Woman Escapes Jail to Breastfeed
Background Story
A woman who smashed a glass bottle into the eye of a man, leaving him partially blinded has escaped jail as she claimed that only she could look after her baby as she is breastfeeding. The woman’s health visitor said that she didn’t know how the baby would react to formula or feeding from a cup or bottle.
Although woman are able to give birth in prison and care for their babies there, this scenario is not allowed post birth.
The Sherriff handed down a sentence of 300 community service hours rather than a custodial sentence.
Do you think that women should be allowed to escape a jail term if they are breastfeeding?
There are so many issues surrounding this situation that I thought it would make an interesting discussion.
For starters there is the fact that the woman has assaulted the man with serious consequence and would usually receive a jail term and therefore is it fair that she has been given a more lenient sentence because she is breastfeeding? I believe that punishments should always be served otherwise what kind of judicial system are we running here.
On the other hand is it fair that the child suffer because of the actions of the parent, if as the health visitor has implied that stopping breastfeeding and switching to formula would unsettle the baby, or is that something that the mother should have thought of before she assaulted the man. Personally I don’t think the child should suffer (if indeed that were to be the case) for the actions of the mother, so I guess I’m in a no win situation.
Very complicated, do you think the sheriff made the right decision?
What do you believe is the right course of action, and if the crime were more serious again, then what?
Reported in the Sunday Mirror
Sounds like someone with a lawyer who knows how to play the system. She belongs in jail for what she did to that man.
I have a real issue with prisons anyway and question their efficacy in general. If they are for protecting people from dangerous criminals likely to reoffend then I accept the need for them. If they are to make those found giulty of a crime face the consequences of their actions and compensate victims of crime then they are an abject failure.
A prison sentence rarely punishes only the perpetrator, whole familes are made to suffer, often for something as simple as not paying a TV licence! Thankfully, in the grand scheme of things, prison is one of the lesser used sentences, but when a man can receive a 2 year jail sentence for shoplifting a chicken to feed his family at the same time company directors illegally siphon off millions in tax dodges and insider deals and are lucky to get a fine, there’s something far wrong. The socio-economic background of the prison population would have you think only disadvantaged people break the law, which is clearly ludicrous.
Without knowing the full background of this case i.e. is she a persistent offender, does she have any drug dependancy issues, are she and her child already “in” and being failed by or failing to work with support services? I would, like you, resist a black vs white approach. I would tend to trust that background reports etc indicate this is an appropriate sentence and support the sherrif’s judgement. I’d be even more supportive if we could find some way of incorporating a degree of restorative justice into our community orders.
Great comment addressing many of the issues of our current system. I agree that sentences for certain crimes seem very short compared to more serious crimes, a review of sentence lengths would be good, also it should be the general public that decides the severity of sentences not on individual cases but in general.
Hmm. This reminds me of my old moral philosophy classes!
What the sheriff seems to be saying is that the right of the child not to be “unsettled” by a temporary physical adjustment outweighs the right of an adult not to be caused permanent physical harm. Doesn’t seem that logical to me.
And why couldn’t she just express her milk and then the baby wouldn’t be impacted at all?
Hi Sally,
I think the argument was that the baby wouldn’t adjust to a cup or bottle which would mean that expressing would be no good.
I think it would be quite frightening to involve “the public” in sentencing, given that most people believe crime is a huge problem increasing year on year despite all the evidence pointing to the opposite! I get very afraid of anything that involves applying an emotional response (such as the weekly Daily Mail call to arms for stiffer sentencing, getting tough on crime, and Britain for the British – urgh) to a situation one is not personally involved in. This is where restorative justice scores high, as both offender and victim can be involved in discussing and negotiating not only the sentence, but the implications of the offence for everyone affected. One of the worst thing our legal system does to both parties is remove their right to be heard and require professionals to speak on their behalf.
There exists a dichotomy – the law is applied dispassionately by a faceless legal system and it involves real people with real feelings requiring restitution and fair treatment which cannot be applied dispassionately.
Of course RJ only works for certain types of crime and I wouldn’t ever advocate that in the case of serious violence or sexual offences victims and offenders sit down and talk it out! I’m not quite that loony liberal.
Can you tell I am avoiding studying??