Dutch beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde, who served time in prison after he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl, won his second match at the Paris Olympics and received an even harsher reaction from the crowd on Wednesday than for his first match.
Okay so firstly, use some paragraphs, that was a wall of text.
Secondly, there’s a huge difference between releasing someone from prison after them serving their time and letting them go back to their normal life, and having that individual represent your country on the international world stage where they will gain a lot of fame. You see the problem there, he’s being put in a position of power, or at least he would be if the general public weren’t aware of who he is and what he did.
Fair point about the paragraphs. Other than that I disagree with you.
In the Netherlands you’ll need a certificate of conduct for many positions and if your criminal record is relevant to a position you won’t get the position. This is reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Ministry of Justice and Security. So if he applied for a job as a coach for children then he would obviously be refused because of his criminal record, given that there’s a direct link to his crime and logically a clear change for recidivism. But his criminal record is not relevant for his position as an athlete. There’s nothing that would stop someone with a criminal record to become famous in such a way. This is not a flaw in the system, it’s a choice that was consciously made. We choose to only limit peoples freedom where there would logically be a big chance of recidivism. We don’t want to ban people to the shadows where they should keep there head down in shame.
Also you seem to be missing the crucial point here: all of it should be decided by rule of law, not by self righteous media-fueled public rage. The media and the public aren’t properly informed nor equipped to weigh these things. The risk of misguided public hatred is immense. That’s not something we should want in our society.
Feel free to disagree but I think we should be very happy that this is the way it is, because this means people actually get a second chance.
Hang on he committed a heinous horrible act of utter depravity and you’re angry at me for being mad about it? How does that work how do you get off defending someone like that oh and by the way he didn’t serve his time he was let out early.
And calling him a pedophile when he actually is a pedophile is acceptable.
I’m not angry, just sharing my thoughts. How does it work? Like I said, I am against media-fueled public rage in cases like these.
He did serve his time, according to the Dutch rule. His initial sentence was longer because it was in the UK and over there they consider every sexual activity with a minor rape, where as in the Netherlands they differentiate between actual rape and misconduct.