I loved that you brought up the trifrcta of victim support, appropriate punishment, and systemic change. I am on the board of a local advocacy group for victims of intimate crimes and it does all three - forensic interviews with victims and follow up support (mental health programming, referral services, etc), partnership with law enforcement, DCS, and prosecutors, and prevention training in schools. Engaging experts who know the space really well in helping think through all three elements is so important.
How is it that a parent gets held responsible and sent to prison for the actions of their child with a gun, but the social media trial holds Meta’s large bank account responsible with no mention of the role of parents in having allowed the access to begin with? Not that I have a lot of sympathy for Meta, but the determination of responsibility in those two decisions seems mismatched.
Also, as far as the criminal justice system, one (of many) flaws I see in it is the enforcer’s (the government’s) financial benefit from fining guilty parties. Speeding fines, etc. should not be sources of revenue, it feels like a conflict of interest and I’m quite skeptical that those kind of dollars collected find their way to anything having meaningful impact on “the people” for whom they are ostensibly collected. But, maybe I’m completely wrong. lol.
On the age limits for driver’s licenses, I think some nuance is that a driver’s license is a critical form of identification. My grandmother in law, who just turned 90, lost her license and got a replacement solely so she can cheaply, quickly, and easily prove her identity. She doesn’t drive and hasn’t for a while. If we put any limitations on the driver’s license, we need an alternative for photo ID that’s similarly accessible for people to get.
Does the universe balance the ledger? As a kid, I put my faith in this idea; if someone wronged me, surely God would deal with them. As I got older I lost faith in that. Now I think that sometimes the universe/God/our justice system/karma might deal out a bad hand to someone who has wronged me, but that same hand doesn't do me any good. So what if the person who harmed me gets a stroke, or loses at the track? How does that balance MY ledger?
For FAAFO to work, it has to work for the victims, not just cause harm to the perp. And on that note...what are the odds on Trump and his family/enablers getting sued in civil court for the billions in damages they've caused the American people? I've wanted Nuremberg trials, but I'll settle for OJ-style civil justice and the subsequent reduction in our national debt.
When I listened to the Outside of Politics episode, I thought of something that happened to a friend decades ago in Cambridge, Mass. She and her parents went into a new age shop. The owner was flustered because the store had just been held up at gunpoint. My friends' parents were all, "That's so horrible." (and worried about this place their kid was living in). The shop owner said, "That person must have bad karma." The parents said afterwards, "What about the store's karma? It must be pretty bad if they got held up in the middle of the day."
I came to this conversation as a person who worked in the county attorney’s office (prosecutor) for 22 years as a Victim/Witness Coordinator. I switched careers 4 years ago. The longer I worked in that field, the more I felt that the criminal justice system was broken at all points. It is traumatic for customs and their families. It is incredibly long. The outcomes never make anyone whole or healed.
I came to this conversation as a person who worked in the county attorney’s office (prosecutor) for 22 years as a Victim/Witness Coordinator. I switched careers 4 years ago. The longer I worked in that field, the more I felt that the criminal justice system was broken at all points. It is traumatic for victims and their families. It is incredibly long. The outcomes never make anyone whole or healed- victim or offender. My first thought on the SF case discussed today was she had a lawyer advising her from the get go- to move money and to not apologize. I can’t count how many times an offender’s apology was seen as too little, too late because it came at the end of the case. All of the professionals know that this is to protect the case and the defendant’s rights, but a victim or their family is not in a place to hear that as the reason. I felt so many times that the outcomes could have been so much better if we made space for apologies on the front end. By the time the case is at sentencing, any apology rang hollow.
I am not a complete prison abolitionist, but I am pretty damn close. I think there is a public safety question, but in reality very few people need to be kept from society long term. In my experience, very few people come out of prison any better than they went in…and their conviction presents them with a whole new set of problems going forward.
In my new career, I see how convictions and incarceration impact people long after they have completed their sentence. Some offenses leave them ineligible for SNAP or housing support. Employment or advancement opportunities are restricted. We keep punishing, but pretend that we don’t.
Yes, our current system doesn't stop punishing after sentences are over, which is cruel and unusual. I think our country is obsessed with feeling like we have control and absolute agency. We need to take credit for all our successes too, like there isn't any randomness or circumstance. We're afraid to admit we don't have control and accidents happen, including good ones like the "lottery of birth". We need everyone to be 100% responsible for their circumstances to prop up our capitalist system.
