Jules High case: Should we be shocked?

When the National Prosecuting Authority decided against charging two boys aged 14 and 16 for the gang rape of a 15-year-old Jules High School girl the public were outraged.

The general view being held was that the criminal justice system in this country had gone to hell and was a major cause of the unacceptably high levels of crime.

As I repeatedly pointed out the NPA and the police needed to ensure that the evidence matched the charges and referred you to Chapter 14 of the Criminal Procedure Act dealing with charging of suspects.

Yesterday the national director of public prosecutions, Advocate Menzi Simelane, confirmed that they would be charging all three parties including the complainant herself with statutory rape.

Everyone was taken aback: Why would you charge this poor little girl that was drugged and then gang raped?

Today Independent Online revealed exactly why :

The complainant, during a brief appearance in the Magistrate’s Court, admitted, for the first time, that she had had consensual sex with the two boys.

Their cases have since been postponed to December 1 for a final order, all three having been placed on a diversion programme. This is a course undertaken by young offenders, as agreed between the prosecutors and the defence attorneys, where after all three — subject to their having attended and complied with its requirements — have their charges withdrawn.

The state, unlike the general public, would rather educate minors — who often don’t know better — than consign them to the scrap heap before they even get started in life.

There is, however, one little point that I feel still needs looking at — that the criminal justice system in this country had gone to hell and Joe Public is the victim of it.

Let’s use the Jules High School incident as our example.

I trust that we all understand that Jules High just happens to be the place where this one took place. You could substitute the name for many of our schools and other institutions.

Last night my wife and I watched an episode of South Park featuring US socialite Paris Hilton.

Paris is coming to South Park for the opening of Paris’s store, “Stupid Spoiled Whore”. All the little girls want to become “stupid spoiled whores” so that they can be just like Paris. The whole episode then revolves around Paris and her outlandish behaviour and how these little girls are trying to emulate it.

My wife was shocked at the depravity of South Park.

Truth is that even though it is an exaggerated take on the situation it is not far removed from where we are.

Try watching Lady Gaga, Paris, Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera in action. Each one tries to outdo the other in terms of how slutty they can dress — or in some cases — behave.

If you’re not singing in your panties you’re so last year.

And while I guarantee you that most parents will switch off South Park, very few of them would turn off these “superstars”. Ever heard them singing live? Why do you think they lip-sync? Take them out of the sound engineering of a studio and your sister could sing better.

Yet their behaviour and dress code (panties?) is what your daughters believe is appropriate.

So why are we shocked when we find our daughters on a school playground behaving like this?

Paris has put some smut out onto the internet, Britney gets out of cars without underwear, Kim Kardashian’s big break was in adult TV, Lady Gaga is huge because she out trashes all the rest of them.

Yet these are the role models your daughters have to guide them on what’s cool and what’s not.

The criminal justice system in this country has not gone to hell it simply has to live within the law and budgetary constraints.

Yet it generally does a fabulous job despite having to deal with a society whose value system has become so warped that at times it is difficult to understand what society sees as crime.

In the line of work I was in it’s very hard to be a prude because you become immune to just how awful human beings can be.

Yet it never fails to amaze me how parents bringing up children in this age of information, and allowing them access to anything and everything, can be shocked when their children behave like this.

All you can ever do is educate your children and pray that they will be safe — the system can only offer very limited protection or a measure of revenge against those we believe have wronged us.

Nothing more.