A reader let me know that 39 years ago The Detroit Free Press published a very admirable piece of investigative journalism that looked at the judicial treatment of sex offenders in Michigan. Investigative journalists conducted a five-month study of sex crimes and their penalties in Michigan. The study was prompted in part by a one-year county jail sentence given to Upjohn Pharmaceutical heir Roger Gauntlett of Kalamazoo, who pleaded no contest to raping his stepdaughter for over seven years.
Back in 1984, when newspapers rather than victim family members used the Freedom of Information Act, the Free Press obtained and evaluated state computer tapes containing the names, sex, race and 27 other kinds of information used in 3,742 sentencings from 1981-1983 under Michigan’s criminal sexual conduct law.
One section on June 25, 1984 dealt with cases that involved children. Be sure to enlarge page one and read the left side bar in black.
I agree with the reader’s observations:
We just don’t see reporting like this anymore, and it’s a real shame. But the other thing that struck me was that this was published a full 7 years after the Oakland County Child Killings. I know those were homicide (and more!) cases, but with all of the awareness they raised about sexual risks to children, you’d think there would be a lasting effect on the justice system. Sadly, no.
Oh we heard all kinds of things from Oakland County LE that they had really shaken the trees in the wake of the OCCK case and boy were those pedophiles running scared! Hardly.
In the winter of 1978, after two winters of child abductions and murders and on the heels of the unreported “suicide” of Chris Busch, are there warnings to families and kids to stay aware because there had been no arrest in the OCCK case? Maybe a sentence or two along the way in a newspaper. Why wouldn’t this county use those cases and sex crimes against children that continued unabated and were under-punished to educate the public? Because that shit didn’t happen north of 8 Mile, right?
It still does. Because of course it does, and six day sentences do not deter pedophiles or users of child porn. One year for priests who raped and sexually abused children for decades? Ridiculous.
One more point about Roger Gauntlett, whose sentence was the impetus for the Free Press investigation into sentencing. The judge sentenced him to “chemical castration,” using Depro-Provera, a drug developed by his grandfather’s pharmaceutical company. Check this out:
I’m sure this fuck got the chemical castration overturned on appeal, and it was the subject of numerous law review articles, but I don’t want to read anything more about him.
Even in the wake of the OCCK abductions, captivity and murder, which had clear pedophile/sex crime overtones (despite the efforts of Brooks Patterson and the MSP to downplay this), in 1984 the Free Press found it was clear that those convicted of sexually assaulting children got far lighter sentences than those convicted of sexually assaulting adults.
It’s 2023. Some things never change.
Thanks to this reader for the links and information.