Recently the courts heard Luke Strimbold's lawyer painting a picture of his client as an adult who was himself abused as a child, and said essentially that because of that, he didn't know any better. His Lawyer requested a mere 18 months in prison, while the crown attorney requested four to six years, similar to what is given for stealing a nice car.
Using past abuse as a defence does no good for society. It sends the message that we are not responsible for our own actions. It encourages us to excuse our bad behaviours if we can possibly blame someone else.
I realize it has got to be difficult to come up with arguments when defending a predator, but seriously, some arguments should be struck from the record, and this is one of them. Following Strimbold's lawyer's logic, there would be no decent people left on earth. I am not a math person, but it wouldn't take very many generations for every single person alive (or, more likely, dead) to be either a child molester, murderer, and/or terrorist.
Abuse has a serious impact on people, but this defence paints every abused person as a potential abuser, and that is wrong. It is unfair, and unjust. By some miracle, it is more common for abused children to grow up to be decent people than it is for them to horribly abuse in turn. Science still has no good explanation for the hows and whys of this, but we are all grateful for this fact.
The majority of people have a general knowledge of right and wrong, and though they themselves were abused, simply decide that this will never happen to a child under their care or protection. If they find themselves seriously negatively impacted, most people work hard to recover and be safe adults. Many abused adults choose to become advocates to improve safety in places like sports teams, schools, children's events, choirs, etc.
Common decency, the normal "morally correct behaviour" that most people practice, exists because people work at mastering their desires, passions, and tendencies. When a person goes too far outside these boundaries, something is seriously wrong.
Acknowledging that the majority of abuse survivors do not grow up to be abusers, makes what Luke Strimbold did more grievous. He chose to do it. At some point, his sick mind decided that his selfish, twisted desire to dominate mattered more than the vulnerable child he was abusing. That is not normal.
Normal human behaviour is to protect the vulnerable. Let's hope the judge will have chosen to take that into account.