When I heard this episode, that is exactly what I thought - defendants are told not to apologize until the case is over because the apology might be used against them.
I like the idea of driving tests for older adults. It makes it routine and impartial instead of becoming a conflict or argument between adult children and their parents, which it seems like it often is.
I prefer consequences to punishments for sure. The difference is consequences are meant to teach you something and are focused on the actual situation while a punishment is just a negative action that has been assigned to certain infractions (like a fine, a ticket, or jail time). Punishments don't teach anything and they aren't distributed in a just way. I'm not sure fines should be an option if we want real justice. Don't get me started on mandatory minimums or zero tolerance policies! Serial podcast, Season 3 takes an inside look at the justice system at just one typical courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio (https://serialpodcast.org/season-three). It's illuminating.
I am not sure the idea of karma can be fully understood by people who don't practice the religions that derived the concept. I am also not Buddhist or Hindu. It's for sure not "comeuppance" or equality though. I think we get all caught up in this idea of "balance" but what most Americans think of as balance, is also equality, but those are not the same concepts. Like equity vs equality.
A system can most certainly be at equilibrium/balanced without things being equal. That's how nature functions all the time. It's always moving towards balance/equilibrium. If you think of a see-saw and move the fulcrum, you can balance two very different sized objects. You can also change the length of the platform to balance objects, move an object further in or out... and combine any number of alterations to achieve balance within even a simple system. Balance is not equality.
This conversation inspired a lot of questions and thoughts for me. But one was , how do you prank call these days? Isn’t everyone’s number right there now? Gone are the days of an anonymous call, right?
That was not my only takeaway, but it was one that I actually asked myself out loud. 😂 I don’t know what that says about me.
Edited because my fat thumb hit the blue arrow before I was ready. 😬
Great Question! Maybe it was businesses? I think it shows that kiddos need positive “things to do” whether it is jobs at home or out in society - paid or not. I am never regretful of the “work/task”things my kids learned while growing up But I am regretful of all the skills we never got to put into their toolbag for life.
I really loved when Beth said this... "I try to wire myself for grace and that it’s not that I want people to get what they deserve, it’s that I them to get better than they deserve."
If only everyone felt this way... what a world it could be!
I think I truly don't understand why it's ok for us to invade a sovereign nation and seize control over their shipping channel, oil, and uranium. We had a negotiated nuclear deal in place, then we backed out. Last year we bombed them for show, and then this year we bombed them again but for real this time, we took out their leadership and killed a lot of children, they retaliated, and now we get to take their territory? What rules are these? I'm genuinely asking. Where is the United Nations in all this? Is this a war or isn't it? Why is this happening? I read the Tangle write up on a ground invasion of Iran yesterday, and I immediately wrote my senator Roger Wicker, who I know won't do anything to stop this but he is chair of the Armed Services Committee, to ask him to convince Trump to declare whatever victory he feels is needed to stop this now and prevent further escalation. I don't care if the Republicans claim a "victory" (what even is victory here?) and trot it out as a win, just don't take this any further.
I honestly had not read about the accident that killed the family of four. My first thought was “where was that woman’s family?”
When it seemed like my mom was having some difficulty with driving consistently safe, I intervened. It wasn’t easy and honestly fractured our relationship. However, she made changes and found a woman who she could hire for set outings and I also drove her to appointments. This obviously wouldn’t work for everyone.
I strongly agree that laws need to mandate more testing for us as we age. When my mom turned 75 she needed a doctor’s note certifying she was healthy enough to drive. But 4 years later she just needed an eye exam. 😳 Crazy making - because no one wants to give up their independence and it’s hard to hang up the keys.
This was such an interesting discussion and gives me a lot to think about. Sarah was talking about the family and friends of the teacher killed during a prank asking for leniency on the teens, but then said we criticized the judge not wanting to give Brock Turner too much of a punishment because it would ruin his life, and implied that the situations were equivalent. But they are super different: Brock Turner didn't *accidentally* rape Chanel Miller. The teens doing the prank didn't actually do anything wrong - the teacher slipped or tripped and fell in front of the car. It was a true accident. But I think we don't let anything be just an accident anymore, because we always want to blame someone and make sure they are punished. And it is about punishment usually, not about rehabilitation or keeping dangerous people off the street.
