{"id":285,"date":"2014-09-12T08:38:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T14:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/09\/second-base-40-years-the-human-cost-of-fighting-sexual-assault-plus-bonus-reflections-on-the-legal-system.html"},"modified":"2015-03-01T22:19:29","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T04:19:29","slug":"second-base-40-years-the-human-cost-of-fighting-sexual-assault-plus-bonus-reflections-on-the-legal-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/09\/second-base-40-years-the-human-cost-of-fighting-sexual-assault-plus-bonus-reflections-on-the-legal-system.html","title":{"rendered":"Second base = 40 years? The human cost of “fighting sexual assault” (plus bonus reflections on the legal system)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(I originally wrote this post this morning, and am now re-writing it in light of additional reading and thinking.)<\/p>\n

Last weekend, I read and wrote about a suspect study on college sexual assault<\/a>, and another on sexual assault among women of all ages<\/a>. \u00a0Here\u2019s a real-life story, from the local news section of the Chicago Tribune: \u00a0\u201cLocal \u2018Jeopardy!\u2019 champ charged with child sex assault<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The basics of the story: \u00a0a 28-year-old former Jeopardy champion, now working as a security guard in Arlington Heights, in northwest suburban Chicago, met a 15 year old from Wisconsin on the job. \u00a0They arranged to meet in Lake Geneva, went to a movie together, then \u201cparked\u201d in the teenage sense of the term \u2014 that is, they made out in his car, and he got to second base: \u00a0\u201cPolice said Slowik and a 15-year-old Wisconsin girl were found topless in the back seat of a Hummer parked on a cul-de-sac near Lake Geneva in Wisconsin.\u201d <\/p>\n

As a result,<\/p>\n

Jerome Slowik, 28, was charged in Walworth County, Wis., with second-degree sexual assault of a child, according to Wisconsin court records. He is due in court next month on the felony charge, which was filed April 16, records show. If convicted, he could face fines of up to $100,000 and 40 years in prison, according to prosecutors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here\u2019s something a commenter on the Trib story had to say:<\/p>\n

I know this guy and the story. \u00a0 She told him she was 18. When they got caught he was not arrested because the police found no cause and mutual consent. He was free to go the police took her to a friends because mommy wasn\u2019t home. When the police called the next day and mommy found out she lied to save her ass. That\u2019s the story.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you make of this? \u00a0Is your gut reaction, \u201cthis man is a predator and should be locked up\u201d? \u00a0Or something else?<\/p>\n

Her\u2019e some background: \u00a0according to a report in the local Daily Herald<\/a>, the man won $122,000 on Jeopardy earlier this year, but he works as a security guard at the Mitsuwa Marketplace nearby, a \u201cshopping mall\u201d for Japanese ex-pats. \u00a0He had a perfect score on the SAT and a near-perfect ACT score, but didn\u2019t attend college. \u00a0He lives with his parents. \u00a0And he\u2019s an aspiring writer, with a self-published book \u00a0on Amazon (kindle only), Sandland, with two five-star (and improbable) and one one-star (and more believable) review. <\/p>\n

What do you make of this? \u00a0It seems more likely that he is, at best, naive, possibly with deficits that prevented him from attending college, maybe even (though I\u2019m hardly a professional) autism-like tendencies (that is, social-skill deficiencies), happy that a girl chatted him up, unable to see warning signs, not really able to truly perceive that there\u2019s a 13-year age difference, or even recognize that, when she said she\u2019s 18, if she did in fact say that, she was lying. \u00a0Look at the video clip of the Jeopardy-watching \u201cparty\u201d on the link above \u2014 he seems perfectly ordinary but it\u2019s a pretty small gathering at the bar.<\/p>\n

One also wonders how a 15-year-old from Wisconsin ended up at Mitsuwa in the first place. \u00a0Was she there with her parents, or on her own? \u00a0And was there some further context that led to this date at Lake Geneva (a resort town just north of the Wisconsin state line)?<\/p>\n

(Yes, it\u2019s possible that there\u2019s more to the story, that he has a habit of picking up teenage girls and deceiving them, \u00a0and he\u2019s just a jerk, but it doesn\u2019t seem to me to be the case.) \u00a0 <\/p>\n

So I looked up the details on the definitions and penalties we\u2019re looking at here.<\/p>\n

Here is\u00a0a document<\/a>\u00a0describing all of Wisconsin\u2019s sex crimes and penalties; this dates from 2009, and penalties seem to have been stiffened since then, if he\u2019s now looking at a maximum of 40 years instead of 30. <\/p>\n

Some surprises:<\/p>\n