Moms Talk: Can the punishment ever fit the crime for child abusers?

This story disgusts me. It made my blood boil back in April 2010 when I first read about it in the Baltimore Sun, and it made me just as angry this week when I read the Sun’s follow-up story. The crime committed against a toddler in a neighboring county last spring was awful enough, but it’s almost worse to hear that the man convicted of torturing her had his sentence cut in half.

Here’s the story in case you missed it: While his then-girlfriend was sleeping, Ryan C. Gifford, drunk and high on heroin, woke her 21-month-old daughter, led the girl to his shower (this took place at his house in Westminster), stuffed a sock in her mouth causing her to pass out from lack of air, raped her, then burned her with cigarettes in an attempt to get her to wake up again.

The little girl was left battered and bruised, with respiratory problems and eyes that were swollen shut. There could be lasting physical effects from her injuries, including repercussions of being deprived of oxygen for a time, according to the June 2 story by Sun reporter Nick Madigan.

In addition to the trauma her little body endured, it goes without saying that the victim will surely carry a lifetime of emotional scars from Gifford’s attack. Yet Gifford’s lawyers say that their client was so messed up the night he hurt the girl that he doesn’t even remember doing such rotten things to a baby, who doctors say almost died from being assaulted, burned and abused.

For his heinous acts, the Sun story reported that Gifford was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison, which sounded like a fitting end until I continued reading and learned that the judge in the case suspended 25 years of the punishment. Gifford must get treatment for substance abuse and has to stay away from the victim, her family and all children under 8 years of age, or he will have to serve the full 50 years.

I don’t understand why someone found guilty of doing such awful things was handed what amounts to half a prison sentence. Gifford is 24 years old. Even if he serves every day of those 25 years without being paroled, he’ll be just 49 when he’s released from jail.

I don’t think there could ever be a punishment that would bring justice in a case like this (although I doubt child abusers are treated kindly by their fellow inmates). As a mother of a 3-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy, any story of child abuse both saddens and enrages me. So to hear that this guy is being spared any jail time that is due to him baffles me.

It’s outrageous to me, but I’m not hearing a huge outcry of injustice surrounding this sentence. When we hear stories about someone abusing a dog – think of Phoenix, the dog set on fire allegedly by twin boys in Baltimore whose court case ended in a mistrial – people get very irrational and even murderous in their talk of doling out justice. Phoenix’s case was another truly awful story, and it garnered widespread media coverage and generated a lot of attention. But to me, abuse against a human being, especially an innocent baby, should elicit an even stronger response.