“They need jail time,” Jesse said.
“We were thinking probation, counseling, and community service,”
Rita said.
Jesse shook his head.
“They need jail time,” he said.
“Doesn’t have to be long, and it
doesn’t have to be hard time. It can be in a juvenile facility. But
they gang-raped a sixteen-year-old-girl and photographed her naked and threatened her and harassed her.”
“Hell, Chief, weren’t you ever a teenage boy? They’re hormones
with feet.”
“I was,” Jesse said. “And my
hormones were jumping through my
skin like everybody else’s. But I never raped anyone, did you?”
“We’re not condoning what they
did,” Emily Frank said. “Richard
was just suggesting that their youth made them less able to control themselves.”
“You think they didn’t know it was
wrong?” Jesse
said.
The lawyers were quiet.
“You think they couldn’t control
themselves?”
“Well,” Rita said. “They
didn’t.”
“No they didn’t,” Jesse said.
Rita met his eyes, and again he could feel it.
“But what purpose is served by locking these children up?” Emily
Frank said.
“You know that scale of justice, outside. What they did to
Candace Pennington will tip it pretty far down, and it will take a lot more than probation and community service to balance it out.”
“Well,” Reagan said. “What would
you recommend.”
“I recommend that I take each one into a spare cell and beat the
crap out of him and send him home.”
“You can’t do that,” Emily Frank
said.
“I know,” Jesse said.
“It’s too simple.”
“It’s barbaric,” Emily Frank
said.
Rita looked mildly amused.
“And illegal,” Emily Frank said.
“I know.”
“What would they learn about right and wrong from that?”
“Nothing,” Jesse said. “But
they’d know what hurts and what
doesn’t.”
“Thanks for your input, Jesse,” Reagan said. “We’ll go it alone
from here.”
Jesse nodded and stood up. He felt Rita watching him.
