On a highly related note, the news about the "Werribee DVD" youth escaping jail is circulating the feminist blogosphere. For those who haven't followed the case, it was about bunch of teenage boys abducting a 17-year, intellectually delayed girl, whom they raped, urinated on and tried to set on fire. The boys recorded the incident on DVD and distributed it in their school, and uploaded on YouTube. They weren't punished for their deed, because the judge decided that they expressed enough remorse, and that 8-12 months of treatment should be enough to prevent them from repeating their crime. I'll quote Ginmar again:

What a great message to send rape victims. Your assailant is ill, honey, he's a victim, and you're just a symptom of his disease. Of course, he's the only one who gets treatment.

The idea that the boys' actions are due to a behavioural disorder is indeed problematic. In the cultural context where misogyny is the norm, "boys will be boys" is the mantra of upbringing and similar videos -- and worse -- to what the boys made, are mainstream entertainment for men, such behaviour is to be expected. The boys didn't act counter to any prevalent notion of masculinity, they took it to its logical conclusion. It's patently clear that they have seen similar things in porn, and it inspired them to make their own. The judge, given his leniency, might well also entertain himself with similar depictions of sexual abuse.

There are basically two ways people can change. The first way is by internal motivation, by a will to change. People often need support for this, but the impetus comes from within. The other way is by being broken by psychological abuse, but abuse won't make abusers less abusive. The boys behaviour after the incident indicates they feel no genuine remorse, and therefore lack any motivation to change for the better. Most likely they will fake their way through the "rehabilitation", smirking among each other, and the lesson they'll learn is that next time they should keep their abuse to their own girlfriends and behind closed doors, and cover their own faces if they shoot it on video.