One purpose of long prison sentences in the U.S is that they function as a control method. Different states have different rules for how this functions, in some states there are parole boards or mandatory paroles that let you out before all of your sentence is served with requirements that you live a relatively restricted life or you will be sent back to prison; in some states there is the concept of good time off for good behavior which means that you can only serve a portion of the time based on not getting in any trouble while in prison. I am supposing that in this case 18 years will actually mean a couple years, release on parole and being required to pay off fines to keep from being sent back to prison (the article says $25,000 worth of fines) - given however that he will probably be barred from having any job in web development as the condition of his parole and the chance of him ever completing parole is negligible (because of the fines). All that said, when you compare his offense and sentence to various types of offenses and sentences in California and American Criminal Justice systems it seems not at all disproportionate but astoundingly fair - to be sure actually doing 18 years for this does in most systems in this world seems barbarically cruel but to make it not cruel in the American system would be to make it unfair.
Yeah, I think there is a confluence of individuals that are mixing, āunconscionable, horrible, violent, inexcusableā into the same pot.
They are similar, but when you do any of those for years you should haveā¦ Something in return 
But I really do mean it actually is violently harmful to the person.
I know thereās a distinction between sexual harassment and physically violent crime, but Iām fairly sure psychological torture is still a type of torture.
Well, but isnāt there where violence as a word changes meanings? Is this violent (not challenging you)?
No, it was from a silly puppy. But an adult? Hell yeah!!
All that tells me is that āsome jurisdictionsā are guilty of violent crimes against language.
(You really want a GIF for a kiss-off animation, instead of something the intended recipient is not going to click.)
Oh, wow you should totally click it, sheās awesome!
How about when the US Military tested BZ on itās troops? Chemical agent 1000ās of times stronger than LSD. Caused some of the troops to commit suicide and caused deep psychological problems for most of the survivors.
Cāmon, I know we can find an interrelationship which bridges this definitional gulf.
Making examples of people is not compatible with justice. Justice has nothing to do with deterring other people.
Donāt mistake the banality of the crime, for itās severity.
Bollaertās actions may not have left behind a gruesome crime scene, but the aftermath was in many ways much worse.
What he did was far more insidious than many crimes which target only a single party. Considering the sheer number of victims who will long live with the fallout from his actions, 18 year sentence doesnāt sound unreasonable.
In English law, crimes of violence include threatening and abusive behavior. (This is one of the reasons that Internet trollies claim that the UK has higher rates of violence than the US - most of the crime we count as āviolentā is not included in US statistics.)
Many physically violent criminals only harm a few people. As you say, he harmed hundreds. Whatās more, he knew perfectly well he was doing it - or why did he think he could extort money from them?
18 years sounds about right, but also to be considered is why it took so long to shut him down. Letās hope the authorities agree that a single demonstrated case of extortion or blackmail should be enough to take action, in terms of search and, on probable cause, seizure.
Nigerian scammers work on the principle that only people who are dishonest will fall for their scam, and so they have no recourse to the police. The Nigerian scams are basically one lot of criminals stealing from another lot of potential criminals, by offering them money to do things which are obviously illegal. Iām afraid I have no sympathy for their victims, any more than I have sympathy for the people who invested money in Ponzi schemes that they knew were too good to be true, but thought they would get out before the scheme collapsed - which is apparently quite a common scenario, as in Albania and with a number of Madoffās clients.
This guy was going after people who had done nothing wrong at all, unless you are so perverse that you think being in a sexual relationship with somebody and trying to please them is wrong.
18 years because of quantity (he hurt a lot of people and committed the crime a lot of times) related to likeliness to re-offend (and insufficient sentence would practically guarantee he either go back to it or just jumped on the next arguable legal equivalent judging by the things heās said) combined with possibility of parole if that changes combined with the fact that he was completely unrepentant.
18 years doesnāt seem off at all for the number of lives heās ruined. And most murders that murdered in the way this guy committed his extortion (knowingly, without emotion, to make a profit) would get a minimum of 20.
Making examples of people is not compatible with justice. Justice has nothing to do with deterring other people.
Not sure why you say that. Thereās an argument to be made that extremely severe punishments are not particularly effective deterrents. From my very limited reading (back in undergrad psych), I am in agreement with the idea that lighter punishment with higher certainty that it will be applied seems a much more effective way engineer a justice system.
To argue that there is no relationship is punishment and deterrence is kinda absurd. If you want to argue that the idea of being caught and punished has absolutely no deterrent effect on any criminal activity, then Iāll ask you to provide some evidence of this.
When it comes to the severity of punishment vs certainty of punishment debate, these kinds of revenge porn businesses are pretty new and highly copiable. I have no idea how many are out there, but I imagine (hope) itās only a few high profile ones, and from what I understand thereās been multiple high-profile cases where the prick running it has been convicted. This suggests that maybe we are seeing a fairly high certainty that if you set these up, youāll do time. In this case the severity of the punishment seems related, as others have said, to the number of victims and the sociopathic nature of the way the crimes were committed, lack of remorse, etc. That seems like a good thing to me and something that should deter others from trying their hand at this kind of activity.
Bear in mind, weāre likely dealing with considered, calculating individuals. This isnāt a crime of passion, addiction, or desperation. They just clearly donāt have a problem with ruining peopleās lives in the name of profit (or they likely enjoy it). The idea of spending time in prison should serve to tip the scales in the other direction.
A wonderful civilized justice system you got there - next stop Thunderdome?
Btw this whole thing is a nice example why a lot of europeans think that there have to be certain restrictions on free speech (regarding the conflict of free speech with other rights, i.e. privacy) and why we got the whole āright to be forgottenā thing so many USians bicker about.
Does this set a sort of precedent for digital harassment?
Some of GGās most prominent, toxic faces are elligible for this, arenāt they?
Google is your friend. There are quite a few stories about photos of minors being digitally altered by total strangers and then loaded onto porn sites, and the damage that causes to everyone in the family, especially when (and it does happen too often, unfortunately) the child ends up attempting suicide as a result. It happens to adults too, of course, but stories about children and their angry, grieving parents seem to get more press.
So your solution is to explain to humanity that its taboos and mores are irrational and then the badness will go away.
Well, it does have a certain simplicity about it, but then so does waving a magic wand and saying āAbracadabraā.
If you actually try it, no, there isnāt anything particularly simple about it in practice. There is no ābadnessā, and no āawayā, there is only how you live and how far you are willing to go to defend it. Denouncing prudery makes your voice heard instead of accepting other peopleās neurotic shame.
Justice is different from deterrence. Cutting off the limbs of those who are not able to bribe the police or politicians when caught for drunk driving is a more effective deterrent than what we do in our country, no question. Itās a solid deterrent that works at keeping people from drunk driving.
But itās not justice.
Ruining the lives of people who engaged in revenge porn and happened to offend politicians who want money and votes from people that are afraid of their private lives showing up on revenge porn websites is certainly an effective deterrent but itās not justice.
You donāt see his sentence as justice. Got it. So what would be justice?