I'm not *completely* against the idea of making older people retest for their license, but I think it's discriminatory. Maybe everyone should be retested after a certain number of years. I mean, I would hate that, but it would be more fair. We are honestly doing a lot wrong when it comes to licensing drivers, and I really think driver education needs to be MUCH more robust than it is now.
I feel like we do a lot of things to young drivers that are discriminatory but good for them. So, when I was 20, I got a ticket in a speed trap in a rural town between Atlanta and the University of Georgia. The county had an issue with college students drunk driving and having/causing accidents on their roads (none of which I did - the speed limit just went from 60 to 35).
But since I was under 21, they required me to do a drug test, defensive driving course, alcohol awareness training, and write an essay about safe driving in order to keep my license.
And you now what? I've been a much better driver since then. I would do a defensive driving class again now.
My car insurance has one of those apps that grades your driving, and I resisted it at first (and then decided that I would rather get the discount than protest the surveillance state) and having that feeling that someone is watching my driving has improved my driving.
So, that a long way of saying, I would be happy to make everyone do these things and jump through more hoops and renewals and ongoing trainings to get to drive.
I don't think setting restrictions or renewal requirements for older drivers is discriminatory. It's common knowledge that as we get older vision gets worse and reaction times slow down. Many states have mandatory vision screenings and require in-person renewals once people hit a certain age (data from 2014 but still interesting https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/keyprovisionsolderdrivers.pdf) .
100% on the more robust training! I think driver's refresher courses wouldn't hurt. We have roundabouts in Maryland and there are a lot of older drivers who were obviously never trained on how to use them 😬
But men under 25 have very high accident rates. People who smoke a lot of weed have slow reaction times. My aunt had a good friend who was a much better driver at age 80 than I will ever be. I much prefer the periodic testing of everyone, but that would cost money.
I'm not against periodic retesting for everyone. I think we can base it on age. We set age minimums, why not maximums. There will always be exceptions.
Yes to drivers education being more robust! My husband and I yesterday were talking about how people just straight up don’t know the rules of the road. (And earlier I commented about how no one knows to zipper merge and I feel like a jerk when I’m the one actually following the law.)
I am in my 50s and did not know about zipper merge until like a year ago! (I do know how to drive in a rotary though, which is more than I can say for most people in Massachusetts.)
Last night Gisèle Pelicot was here in NYC, sitting for an interview at 92Y, and as part of the evening parts of her book were read by Marissa Tomei and Mariska Hargitay. Ms. Pelicot talked about the crowds of women who came to the trial of her husband and the 50 men who raped her. How they passed notes to her and how letters came to her from all over the world, some of which were simply addressed Gisèle Pelicot, Courthouse, France. I hope she knows that she and Mariska have experienced something similar.
I think it would be nearly impossible to find someone in this country who has done more for victims of rape and sexual assault than Mariska Hargitay. When she first appeared on Law & Order SVU, women began approaching her on the street and passing her notes about their experiences. Over time, letters were coming in by the hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands. And that's when she decided to begin the Joyful Heart Foundation. While the foundation exists to support victims and healers, one of the biggest initiatives to come from it is "End the Backlog." Even when a victim comes forward, even when a rape kit is collected, there is no guarantee that anything will come of it. Thousands upon thousands simply take up space in storage rooms and warehouses.
It has taken 10+ years for End the Backlog to make a dent. We are now down to just 58,000~ untested rape kits in the states that report. Eight states don't even keep numbers. How many years could it possibly take to address the untold numbers of images posted online, both real and fake? Revenge porn laws are just now beginning to bubble to the surface. Now it's entirely possible to sexually assault another person without ever touching them. En masse. It's entirely possible to re-victimize every time an image is shared, uploaded, downloaded, or posted. It's entirely possible to be re-victimized with every Google search. There was very little justice before; what justice is there for this?
All this to say this is one area in which I am completely cynical about. I don't think there will be societal level change that turns the tide against rape, sexual assault, abuse, harassment, etc. You cannot reward it and also punish it. You cannot pretend to take it seriously and then put a victim on trial. You cannot hold to account when, as we learn over and over and over, that women and girls are currency for powerful men.
I loved that you brought up the trifrcta of victim support, appropriate punishment, and systemic change. I am on the board of a local advocacy group for victims of intimate crimes and it does all three - forensic interviews with victims and follow up support (mental health programming, referral services, etc), partnership with law enforcement, DCS, and prosecutors, and prevention training in schools. Engaging experts who know the space really well in helping think through all three elements is so important.
