What is fair?

My friend Shelder recently posted this article on her Facebook: http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/95973419.html and my friend Liz commented on it, expressing her frustration that someone who goes and rapes little girls in developing countries only gets twelve years in prison. I agree with her, that a 12-year prison sentence doesn't seem long enough for someone who has done something so atrocious as taking advantage of people who are, no doubt, the most vulnerable in the world.

This got me to thinking about an article I read in the local newspaper (when I was washing windows, as it happens, because I use old newspaper instead of paper towels). Turns out the article wasn't as old as I thought it was: http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/cowichannewsleader/news/94192384.html . It's about a man in the area who killed someone's cat with a broom handle. Read the story if you want more information. What got me was that he only had to serve thirty days in prison. THIRTY DAYS! That's less than Martha Stewart got, and this guy took a life! Needless to say, I washed the window with the mugshot of this awful guy, making sure I really put some elbow grease into making a hole in the paper with the Windex and the wiping. Maybe as a (GP says overprotective, I just say doting) cat mother I place more value on the life of a cat than other people do, but jeez. I would place the severity of this crime with AT LEAST that of the rape of a person. Seriously.

I was talking about this with GP because it obviously had an effect on me (besides making me even more lovey with Friskies). As a lawyer, he tends to know a bit about the penal (ha, funny word) system. He agrees that it doesn't really seem like long enough, but it's as much (or more) about rehabilitation as it is about punishment. The more likely a criminal is to re-offend, based on past criminal behaviour, precedents, studies, and other evidence, the longer they have to be put in the slammer.

I guess that makes sense, but damn, how could anyone ever hurt this?