Mother gets 30-day sentence for waterboarding baby, putting him in freezer, authorities say

canthidium@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 382 points –
Mother gets 30-day sentence for waterboarding baby, putting him in freezer, authorities say
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This will continue happening if the jail sentence is only 30 days...

Jail sentences were never detracting anyone from crimes. Crimes are either planned so the criminal does not think they will be caught or done out of emotion so the criminal does not think about possible punishment

The severity of the punishment is not an effective deterrent. This has been known since a UN study from the 1980s, yet people still cling to the belief that a long prison sentence or the death penalty is a good deterrent.

So long as the punishment is significant enough that it cannot be dismissed (eg a small fine is meaningless to someone wealthy), then the only effective deterrent is the certainty of being caught.

Could you share a link to that study?

I've done a little digging, I think it might be this book: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective.

It was mentioned at the end of this Amnesty International fact sheet (pdf) that it was first published in 1988 then updated, I think there was also a fifth edition in 2015 so maybe there's an even another new one now. I'm not sure if this is exactly the same source I saw previously, but that could be because of the various revisions.

If she's in jail she can't waterboard her kid and put it in the freezer again... Do you motherfuckers even think about what you're saying before you spout off with these tired arguments?

Same if they take away her kid.

Not really, there's still a baby freezing psychopath on the loose in that case. Who knows what she'll do to the next person she blames all her problems on.

Who knows what she'll do to the next person she blames all her problems on.

If they're not a baby... get a bigger freezer?

Until October 6, when she gets out of jail.

Unfortunately the foster system is also fucked.

This comment chain is in response to that sentence not being long enough. I'd gamble on the foster system over the known lady that puts the kid in the freezer.

The jail sentence has nothing to do with this happening.

This will keep happening while people are forced to bear kids they don't want in financial situations, where nothing can be afforded and everything is shit.

The mother was torturing her child because she needed to vent and her kid seemed like the root of all her problems, not because there were only 30 days of jail sentence.

And with poor access to mental health support.

Every time there's a mass shooting, Republicans say, "guns aren't the problem, mental health is" and then they want to do absolutely nothing about it.

The only conclusion you can make is that they like mentally ill people who torture and murder.

Exactly. Then they'll take that and turn it into fear. Then they'll take that fear and blame the Democrats for it. Then their base with their room temperature IQ will eat that shit up and show up on voting day and vote for hatred and projection while being completely oblivious to the fact it's their party's fault nothing is being done about it.

...they like mentally ill people who torture and murder.

Well I mean every political party tries to develop their base

I think that's only been a recent thing they've mentioned; mostly they seem to come out with the 'moar guns' line, or the good guys with guns statement, but that's coming from an outsider so it may well be different from your actual experience.

She said she actually did it to spite the father...

Yes, I wrote this somewhere else, but my point still stands. The kid seemed as the root of all her problems and the jail sentence did never occur to her.

This is not an excuse (as some people said) it is still a horrible thing to do. I just want to make people aware, that these thing point to systemic problems and not necessarily evil people.

Do you have evidence this woman was forced to bear this child? I didn't read that in the article. And since you provided your opinion of why the mother did this to the child, I know for a fact you didn't read the article.

Do you have evidence this woman was forced to bear this child?

I do not, but I also rather meant my text as generalization for parents harming their children this much.

Okay, let's look into the article to see if a jail sentence would help.

Authorities said while the officer was taking McDonald to jail, she said that her actions were done as a test to see if the child’s father “gave a f--k at all,” adding she waterboarded her baby to try and make Neal come back to the apartment.

She allegedly admitted her actions were done “out of spite.”

I would argue, this crime has nothing to do with the sentence and everything to do with the circumstances I and others have mentioned.

And maybe she didn't want to abort, but also maybe she would have chosen to, if it were more accepted and education in that matter was better.

A lot of maybes and speculation. Sure, education is never a bad thing, but you're trying to use this horrible situation to push your beliefs. This woman hurt her own child to spite the child's father.

I made no mention of the jail sentence. You made a claim that was false. I responded to it with facts from the article. You responded with some "maybes" and speculation.

I think it's pretty messed up to use this situation to push your opinion how having access to abortion (being "forced" to bear this child) might have prevented this. There's a time and a place for such an argument.

... And apparently the place is not the comment section under the link to the article. Cool.

Have it your way, but be careful to never think about systemic problems too much. It may hurt your brain.

But Oregon has had widely available abortion for decades, since the late 60s/early 70s.

This lady also lives in Multnomah County, home of Portland, one of the most progressive cities in the US. She had access to many resources although it so kind like she didn't use them.

Haha just had to get one insult in, didn't you? The sign of a petty personality. Just couldn't agree to disagree, could you? Nope. Just haaaaaad to drop an insult. Feels like reddit all over again.

Oh, Mr. "pretty messed up" doesn't want to hear an no-no-word directed at them? Shocking.

Oh, I didn't realize that poor financial situations excuse people from waterboarding babies

Did I write that somewhere? No.

Did I mean it? No.

Okay, but do you think, that maybe her life was so shitty, that she didn't even care for her kid and that this is maybe even a systemic problem and she has no way of solving that herself?

Holy shit please tell me you don't have kids.

I have kids and wouldn't harm them even if there was no jail sentence and I would gain money from it. What is your point?

"She was torturing them because she needed to vent." Sounds an awful lot like justifying her actions.

It is a justification. Still abhorrent and unforgiven, but it is still better than just seeing this as a singular incident with no corralation to any other such occurrence. Highlighting this as a systemic problem would really help all involved.

Shunning those who point these errors out will not help however.

Pretending the incident was random and unpredictable is your preferred way of preventing incidents like this from happening again?

Figure out what how and why the problem came to exist, that's kinda a big part of solving it.

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