Steubenville Rape

On Sunday, two teenage boys were convicted in a rape case in Steubenville, Ohio. This case stood out to me for many reasons, one of which is the way social media, pictures and videos were used to publicly humiliate the victim, secondly the media made many undeserved vindications for the convicted and lastly she was raped, and that is appalling.
      First off, these kids and their friends had the audacity to take videos, pictures and put out tweets about this crime. This is disgusting in itself. There were tweets sent out making fun of this crime such as, "song of the night is definitely rape me by nirvana". There were pictures sent out of the sentenced and some other teens holding the victim naked. There were videos of them raping this girl in a car in between parties. This is vile and these are not little boys. They are teenagers. They know what they have done and know that it is wrong. In my opinion, the convicted should have been tried as adults. My reasoning behind this is rape is not a child's crime. Petty theft, breaking and entering- understandable how you would try the convicted as juveniles, but rape? If you rape someone, it doesn't matter that you’re only 16. If you rape someone, it doesn't matter that you cry like a child in court, only after being convicted. If you rape someone, it doesn't matter that you had a promising future. If you rape someone, it doesn't matter that your life is destroyed. If you rape someone, it should haunt you for the rest of your life. You raped someone and you deserve every ounce of justice we can place upon you in court of law. These sick criminals deserve to be put in front of a jury, with the option of being incarcerated for more than two years. 

The media and townspeople were no help in this case, justifying and sympathizing with the criminals' actions saying: "They had such promising futures," and "They were town heroes," when all they were, were football players. These people were actually attempting to get a lesser sentence for the condemned. This is all because this town is so football centered, that they couldn't bear to lose anyone off their team! Sounds to me like these people value football more than justice in this case and how horrific is that?
      Finally, this girl was raped. Yes, she had too much to drink and yes, she was wearing revealing clothes, but no, it was not OK for her to be raped. It is never OK to rape. She was used for the sole purpose of sex. One of the convicted sent a text that said, "Yeah dude, she's like a dead body. I just needed some sexual attention."  That is revolting. The fact that she wasn't even coherent enough to seem alive, that she seemed like a dead body; yet they still thought it was perfectly OK for them to sexually assault her. This girl deserved so much more respect than that, and now her life will forever be affected by this. 
The prosecutor said, "This case is about a 16-year-old girl who was taken advantage of, toyed with and humiliated. And it's time people who did this to her are held responsible." I agree with her wholeheartedly, and am glad that they were punished. But in my opinion, the punishment should have been more severe to compensate for what this girl has been through and for the convicted to pay proper dues for what they've done.