GTA gamer cuffed, charged after PS4 live mic allegedly overheard him raping teen girl

A Florida man is accused of taking a break from a Grand Theft Auto session to rape a 15-year-old girl, the alleged attack apparently recorded by his PlayStation 4 microphone. ABC's Tampa Bay bureau reported this week the arrest of eighteen-year-old Daniel Enrique Fabian. He has been charged with “lewd and lascivious battery …

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes we can only be thankful that most criminals seem to be stupid.

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Reporting bias

That kind of stupidity often makes the news and leaves a strong imprint in our mind, creating the impression that most criminals are stupid. In reallity the mildly stupid ones are only caught after lengthy and costly investigations, the clever ones may never get caught, and the very clever scum are careful to use legal loopholes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Reporting bias

the clever ones may never get caught

.. or even amass enough money to become President (no need to be that clever, evidently).

[Tom 7]

Re:Re: Reporting bias

Trump has less money than if he'd left his inheritance in trust so no amassing involved there,

[Blank Reg]

Re: Re:Reporting bias

Due to his debts and the now negative value of the trump brand, It may turn out that he has less money than you'd find down the back of your couch.

[ma1010]

Already out on bail for rape

This time, maybe no bail?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Police say the latest offence happened at Fabian's home on June 28. He is in custody."

Keep him there, and give him counseling. I hope rehab works for him.

I would also make him pay for counseling for her now and in the future, memory of events like this can surface years later. I wish her luck and a full recovery

[Malcolm Weir]

If he is successfully prosecuted (and I hope he is, but am very much aware that we're hearing the story that the prosecution wants told, which may or may not be objectively accurate), then he'll go to jail, receive no counselling, be registered as a sex offender, and when he finally gets released, he'll have little or no ability to earn enough money to pay for counselling for himself or anyone else.

He's asshole (if what's reported is even vaguely true, of course), but the Florida justice system has no interest in improving the lives of anyone (victim or perpetrator).

[FozzyBear]

Meanwhile in Australia...

A guy has been arrested for sexual assault on a 7 yr old girl whilst being on parole for sexual assaults back in 2012.. Rehabilitation for sex offenders, unlikely, they have one of the highest percentages for recidivism across all the offender groups, that also includes countries/states that have rehabilitation programs for sex offenders

The sad fact is once someone commits a sex offence (male or female) it is highly unlikely that they will stop.

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Beware of bias

If you believe meta-stats on these things (and I kinda do, with caution) most of these offences are not reported at all (social and family pressure, there's a whole lot of litterature on that). Statistics (should) only look at closed cases with a conviction (to avoid unfounded witch-hunts).

It follows that the only people monitored for that kind of offences are prior offenders. The aforementionned social pressure also makes it much easier for victims to report abuse once the offender has been outed by another victim.

So of course the rate of recidivism will appear high, compared to the mostly unreported "Primo-offenders". That's just basic math. It's also quite sad. Still no reason to think that " it is highly unlikely that they will stop.", as you put it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Has proper counseling ever been tried? I think that once someone is labeled a sex offender nothing is ever done to try and help.

I believe that with proper counseling some offenders can be rehabilitated. Locking them up without help is the wrong approach.

If that doesn't work lock them up and with no chance of parole.

[Teiwaz]

Statistics

Rehabilitation for sex offenders, unlikely, they have one of the highest percentages for recidivism across all the offender groups, that also includes countries/states that have rehabilitation programs for sex offenders

I'm not sure I trust statistics like that, especially given that curated example of a serial offender as the only unverified source reference.

Such an assumption takes for granted only people with the inability to process empathy are capable of committing a sexual offence (such people would be more likely to re-offend) such assumptions are dangerous. Anyone is capable of given a certain set of circumstances. That could be falling into their own worse impulses even just momentarily or those of an enclosed group that's normalised aberrant behaviour.

[Danny 2]

Meanwhile in England

One of the Rotherham child rapists has been given parental rights over a child one of his victims conceived, including expecting visits from the child. No tech angle, just an example of how ridiculous the law is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-46368991

[Eddy Ito]

In 2014 the US. DOJ put out a recidivism study covering 30 states from 2005 to 2010 that showed sex offenders aren't any more likely than other groups to repeat offend within 5 years, the length of the study. In fact, the only two groups of offenders less likely to repeat offend were homicides and DUIs.

Study (PDF) here and there's handy tables on page 8 (Table 8) and page 9 (Tables 9 & 10) breaking it down somewhat.

Unfortunately table 10 doesn't break it out quite as far as it could but it seems that most of the recidivism arrests are "Public Order Offenses" which could simply be mean they missed the bus that takes them to their meeting with their parole officer.

[swm]

What about successful suicides?

[Eddy Ito]

What about successful suicides?

Interesting question, but since suicide isn't a crime in the US there was no need for the DOJ to track the recidivism statistics. Perhaps you should propose a study, I'm sure it's a near lock to get government funding.

[Cynic_999]

"

Rehabilitation for sex offenders, unlikely, they have one of the highest percentages for recidivism across all the offender groups,

"

Complete misinformation. Sex offenders in fact have the *lowest* rates for re-offending (look up the statistics). Unfortunately people start believing the lies if they are told them often enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least that's ..

.. game over for him.

(sorry, someone had to say it).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well, at least that's ..

They 'had to'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well, at least that's ..

They 'had to'?

You're new here, aren't you?

:)

[wolfetone]

Makes you think how many Amazon Alexa's, Xbox One's, Google Home's etc have been listening in to people and have been witnessing these crimes.

[A Nonny Moose]

I think Amazon, Microsoft, and Google would much rather you didn't think about it.

[Roj Blake]

Waiting for The Dail Mail et al...

...to somehow blame the rape on GTA.

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Re: Waiting for The Dail Mail et al...

Nah, we're not in an election cycle.

[Eddy Ito]

Re: Waiting for The Dail Mail et al...

Why wait? It's actually worse, so much worse.

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Re: Waiting for The Dail Mail et al...

Stellar piece, thanks for the link. A textbook example of why politicians should not be allowed anywhere near statistics.

The whole argument is based on the assumption that the defendant is necessarily guilty, so "the rate of conviction" necessarily needs to increase. Hey, I have the perfect solution: let's scrap juries and trials altogether and automate the whole thing: online declaration, automatic sentencing of the accused within 10 seconds, print your receipt, problem solved (reaching the 10 seconds response time might require some improvement in the UK's network infrastructure though).

[david 12]

18 year old man

18 is always a "man" when he does something bad. It's always a teenager (or even a child) when something bad happens to him.

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Re: 18 year old man

In most countries, 18 yo = a man. The US has this strange distortion where you are no longer a kid at 18 but not a real adult until 21. I like to call it "Adulting probation". It serves no special purpose that I can think of. But again, we're talking about a legal system that will happily flag kids as paedophiles for sharing frisky snaps among their same-age friends (not that it is a good idea, mind).