Dear Brock Turner,
Welcome back to the world of freedom—although, in all honesty, you're not really all that welcome. I hope you enjoyed your three month long episode of "Scared Straight," even though you should still be locked away for, what was ruled to be three more months, but in the eyes of many, you should be locked away for years on end.
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I imagine you're relieved to finally be free from prison, as it is definitely not a pleasant place to be. However, it's important for you to know thatyou will truly never be free.
As many times as you are referred to as the "Stanford Swimmer," in the media, your true title will always, first and foremost, be "rapist." You will never be free of that title. From the day you committed that horrendous and abhorrent crime, to the day you die, the world will know you as a rapist.
I don't know how much this bothers you, if it bothers you at all—because in your eyes, and the eyes of your friends and family, you are not a rapist. You say you are remorseful of what you did, but are you remorseful for the act itself and what you did to an innocent woman, or are you remorseful because you got caught and will now and forever be registered and labeled as a sex offender/rapist?
Yes, you will have plenty of negative repercussions from your actions, but not to the same extent as your victim. Maybe your three month prison stint did take a toll on you, as a sentence longer than six months would've taken far too much of a toll on you. That really doesn't matter though, because what you did will take the greatest toll of all on the woman you assaulted. You have turned your victim and her life into another sexual assault statistic. She is at risk of suffering from PTSD, anxiety, trust issues when it comes to intimacy, and even suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide, with many more physiological and psychological repercussions from an easily preventable crime.
You are so kindly considered, in the eyes of the judge who gave you your sentencing, and in the eyes of many others, as a kid that made a "mistake"—a "mistake" that just so happens to be something that has completely turned an innocent woman's world upside down, and a mistake that you were so leniently punished for, further perpetuating the idea that sexual assault accusations are just a victim's cry for attention, and something to be taken lightly when it pertains to a wealthy white male or a highly established person as the assailant.
You may be free from the confines of a cell, but you will never be free from your actions. You will never be free of the irreversible damage you have caused the woman you assaulted, and all that she has had to go through and will unfortunately have to bear for the rest of her life.
The words your victim so bravely said to you in court should be the thing that will have the biggest impact on you, but unfortunately it is probably your three months in prison that will have the biggest impact on you. It should be those words that scare you the most and teach you the greatest lesson of all, rather than your pathetic excuse of a prison sentence for the monstrous crime you committed. Hopefully your victim's words are burned into your memory, and you will never be free of those words. Those are the most important words to ever be spoken to you in your entire life, but you'll probably try to pretend they were never spoken—the same way you and your family pretended your victim wasn't a victim, but rather you were her victim, and you just so happened to be the unfortunate soul to end up in that court room with her.
I want to believe that you will not do something remotely close to what you did again, but I have a terrible feeling that your name will be in headlines in the future, for either the same or a similar crime, because it is difficult for me to believe that your three months in prison was enough of a lesson to tell you that what you did was completely and utterly wrong.
The truth of the matter is, Brock, you will never be free of yourself. You will always be a prisoner of your lack of a moral compass, and a prisoner of the brain that said to you, "she's not objecting, so she must be okay with me having sex with her!"
Brock Turner—you will never be free ever again. You will always be a prisoner in one way or another. You will be a prisoner of your actions, a prisoner of the undeniable and irrevocable physical and psychological harm you forced on to an innocent woman, a prisoner of your mother and father's horrifying letters in defense of your actions, a prisoner of yourself. The list goes on and on, but just know, you will always be a prisoner in one way or another. You will never be free.
Just because you're no longer sporting an orange jumpsuit does not mean you are any less guilty of what you did. You will always be guilty. You will always be an example of what people should not be. Behind bars or not, you will always be a rapist, and the world will always see you as such.
I hope your "20 minutes of action," as your father so lightly put it, behind that dumpster that night was worth becoming the abominable human being you will be known as for the rest of your life. Welcome to your life long sentence of self-imprisonment, Brock.
