commit rape and sexual penetration of an unconscious person. However, in a move that sparked global outrage, the sentencing judge, Aaron Persky, gave Brock a mere six months in jail for his crimes. Persky justified his leniency by saying that a jail sentence would have a "severe impact" on the young boy's life, especially since he had wanted to be an Olympic swimmer.

At the sentencing, the survivor read out a long, gut-wrenching statement that was meant as much for Persky as for her assailant. Another letter, however, caught the people's attention for entirely different reasons. The attacker's father, Dan Turner, wrote to the judge stating that "incarceration is not the appropriate punishment for Brock". The content and language of the letter are disturbing, and immediately shift focus onto the assailant's parents, the people who shaped his life. It is clear from the letter that Dan Turner does not believe his son did anything wrong. By maintaining a telling silence, Brock's mother, Carleen, indicates that she agrees with her husband. Indeed, few parents are able to accept the fact that their children may be capable of doing harm - and this often leads to larger problems. In the letter, Dan Turner tried to illustrate how badly the rape and the trial had affected his son - he wrote that Brock had lost his "welcoming smile" and appetite. (The fact that he no longer relishes a "big ribeye steak" was presented as proof of this). And then, in what is perhaps the most distressing part of the letter, he grossly conflates rape with sex when he says that imprisoning Brock for a mere "20 minutes of action" would be too harsh.

This, then, was the heartless language that highlighted why a boy barely out of his teens believed that he could get away with raping an unconscious woman. The instinct to protect one's young is natural, and, in most cases, perfectly understandable. The Turners, however, are different. Rather than show the survivor some kindness or indicate that they are aware of the gravity of the crime, they chose to project their son as the real victim. Dan Turner even offers the judge some advice: Brock, instead of being imprisoned, could be allowed to teach "other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity". The attempt to shift the blame onto the survivor is obvious here; it does not seem to have occurred to Dan Turner that it is sexual assault - not drinking or sexual promiscuity - that is punishable under the law.

There is little doubt that the trial has been hard for Dan and Carleen Turner. Parents are often blamed for their children's crimes, as was evident from the irrational outpouring of rage against the mother of the boy who killed 20 children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. But the public anger over the mercy shown to Brock is on account of the sense of privilege that fuelled his defence - his lawyers tried their best to discredit the survivor - and sentence. Directing criticism towards the Turners is not about holding them responsible for Brock's actions, but about recognizing that they did nothing to show that, as parents and as educated citizens, they understand the survivor's suffering, their son's crime, and the fact that he should pay for his actions. It is worrying that their appeal was not about Brock's innocence, but about setting him free. This is a boy who was never taught the difference between right and wrong. It is nobody's argument that Brock's parents should be made to account for his crimes. They should, however, have held him responsible.