In 2008, Amber Roderick and two twelve-year-old girls cornered two boys in a park. The girls kidnapped the nine and ten-year-old boys, beat them, shoved a stick down one of the boy’s throats, and forced the boys to perform oral sex on each other. For this, Amber received two years in a juvenile facility. Shortly after her release she did this:

Amber Roderick, 19, lured the 16-year-old girl to a party after meeting her in the street then joined two men in a horrific rape attack. The victim was plied with drugs and alcohol at the home of one of the men who subsequently raped her in the bathroom. A judge heard that she was held at knifepoint during at least one of the rapes. Joseph Lawrence, 29, brandished the blade before forcing himself on the girl and afterwards threatened to stab her in the face if she told anyone what had happened. The court heard Roderick sexually assaulted the girl while rubbing dog shampoo over herself and also encouraged 26-year-old Patrick Maughan to abuse the innocent victim. The teenager eventually managed to flee and the trio were arrested while still drunk from the party, but the court heard how even in police cells Roderick was heard threatening to kill her victim.

This is the problem with slaps on the wrists, particularly for female offenders. While most people charged with sex crimes do not re-offend, many of those who commit violent assaults do, and the often repeat the same thing that landed them in custody. Had Amber sentenced with more than two years and not released early, perhaps she would not have assaulted someone else. Had someone bothered to monitor her perhaps this could have been avoided.

Instead, Amber got a pass and an early release, which only allowed her to re-offend. One of the mother’s of the boys Amber assaulted warned the authorities that she thought Amber would re-offend. They paid no attention to that, and they did not tell her that Amber had been released.

For those who seem to relish the notion that female-on-male sexual violence is an essentially victimless crime, this is what the mother said her son goes through:

The mum has previously told how the attack turned her “outgoing and comical” son into a recluse who is now afraid for his life. “He’s not the same boy,” she said. “He sits in his room all day, playing computer games. He won’t go anywhere without someone to go with him. “My son can’t get through a day without showering several times – he just feels dirty all the time, he feels like he can’t get clean. “He cries all the time and we can hear him thrashing around in bed when he has nightmares – I am afraid that he will never get over that. “The family can’t get over that.”

That hardly sounds like the negligible harm so many feminists have suggested since the CDC released its sexual violence report. It sounds like the boy was truly traumatized, which is all the more reason Amber should have received a longer sentence the first time around.

She now faces an indefinite sentence with a minimum of four years. That means that she can be released in four years in the courts decide she is no longer a threat, or she can be held until such a time comes. Given what the courts did previously, there is a good chance she will walk in four years.