Jaycee Dugard awarded $20 million settlement

[christiangirl]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100701/...irl_settlement

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A woman who bore two children while being held prisoner for nearly two decades will receive $20 million from the state of California after claiming parole officers failed to do their job and find her while monitoring a convicted rapist.

Lawmakers approved the settlement Thursday for Jaycee Dugard, now 30, and her two daughters, who resurfaced last August after being held in a secret backyard by a suspect identified by authorities as Phillip Garrido.

"It is compensation for three people for the rest of their lives who have been horribly damaged over a period of 17 or 18 years," mediator Daniel Weinstein told The Associated Press.

Dugard and her daughters, ages 15 and 12, filed claims in February, saying parole agents with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began supervising Garrido in 1999 but didn't discover them.

The Dugard family members claimed psychological, physical and emotional damages.

"I can't emphasize enough that we've got to be much more prudent in terms of how we provide oversight for released prisoners in the state of California," Assemblyman Ted Gaines, R-Granite Bay, said.

The money will be used to buy the family a home, ensure privacy, pay for education, replace lost income and cover what will likely be years of therapy, said Weinstein, a retired San Francisco County Superior Court judge. In addition, much of the money will be placed in long-term investments, he said.

"It was not an effort to make reparations for the years of abuse and incarceration or imprisonment against their will, because ... the damages to these people were incalculable," Weinstein said in a telephone interview. "Part of this was a prudent effort by the state to shut off liability from a catastrophic verdict."

Weinstein praised the state for quickly accepting responsibility, and the Dugards for accepting a reasonable settlement at a time when the state faces a $19 billion budget deficit. He said the scope of the claim was unprecedented in his 20 years as a mediator because of the duration of the crime and that it led to the birth of two children.

The news reports have raised a lot of questions (and this has been on the news A LOT tonight): Is $20 million a "reasonable" settlement? Should they (Jaycee and her daughters) have received more for how horrible this was? Should they not have been awarded so much because of the state's already massive debt? How can a price be put on such a heinous crime? Discuss.