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Vancouver Area Teen Sentenced To 16 Months For Swatting
An anonymous reader writes: A 17-year-old from the Vancouver area in Canada has been sentenced to 16 months in youth custody and 8 months under supervision in the community after pleading guilty to 23 charges including criminal harassment, public mischief, extortion and uttering threats. The teenager was responsible for a number of swatting calls across the United States and Canada — mostly of female gamers. The judge told him, "It appears that when real life became too hard you retreated into the online world and became increasingly socially isolated. While you may think you enjoyed greater success in the online world, that success was an illusion. You were left with severely limited social skills and a significant educational deficit."
Sounds like a very reasonable and level-headed judge, making him completely ineligible for appointment to a higher court.
Yea, Americans have NO conception of time whatsoever. Most of my countrymen would happily send somebody to prison for 10+ years for even minor offenses. Punch somebody while you are both drunk? 5 years. They have no idea how long 5 years, how insane a punishment is, how badly their lives will be permanently destroyed, how many friends and family they will lose, just how much time really costs somebody. 16 months during that developmental period is a HUGE chunk of his life. You can recover from a SWATing in a few weeks, months if it hit you particularly hard. But 16 months in jail is basically making sure the rest of his life is seriously restricted and damaged. But for that many swattings? Sure. It fits. I even thought this one was a little light.
ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Because swatting sounds a lot like attempted murder to me.
Correct, but the militarization of SWAT and police in general SHOULD be the focus of the story. These little assholes wouldn't be swatting if it didn't evoke such a massive response from police.
Did you read the list of offenses this kid did? If you think he did all than just because SWAT teams react, and he is not the one that is primarily accountable.,., .well, I'll just have to assume you are the kid's mother.
The problem is like every cause its been taken over by the whack-a-doodles. Look at how MADD went from "We think you should call a cab when you've been drinking so you don't hurt anybody" (sensible and logical) to "Our ultimate goal is prohibition" (whack-a-doodle) or how PETA went from "We think food animals should be treated humanely" (sensible and logical) to "We'll call fish sea kittens and argue that germs should have the same rights as people!" (whack-a-doodle).
For those that think gamergate is about misogyny, or that social justice hasn't been taken over by the whack-a-doodles? I invite you to play a little game called "stormfront or social justice" where they simply remove the group being targeted and you have to choose whether it was written by a SJW or by a white supremacist. Congrats if you get even 50% correct because THAT is how whack-a-doodle the so called social justice "movement" has become, complete with calls for this or that group to be exterminated, this or that group should have their rights taken away, shit that would have sounded right at home at any Klan rally simply by changing the group.
So I'm sorry but "social justice" as a concept has been taken over, the sensible ones have been run out of the tent by ultra left wing racists that have total control of the platform.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm 58 and grew up just outside of Phila and can remember the TV commercial, Do you know where your children are? Well I think those commercials should run again but just a little different. Do you know what your children are doing online behind that Closed bedroom doors? Just an Idea. My daughters has her PC in the main living room. No TVs or PC in bedrooms allowed.
Jack of all trades,master of none
It also doesn't work, or there'd be a lot less convicts on Death Row.
Pretty much. I remember reading as study that deterrence effects are insignificant beyond 7 years of prison. IE there are a few crimes that somebody might willingly eat a 3 year sentence for that they wouldn't for 7 years. But any sentence beyond that will not deter one more person, so to hold somebody beyond that time it needs to be justified in that that one person is still too dangerous to be released.
For the AC: Standard statistical methods have been unable to find any deterrence effect to the death penalty over life in prison, or even much reduced sentences. Turns out that all but a statistically insignificant number of potential murderers are deterred by the death penalty but not the prospect of life in prison. Indeed, most don't consider that they're likely to be caught at all.
I don't read AC A human right