SVU churns out another episode that is curious mix of good and bad - good in that provides us with some interesting material to think about; bad because it once again seems to have a couple of stories that clearly don't make a whole episode, so let's join them together no matter how clumsy it may seem.
The first half of the story seems to concentrate a little on the whole hardcore Jewish lifestyle which is interesting, but not quite enough to talk about at great length, although in what seems to be something of a theme in this season, Stabler again is a little free and easy with how he views people and once again gets it wrong giving something of a poor "too little too late" apology for calling a rabbi a child molester. Given that Stabler drives this episode, it does build on something I like about Law & Order and that's that the detectives are humans with human failings.
So we get to the part of the episode that is worthy talking about and having just had a daughter (as in literally the last forty-eight hours) it is truly worthwhile thinking about.
The thrust of the defendant's defense is that he is not guilty by mental defect, and with insanity being defined as being unable to tell what is wrong (or something along those lines in law) a fourteen year old boy who brutally raped three girls and a boy was insane because he watched so much television that made it out to be normal, he thought it was so. Now the major problem I have with this is the age. At fourteen I think the exposure has been quite excessive, but it is enough to know the fundamental difference between rape and consenual sex. The boy claims that it is normal when girls say no to having sex but I think that most fourteen year olds can watch a sex scene and tell the difference between it being consenual and it being rape. At least most fourteen year olds I spoke to as a teacher (not, I might add, that we sat down and chatted about rape, but television programmes like Special Victims Unit, ironically, was often watched and they had no problem understanding what was going on). However, a younger child I can completely appreciate might not grasp the concept.
What's interesting is that one of the psychologists suggests that it is normal for kids to watch three hours of television and three hours of internet (with a lot of them seeking out porn), which I can accept, but surely that doesn't create a predisposition for rape? After all not all kids do it. Novak's case was quite correct - the boy didn't rape because he thought that it was the thing to do, he did it because he wanted to. So let's be serious about this though - while it is easy to bandy about the phrase "the parents are to blame" there is a fair bit of truth in that.
See let's not play games here. How does a kid get to spend three hours on the internet? How do they get a computer in their room? Sorry, but fourteen year olds can't afford a personal computer. If they've got one, it was given to them by their parents. If it's connected to the Internet, it's the parents that do it. I would smack any parent who said "I can't stop them from accessing the net"...Yes you can, my friend. Unplug the cord. It's that simple.
Stabler claims it is hard to hide kids from sex, and there is truth in that because everything he says has happened. If you go to a bookstore and Jenna Jameson is signing books and your kids are curious...hard to explain why the dirty man in the grubby raincoat has lined up. Yup, it is very hard to hide kids from sex these days. But actions can be taken, and if they aren't and your kid then goes and rapes someone, time to step up and take responsibility for that.
The episode was trying to make an interesting point, but at the end of the day the devopment was a little flawed and not well thought out.
"B"
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