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You are here: Home Life in News Focus Is Europe too lenient with sentencing convicts?

05/05/2008Is Europe too lenient with sentencing convicts?

A 15-year sentence for a man who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years has revived debate over Europe's lenient penal system.

VIENNA - Police say Josef Fritzl left a lot of human wreckage in his wake: the daughter he imprisoned and raped for 24 years, the seven children he fathered with her and the wife whose life he shattered.

Yet, for an atrocity that has stunned the world, he may wind up serving just 15 years in prison if charged, tried and convicted.

Practically speaking, that may translate into a life sentence for Fritzl, 73. But his case has revived a debate over Europe's lenient penal system - and whether harsher, U.S.-style sentencing guidelines might help deter such heinous crimes.

''Fifteen years for destroying human lives is unacceptable,'' said Harald Vilimsky, a public safety policy official with Austria's conservative Freedom Party. ''Any punishment that falls a single day short of a life sentence is a mockery of the victims.''

Many Europeans abhor the death penalty, and capital punishment is illegal across the 27-nation EU. But in many countries, even convicted murderers handed life sentences seldom serve more than 25 years.

In Germany, convicted rapists are punished with sentences of six months to five years. Serial cases, and those involving weapons or death threats, can fetch up to 10 years in prison - but also as little as 12 months.

Poland's maximum for rape is 15 years, and that would apply even for sexual assaults repeatedly carried out over two dozen years as alleged in the Austrian case. The standard time served? Two to 12 years.

''It's rare that anyone serves the full sentence in Europe,'' said James Whitman, a professor of comparative and foreign law at Yale. ''It's expected that people are let out early.''

US justiceIn the U.S., by contrast, first-degree rape is punishable by up to life imprisonment in states ranging from Maryland to South Dakota.

3 reactions to this article

tony posted: 08-05-2008 | 2:25 PM

What about referendums on death and life sentences, oh no governments only want democracy when it suits them, and change treaties (lisbon farce) to stop public votes.

Kay Rainsley posted: 16-05-2008 | 11:54 AM

I agree. Let's see what the people really want. The standard response to hanging was always 'We might hang the wrong person'. Things change, DNA has ensured that this will not happen. Have a referendum on hanging for heinous crimes - the sooner the better.

Dan C posted: 19-05-2008 | 2:19 AM

That's what you get in LIBERAL Europe...
Liberalism is a disease as Michael Savage says.
All one has to do is look at European history over the last 100 years to see how appeasement and apathy has slowly rotted the principles of right and wrong. It is wrong to imprison and rape - period. Life in jail should have been the minimum punishment for that POS. Thanks to LIBERALISM and socialistic left-wing movements here in the U.S. we have become a nation of p*ssies. Allowing criminals and minority groups to rule our nation and the world.

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