Brock Turner, a 20-year-old student at Stanford University, was convicted recently of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman during a frat party in January 2015. He was sentenced to six months in jail and three years’ probation. After a letter the survivor wrote to her attacker went viral last week, the internet has been blowing up because of the incredibly short sentence that Turner got for this horrific crime.
Now, according to the Associated Press, Turner is actually expected to be released THREE MONTHS earlier than originally planned, on Sept. 2 instead of Dec. 2, according to online inmate records.
The reason for this is that county jail inmates only have to serve half of their sentences if they don’t have any discipline issues while there. While this rule may be beneficial for some less violent crimes and situations, this is not the case for Turner. He could have the most impeccable behavior in the entire prison, but that can never change the fact that he violently sexually assaulted an unconscious woman and already has a more than lenient sentence.
Outrage about the crime and its aftermath have stayed steady since the victim’s letter was published a week ago. Two women who wrote letters to the judge in defense of Turner have apologized, and Joe Biden wrote a moving open letter to the victim, saying “I do not know your name — but I know that a lot of people failed you that terrible January night and in the months that followed.” Hopefully all this anger will translate into real changes to the way we handle rape cases.