A cruel and unnecessary punishment in a prep school sex scandal

Owen Labrie behaved despicably. As a senior at St. Paul’s School, the elite New Hampshire prep school, he lured a 15-year-old freshman into having sex with him, as part of a repulsive tradition known as “senior salute,” in which graduating boys compete to “slay” the greatest number of girls.

And yet, I find myself unsettled over the harshness of Labrie’s sentence. Not so much the year in jail — about that I remain hopelessly conflicted — but about his lifetime branding as a sex offender. The laws used to prosecute his actions and land him on the sex offender registry were not intended for such situations, nor does the punishment fulfill the statutes’ intended purpose.

 

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