amusement in other's outrage

The newspaper from the hometown of my youth has a story today about the conviction of a 21 year-old man who forcibly raped a young woman in the center of town. Thanks to the greater equalizer of the inter-tubes any and all may publicly comment on the story.
Apparently someone is discusted.

discusted wrote on Jan 25, 2008 6:15 AM:
" Why only 13 years? He gets off easy. The victim will suffer for her lifetime! Twenty five years should have been the punishment! "

Sociologically, I think these sentiments are important. Though the case described in the story is a statistical outlier (most rapes and other sexual assaults are not perpetrated by strangers; they often occur in situations that lack hard-edge concreteness for making decisions; and the meanings associated with the sexual conduct are contested), it serves as a lightening rod to absorb public outrage. This case lacks those ambiguities and murky waters that make this topic controversial. As such, any and all are free to vent away.

What's dangerous, however, is for positional advocates to turn to this story as the exemplar of all rapes/sexual assaults. Sociologist Joel Best has built his career showing how advocacy groups count phenomena using the most inclusive criteria possible and then marry the measurements to a-typical but compelling stories. This may help social movement organizations mobilize resources, but it also leads to policies where 17 year old boys are placed on sex-offender registries because they had relations with their 15 year-old girl friend, whose parents found out and contacted the authorities. (Which is not to say I am supporting adolescent sexuality... but I question the wisdom of administratively labeling a hormonally normal 17 year-old as a sexual predator. Sex offender registries evolved through this very process).