How is it that a parent gets held responsible and sent to prison for the actions of their child with a gun, but the social media trial holds Meta’s large bank account responsible with no mention of the role of parents in having allowed the access to begin with? Not that I have a lot of sympathy for Meta, but the determination of responsibility in those two decisions seems mismatched.
Also, as far as the criminal justice system, one (of many) flaws I see in it is the enforcer’s (the government’s) financial benefit from fining guilty parties. Speeding fines, etc. should not be sources of revenue, it feels like a conflict of interest and I’m quite skeptical that those kind of dollars collected find their way to anything having meaningful impact on “the people” for whom they are ostensibly collected. But, maybe I’m completely wrong. lol.
On the age limits for driver’s licenses, I think some nuance is that a driver’s license is a critical form of identification. My grandmother in law, who just turned 90, lost her license and got a replacement solely so she can cheaply, quickly, and easily prove her identity. She doesn’t drive and hasn’t for a while. If we put any limitations on the driver’s license, we need an alternative for photo ID that’s similarly accessible for people to get.
Oh that’s good to know. Clearly I’ve never needed that and didn’t do my due diligence.
I believe all states already issue photo IDs that do not confer driving privileges. My non-driving child had to get one to take the SAT.
Does the universe balance the ledger? As a kid, I put my faith in this idea; if someone wronged me, surely God would deal with them. As I got older I lost faith in that. Now I think that sometimes the universe/God/our justice system/karma might deal out a bad hand to someone who has wronged me, but that same hand doesn't do me any good. So what if the person who harmed me gets a stroke, or loses at the track? How does that balance MY ledger?
For FAAFO to work, it has to work for the victims, not just cause harm to the perp. And on that note...what are the odds on Trump and his family/enablers getting sued in civil court for the billions in damages they've caused the American people? I've wanted Nuremberg trials, but I'll settle for OJ-style civil justice and the subsequent reduction in our national debt.
When I listened to the Outside of Politics episode, I thought of something that happened to a friend decades ago in Cambridge, Mass. She and her parents went into a new age shop. The owner was flustered because the store had just been held up at gunpoint. My friends' parents were all, "That's so horrible." (and worried about this place their kid was living in). The shop owner said, "That person must have bad karma." The parents said afterwards, "What about the store's karma? It must be pretty bad if they got held up in the middle of the day."
I came to this conversation as a person who worked in the county attorney’s office (prosecutor) for 22 years as a Victim/Witness Coordinator. I switched careers 4 years ago. The longer I worked in that field, the more I felt that the criminal justice system was broken at all points. It is traumatic for customs and their families. It is incredibly long. The outcomes never make anyone whole or healed.
I came to this conversation as a person who worked in the county attorney’s office (prosecutor) for 22 years as a Victim/Witness Coordinator. I switched careers 4 years ago. The longer I worked in that field, the more I felt that the criminal justice system was broken at all points. It is traumatic for victims and their families. It is incredibly long. The outcomes never make anyone whole or healed- victim or offender. My first thought on the SF case discussed today was she had a lawyer advising her from the get go- to move money and to not apologize. I can’t count how many times an offender’s apology was seen as too little, too late because it came at the end of the case. All of the professionals know that this is to protect the case and the defendant’s rights, but a victim or their family is not in a place to hear that as the reason. I felt so many times that the outcomes could have been so much better if we made space for apologies on the front end. By the time the case is at sentencing, any apology rang hollow.
I am not a complete prison abolitionist, but I am pretty damn close. I think there is a public safety question, but in reality very few people need to be kept from society long term. In my experience, very few people come out of prison any better than they went in…and their conviction presents them with a whole new set of problems going forward.
In my new career, I see how convictions and incarceration impact people long after they have completed their sentence. Some offenses leave them ineligible for SNAP or housing support. Employment or advancement opportunities are restricted. We keep punishing, but pretend that we don’t.
Yes, our current system doesn't stop punishing after sentences are over, which is cruel and unusual. I think our country is obsessed with feeling like we have control and absolute agency. We need to take credit for all our successes too, like there isn't any randomness or circumstance. We're afraid to admit we don't have control and accidents happen, including good ones like the "lottery of birth". We need everyone to be 100% responsible for their circumstances to prop up our capitalist system.
When I heard this episode, that is exactly what I thought - defendants are told not to apologize until the case is over because the apology might be used against them.
