Some real effects of the US approach to crime - Part 3

Anecdote: Hedda Nessbaum was beaten almost daily by Joel Steinberg. He hit her about the head with an iron bar, he burst her spleen, he made her sit for hours in ice water and he burned her repeatedly with a blow torch.

I have met Hedda - her face shows the brunt of countless violent beatings and her eye waters constantly from a broken tear duct. When Joel killed Hedda's eight-year-old daughter Lisa, Hedda, covered from head to toe with clearly visible cuts and bruises was charged with attempted murder. It took 10 months and the intervention of no less a lawyer than Barry Scheck (one of OJ's dream team) to get the charges dropped.

Janet Loch wasn't so lucky and she didn't have the kind of money to hire a Barry Scheck. Janet Loch's violent ex-boyfriend brutally raped her daughter in her presence. As a result Janet served 5 years in prison - not the kind of grief counselling I would have recommended.

The facts of the case are disputed by various parties but some facts seem clear - it is not in dispute that Janet did not intervene in the attack or call 911 when her daughter was being raped. It is also not in dispute that Janet was beaten repeatedly and viciously by her ex-boyfriend for 2 years, that she had called the police a number of times when he assaulted her and she had taken out a restraining order out against him.

It is natural to wish that it never happened, I certainly wish that she had called 911. Does anyone think for a moment she should have served 5 years in prison? Oh and spare a thought for the daughter, after a horrendous life at the hands of adults she was entrusted to she was left without a mother for five years. She isn't alone. 75 per cent of imprisoned women are mothers, many of them are single mothers.