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by Anthony-G 1164 days ago
> In 1967, Fritzl broke into the Linz home of a 24-year-old nurse while her husband was away and raped her while holding a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her if she screamed. According to an annual report for 1967 and a press release of the same year, he was also named as a suspect in a case of attempted rape of a 21-year-old woman, and was known for indecent exposure. Fritzl was arrested and served 12 months of an 18-month prison sentence. In accordance with Austrian law, his criminal record was expunged after 15 years. As a result, more than 25 years later, when he applied to adopt and/or foster Elisabeth's children, the local social service authorities did not discover his criminal history.

Similarly, I generally believe in giving people the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves and get on with their lives and don’t think that people should have to permanently live with the stigma of crimes they committed in the past. However, I don’t think that records of violent or similar criminal behaviour should be completely expunged; they should still be available in certain situations.

1 comments

> Fritzl was arrested and served 12 months of an 18-month prison sentence.

A single year for something like this just seems bizarre to me. No wonder the late 60s had so much violent crime..