Remember Brock Turner? From 3 Months Ago? He’ll Leave Jail On Friday.
Former Stanford University student, Brock Turner, was arrested on Jan. 18, 2015 for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. Turner was sentenced to only six months in county jail after being convicted of three felony sexual assault charges in March.
This Friday, Turner is set to be released from jail, having served only three months of his extremely lenient six-month sentence.
The 22-year-old’s light sentence was reduced to three months before he even stepped foot in a jail cell, due to “automatically applied ‘credits’” for good behavior prior sentencing. He was also in protective custody during his entire time behind bars. Given the charges against him, Turner had originally faced up to 14 years in prison.
Turner’s lenient punishment is the perfect example of what happens when rape culture and white privilege collide. It didn’t matter that there was mounting evidence against Turner, it didn’t matter that his victim was unconscious and alone, it didn’t even matter that Turner was convicted ― the young “promising,” “successful athlete” served only three months for assaulting a young woman whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit and who was reportedly unconscious for three hours on the night of the assault.
The horrific assault captured the attention of the entire country in June when BuzzFeed published the 23-year-old victim’s impact statement. The survivor read the gut-wrenching letter in court and addressed her attacker face to face.
The letter is a powerful commentary on sexual assault, victim-blaming and the insidious nature of rape culture.
“You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me, and that’s why we’re here today,” the young woman began her letter. “… Your damage was concrete; stripped of titles, degrees, enrollment. My damage was internal, unseen, I carry it with me. You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today.”