Crime and Punishment With a Twist

(Haberturk Newspaper, 26 January 2011)

The penalties connected with supervised release can sometimes
be funny and other time thought-provoking. The penalty given to
Ankara's C.Ç. is one of these. C.Ç. showed up late when reporting
for military duty and was listed as a deserter so he received a four
month jail sentence. The court, however, took note of C.Ç.'s 'good
behavior' and changed the sentence to supervised release. In this
light, upon his discharge from the army, C.Ç. was ordered not to
play his favorite game 'okey' with his friends at the tea house for
three months.

In the context of supervised release, wife-beaters, disturbers of
the peace, police insulters and the like are sentenced to attend a
ten-part anger-management seminar instead of serving jail time.
Social services expert Şerife Etleç of the Ankara Supervised
Release Directorate gave some examples of the supervised
release program, as follows:

-- B.Y. was beaten by her husband during an argument in
Sakarya and filed a complaint. The court ordered her husband
A.Y. to see a family therapist one day each week.

-- Ramazan U. punched his wife and was ordered by the court
to wear a sign reading 'I apologize to my wife' whenever he goes
to the tea house, the mosque, school or the market.

-- similarly, in Kastamonu, wife-beater Mustafa K. was told to
print 1,000 signs reading 'I apologize to my wife and all of Araç
district for beating my wife' and distribute the signs throughout
the district.

-- in Diyarbakır, H.Ç. had to bring his wife flowers for five months.

-- Z.B., who beat his 10 year-old daughter because she didn't do
her homework, was sentenced by the Midyat, Mardin, court to
plant saplings for five months. Z.B. was able to plant 500 saplings
in the course of serving his sentence.