I like the idea of driving tests for older adults. It makes it routine and impartial instead of becoming a conflict or argument between adult children and their parents, which it seems like it often is.
I prefer consequences to punishments for sure. The difference is consequences are meant to teach you something and are focused on the actual situation while a punishment is just a negative action that has been assigned to certain infractions (like a fine, a ticket, or jail time). Punishments don't teach anything and they aren't distributed in a just way. I'm not sure fines should be an option if we want real justice. Don't get me started on mandatory minimums or zero tolerance policies! Serial podcast, Season 3 takes an inside look at the justice system at just one typical courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio (https://serialpodcast.org/season-three). It's illuminating.
I am not sure the idea of karma can be fully understood by people who don't practice the religions that derived the concept. I am also not Buddhist or Hindu. It's for sure not "comeuppance" or equality though. I think we get all caught up in this idea of "balance" but what most Americans think of as balance, is also equality, but those are not the same concepts. Like equity vs equality.
A system can most certainly be at equilibrium/balanced without things being equal. That's how nature functions all the time. It's always moving towards balance/equilibrium. If you think of a see-saw and move the fulcrum, you can balance two very different sized objects. You can also change the length of the platform to balance objects, move an object further in or out... and combine any number of alterations to achieve balance within even a simple system. Balance is not equality.
For those of you who love a little homework, this article pairs well with the topics of today’s episode. About the addictive nature of revenge:
https://slate.com/life/2025/07/drug-brain-addiction-revenge-public-health-death.html
This conversation inspired a lot of questions and thoughts for me. But one was , how do you prank call these days? Isn’t everyone’s number right there now? Gone are the days of an anonymous call, right?
That was not my only takeaway, but it was one that I actually asked myself out loud. 😂 I don’t know what that says about me.
Edited because my fat thumb hit the blue arrow before I was ready. 😬
Great Question! Maybe it was businesses? I think it shows that kiddos need positive “things to do” whether it is jobs at home or out in society - paid or not. I am never regretful of the “work/task”things my kids learned while growing up But I am regretful of all the skills we never got to put into their toolbag for life.
I really loved when Beth said this... "I try to wire myself for grace and that it’s not that I want people to get what they deserve, it’s that I them to get better than they deserve."
If only everyone felt this way... what a world it could be!
I think I truly don't understand why it's ok for us to invade a sovereign nation and seize control over their shipping channel, oil, and uranium. We had a negotiated nuclear deal in place, then we backed out. Last year we bombed them for show, and then this year we bombed them again but for real this time, we took out their leadership and killed a lot of children, they retaliated, and now we get to take their territory? What rules are these? I'm genuinely asking. Where is the United Nations in all this? Is this a war or isn't it? Why is this happening? I read the Tangle write up on a ground invasion of Iran yesterday, and I immediately wrote my senator Roger Wicker, who I know won't do anything to stop this but he is chair of the Armed Services Committee, to ask him to convince Trump to declare whatever victory he feels is needed to stop this now and prevent further escalation. I don't care if the Republicans claim a "victory" (what even is victory here?) and trot it out as a win, just don't take this any further.
I honestly had not read about the accident that killed the family of four. My first thought was “where was that woman’s family?”
When it seemed like my mom was having some difficulty with driving consistently safe, I intervened. It wasn’t easy and honestly fractured our relationship. However, she made changes and found a woman who she could hire for set outings and I also drove her to appointments. This obviously wouldn’t work for everyone.
I strongly agree that laws need to mandate more testing for us as we age. When my mom turned 75 she needed a doctor’s note certifying she was healthy enough to drive. But 4 years later she just needed an eye exam. 😳 Crazy making - because no one wants to give up their independence and it’s hard to hang up the keys.
This was such an interesting discussion and gives me a lot to think about. Sarah was talking about the family and friends of the teacher killed during a prank asking for leniency on the teens, but then said we criticized the judge not wanting to give Brock Turner too much of a punishment because it would ruin his life, and implied that the situations were equivalent. But they are super different: Brock Turner didn't *accidentally* rape Chanel Miller. The teens doing the prank didn't actually do anything wrong - the teacher slipped or tripped and fell in front of the car. It was a true accident. But I think we don't let anything be just an accident anymore, because we always want to blame someone and make sure they are punished. And it is about punishment usually, not about rehabilitation or keeping dangerous people off the street.
