Summary
A French court sentenced Dominique Pelicot, 72, to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping his ex-wife, Gisele Pelicot, and arranging for other men to rape her while unconscious over nearly a decade.
Of the 51 co-defendants, all were found guilty, with sentences ranging from less than 10 years to 20.
The trial, marked by shocking evidence, spurred national debate on rape culture and consent laws.
Gisèle’s courage in waiving anonymity has galvanized feminist movements, with campaigners calling her a national hero for sparking societal and legal reflection on sexual violence.
I always enjoy the Americans having their minds blown when they find out how a rehabilitative justice system works.
It’s crazy to me that they’ve set up a system that essentially requires recidivism in order to keep meat coming through the doors to function, and yet somehow think that that’s normal.
There’s this common myth that some people are ‘just born bad’. I think that might be true for some, but the majority of crime is due to circumstances. Americans as a whole just cannot seem to accept that, plus the lot of them seem to have massive schadenfreude boners over “law and order”.