I respect your opinion and ALMOST didn't add in the "forever" word in my post. The main point is that the FANATICAL, "Let's round up and butcher all the pedophiles!" culture over here are mostly lunatics and often covering for their own guilt. The second part of my statement you cut off was the more important one.
That said, I do respectfully think your sentences for raping a child are too short. The major issue with pedophiles is that we lack the ability to "cure" them so locking them up is just for the safety of children.
When determining the appropriate sentence, the judge has to consider several aspects of the case. The extent to which the defendant presents a danger of harm to the public, or particular sections of the public, is certainly one of them, but that should be a decision for the court, based on the evidence presented during the trial and in pre-sentencing reports and submissions, about the individual defendant and the risks he poses. Even then, in the most serious cases not involving murder, the judge still has to decide whether to impose a life sentence with a long minimum term to be served before release on licence can be considered by a parole board at the time or to impose a full life order, with no possibility of release ever.
I was once involved in such a case, involving one of the most frightening men I've ever encountered, a young man in his early 20s who fell to be sentenced on repeated charges of rape and false imprisonment of women from different towns and cities he'd met on online dating services and then travelled to meet at their homes, or invited to his home, and who had (at least according to evidence on his PC and mobile phone) probably assaulted many more. Basically, he seemed genuinely unable to understand that the fact a woman had consented once to have sex with him did not mean she'd thereby irrevocably consented to have sex with him on all subsequent occasions he might feel like it during the course of his visit. He'd then return home at the end of the weekend, or they would, and have no further contact with them.
Anyway, the man was clearly very dangerous and the judge, quite rightly, thought he had no alternative but to impose a life sentence. He then had to consider whether it should be a full-life sentence, with no possibility of parole. This he rejected for several reasons, one of which was that it was the same sentence he'd have imposed had the defendant raped and then murdered his victims, which would clearly have been even more serious.
Another was that he did not feel able, based on what he'd seen and heard, to say with any certainty what sort of a risk to society the man might impose several decades hence, so he was imposing a life sentence with a minimum term of imprisonment of (I think) 35 years, to reflect the severity of his offending, after which it would be up to a parole board to consider how, if at all, the defendant had benefited from the Prison Service's attempts to rehabilitate him. That didn't mean he'd necessarily ever be released, but it left the decision up to a parole board at the time. That seemed to me perfectly reasonable.
TL;DR Any form of sexual assault on a child is a grave criminal offence. However, there are degrees of gravity, and it is not in the interests of justice to impose the same, most severe, sentence in all cases.
fortune.com
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