I'm not *completely* against the idea of making older people retest for their license, but I think it's discriminatory. Maybe everyone should be retested after a certain number of years. I mean, I would hate that, but it would be more fair. We are honestly doing a lot wrong when it comes to licensing drivers, and I really think driver education needs to be MUCH more robust than it is now.
Re: discriminatory requirements for driving
I feel like we do a lot of things to young drivers that are discriminatory but good for them. So, when I was 20, I got a ticket in a speed trap in a rural town between Atlanta and the University of Georgia. The county had an issue with college students drunk driving and having/causing accidents on their roads (none of which I did - the speed limit just went from 60 to 35).
But since I was under 21, they required me to do a drug test, defensive driving course, alcohol awareness training, and write an essay about safe driving in order to keep my license.
And you now what? I've been a much better driver since then. I would do a defensive driving class again now.
My car insurance has one of those apps that grades your driving, and I resisted it at first (and then decided that I would rather get the discount than protest the surveillance state) and having that feeling that someone is watching my driving has improved my driving.
So, that a long way of saying, I would be happy to make everyone do these things and jump through more hoops and renewals and ongoing trainings to get to drive.
I don't think setting restrictions or renewal requirements for older drivers is discriminatory. It's common knowledge that as we get older vision gets worse and reaction times slow down. Many states have mandatory vision screenings and require in-person renewals once people hit a certain age (data from 2014 but still interesting https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/keyprovisionsolderdrivers.pdf) .
100% on the more robust training! I think driver's refresher courses wouldn't hurt. We have roundabouts in Maryland and there are a lot of older drivers who were obviously never trained on how to use them 😬
But men under 25 have very high accident rates. People who smoke a lot of weed have slow reaction times. My aunt had a good friend who was a much better driver at age 80 than I will ever be. I much prefer the periodic testing of everyone, but that would cost money.
I'm not against periodic retesting for everyone. I think we can base it on age. We set age minimums, why not maximums. There will always be exceptions.
Yes to drivers education being more robust! My husband and I yesterday were talking about how people just straight up don’t know the rules of the road. (And earlier I commented about how no one knows to zipper merge and I feel like a jerk when I’m the one actually following the law.)
I am in my 50s and did not know about zipper merge until like a year ago! (I do know how to drive in a rotary though, which is more than I can say for most people in Massachusetts.)
Last night Gisèle Pelicot was here in NYC, sitting for an interview at 92Y, and as part of the evening parts of her book were read by Marissa Tomei and Mariska Hargitay. Ms. Pelicot talked about the crowds of women who came to the trial of her husband and the 50 men who raped her. How they passed notes to her and how letters came to her from all over the world, some of which were simply addressed Gisèle Pelicot, Courthouse, France. I hope she knows that she and Mariska have experienced something similar.
I think it would be nearly impossible to find someone in this country who has done more for victims of rape and sexual assault than Mariska Hargitay. When she first appeared on Law & Order SVU, women began approaching her on the street and passing her notes about their experiences. Over time, letters were coming in by the hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands. And that's when she decided to begin the Joyful Heart Foundation. While the foundation exists to support victims and healers, one of the biggest initiatives to come from it is "End the Backlog." Even when a victim comes forward, even when a rape kit is collected, there is no guarantee that anything will come of it. Thousands upon thousands simply take up space in storage rooms and warehouses.
It has taken 10+ years for End the Backlog to make a dent. We are now down to just 58,000~ untested rape kits in the states that report. Eight states don't even keep numbers. How many years could it possibly take to address the untold numbers of images posted online, both real and fake? Revenge porn laws are just now beginning to bubble to the surface. Now it's entirely possible to sexually assault another person without ever touching them. En masse. It's entirely possible to re-victimize every time an image is shared, uploaded, downloaded, or posted. It's entirely possible to be re-victimized with every Google search. There was very little justice before; what justice is there for this?
Yet another reason to dismantle the patriarchy and bring back matriarchy.
All this to say this is one area in which I am completely cynical about. I don't think there will be societal level change that turns the tide against rape, sexual assault, abuse, harassment, etc. You cannot reward it and also punish it. You cannot pretend to take it seriously and then put a victim on trial. You cannot hold to account when, as we learn over and over and over, that women and girls are currency for powerful men.
That Gisele Pelicot story haunts me... there were so many more men they couldn't identify to bring to trial and this was just a small town in France.