Foster Care Victoria

This article from the Age on the 20th of January is saddening.  It concerns the disparity in sentencing for child rapists, depending on the age of the child.  Perpetrators of children over ten years old are more likely to receive lenient sentencing, and may not be imprisoned at all. 

” Victoria’s County and Supreme Court records show that of the 193 people convicted of raping children aged 10 to 16, just 60 were jailed; 39 received wholly suspended sentences.”

 People who held positions of community trust were more likely to be sentenced (22 out of 28).  Does the severity and impact of this crime against children change according to the age of the child, or the job held by the perpetrator?   The inconsisency is concerning, and certainly does not send the community as a whole a particularly clear message about the devastation of child sexual abuse.  As Joe Tucci (CEO Australian Childhood Foundation) puts it, “we fail our children.”