Perhaps female judges are more capable for holding female predators responsible for their crimes?
Last week a LeFlore County judge sentenced a Pocola Public School teacher to a total of 40 years for violating at least 3 boys, sexually. Janet Kaye Barnes was a 44 year old teacher at Pocola High School (now shut down). Oklahoma's Attorney General's office broke the case last spring. She plead guilty last week, rather than continue to trial. The Springdale, AR TV station details the criminal behavior spanning the entire decade;
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The current charges were brought by the Oklahoma Attorney General's office, who arrested Barnes. It remains a mystery why local law enforcement were not involved in her arrest? She was suspended from the school district in 2016, but it took a grand jury indictment last spring, to hold her accountable for her crimes. Why the 3 year delay in justice for the children? Especially given that Barnes already had a criminal record for sexual exploitation of children? And how did she get a position in a public school with this kind of criminal past?
Judge Jenna McBee was the presiding judge in this criminal case. Judge McBee was first appointed to the bench about 6 years ago. An alumnae of Carl Albert State College & a former Miss CASC. McBee was also a regent for the college until resigning to become a special judge in the district court.
McBee may be a model of true equality under the law. By sentencing this female predator of children in a manner consistent with male criminals, we may finally reverse the trend of abuse by female public school faculty. While male faculty members typically face incarceration terms exceeding a decade, female predators typically serve an average of less than 3 years for statutory rape of boys. |
Barnes was sentenced to 10 years for sexual battery, which was suspended. She will serve 10 years probation instead, court records show. It's still puzzling why two separate crimes against two separate victims can be punished concurrently? And how can a 10 year sexual battery conviction (unrelated) be given a 10 year probation? Especially with Barnes' past history of multiple predatory crimes against boys?
She will serve her sentence at Oklahoma’s Mabel Bassett Correctional Center and is required to register as a sex offender, local station 5NewsOnline.com reports. People Magazine also picked up the story and brought national attention to the case.
Bassett Prison is known for having the highest Rape incidence in the nation. The Oklahoman says the inmate-on-inmate sex crimes reports are the worst in the USA.
Last year the Oklahoma Dept of Education ordered the closure of Pocola Public Schools for their gross financial mismanagement. The nearby public school districts were expected to assume the role of providing common education to the affected population. But Epic Online Charter Schools decided to step in and offered to absorb the public debt and provide an online educational option to the district,
All of these cases came up in the last 4 years. Perhaps the reason why there are so many is because they rarely get caught, and even then they rarely serve a long sentence.
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