Crime and Punishment

In “I Know My First Name Is Steven,” broadcast May 22 and 23, we are informed that: A boy is abducted at age 7; he is sexually and psychologically molested for 8 years; his anguished family does not know if he is alive or dead; he finds the courage to rescue another boy brought in to be his “replacement” and is returned to his family to begin a difficult readjustment that continues to this day.

Yet the man who inflicted all this pain spent very little time in prison.

Have we become a nation that tolerates such behavior without assigning the appropriate punishment? Have we learned to accept rape, child pornography, sexual molestation as byproducts of modern life? If so, then victims of crime are doubly victimized: Once by the criminals and then again by our justice system.

K. HALLECK

Santa Monica