A Russian convicted murderer who was sentenced to 11 years in prison after he killed his girlfriend and put her body through a meat grinder has been pardoned after fighting against Ukraine, his mother said.
The mother of Dmitry Zelensky told the Russian media news outlet 59.RU that her son was pardoned after serving less than half of his sentence.
Zelensky, a veteran of the Second Chechen War, confessed to the 2018 murder of his 27-year-old girlfriend, Tatiana Melekhina, in 2019, 59.RU reported.
He admitted to strangling her to death after a quarrel, before disposing of her body in a horrific way to try to cover up his tracks, the media outlet said.
According to 59.RU, Zelensky told investigators during an interrogation that he dismembered her body, processed it in a meat grinder, collected the bones in three bags, and threw them into the river.
I would say ~10 years is normal for a murder in Germany and other European countries. I don’t know about current Russia but here the idea is jail time should lead to rehabilitation and a bit of punishment. In the US it is much more focused on punishment.
10 years for ending someone else’s life? I’m glad we have longer sentences for that here in the U.S. Don’t get me wrong–I’m all for prison reform and introducing rehabilitative elements to reduce recidivism, but Europeans seem to have more concern for criminals than they do for the victims of crime.
Yes, I can understand both views. It is simply a difference in culture, I guess…
10 years in a Russian prison is an extremely brutal punishment. Here’s a mild example of what happens there https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1kQblKeOT4E
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And yet our homicide rate is way higher than the next closest European country. Clearly those longer prison sentences in the victim’s “best interest” are doing wonders for reducing victims.
Rehabilitation is how you show concern for victims of crime, not long sentences.
No, rehabilitation is about your concern for criminals, and I’m not saying criminals don’t deserve concern. But appropriately long sentences are how you demonstrate to victims that you understand the harm that was done to them and are holding those responsible to account. If you don’t do that, trust me, people will start exacting their own punishments, and you don’t want victims administering “justice.”
So basically, you care more about feels than justice. Just say so.
Long sentences do not demonstrate anything except distain for the criminal. Rehabilitation shows that not only do you recognize that what was done to the victim was wrong, but that you are also working to ensure that it never happens to anyone again. Putting someone in prison for a long time does nothing but cost the state more money and make it harder to successfully reintegrate into society in a healthy way. Especially American prisons, which are definitively proven to increase the likelihood of further criminality through their use of torture and abuse of prisoners to ensure compliance.
Incorrect. You try raising a child without ever punishing them for bad behavior. It’s called permissive parenting, and it results in unruly, self-centered, impulsive adults with no self-control. It’s the same for criminals–you don’t punish them for their crimes, they won’t change their behavior. This is not debatable, it’s repeatedly proven science.
Ok we are talking about actual criminal justice with real social stakes, not your strange parental power fantasy or whatever it is you are ranting about.
If long prison sentences were the primary factor in reduction in recidivism, then the US would have among the lowest recidivism rate in the world. It doesn’t. So, while longer sentences may lower recidivism some, they are far from the only way to do so, much less the most effective way to do so. Plenty of countries have rehabilitative prisons with significantly shorter sentences and yet have half or less the recidivism rate of the United States.
I never said that. Rehabilitative prisons are the main component in reducing recidivism, but short sentences that don’t punish criminals for their crimes reduce confidence in victims that justice has been served. Rehabilitating the criminal isn’t the only thing that matters; making them suffer for the harm they’ve done is also important. As much as people would like to believe we can excise that from our judicial systems, it can’t be done. You will simply get vigilantes.
Yes I get it, you believe in personally bringing harm to both inmate and guards by forcing guards to perpetuate human rights abuses upon the inmates. So why is there no vigilante Justice in countries with rehabilitative prison systems, if it’s just so inevitable? Is it possible that your myopic view of humanity is tainted by a ethnocentric perspective? Because most victims of most crimes aren’t frothing at the mouth for punishment. They want JUSTICE, as you said. Justice and Punishment are not the same. Nor does our system provide Justice for victims, in nearly any case.
If your concern is Justice, then you should learn of Restorative Justice models, and how they function.
To be fair it’s not going to bring the person back and proper rehabilitation punishes the person through realization of wrong doing and can give back to the world and communities through redemption.
Sure 10 years but the guilt and disappointment is eternal. I think the rehab program and capabilities mean more than the time frame and clearly the science is on team rehab.
I’ve met people who feel guilty about murdering someone else in their past. Trust me, while the guilt sucks, it’s not that bad. Punishment exists in criminal justice systems because people should suffer proportionately for making others suffer. If your system of justice doesn’t sufficiently punish criminals for the harm they do to others, you will get vigilante justice instead. It’s that fucking simple. People who think punishment has no place in a justice system are naive.
I don’t think I will trust you on anything.
There’s no rehabilitation going on in Russia lol
I do agree with the rest of your sentiment though. In developed countries with rehab systems 10 years is a fair time frame.
It’s only about punishment in the US.
Don’t forget Canada.
Mostly led by the “Christians”
A murder verdict carries a mandatory life sentence in Germany, you might be thinking of manslaughter, which has a minimum of five. Life-long means possibility of parole after no fewer than 15 years, the average is 18.9 years, 13% sit longer than 25 years including, indeed, life-long. Not to speak of the possibility of preventive detention.
I didn’t want to go in the details. My point was that sentences in the vercinity of 10 years for murder are common in Europe.