1994, An American teen-ager in the country of Singapore had himself some fun with some spray paint. Only it wasn't so fun getting caugt & sentenced to their punishment of caning. Originally sentenced to 5 lashes. After some diplomatic maneuvering, it was reduced to 3.

So was the punishment fair & just??? Should the U.S. government done more to do away with the sentence of caning or should Michael Fay have gotten the full 5???

If we catch someone from another country here doing something wrong, WE punish them. After all, the crime was committed here. I think he should have taken the 5 lashings and we should have stayed out of it. This was no 10 year old child. He knew better. I thought the caning was a very mild punishment for over there considering his age. I would have expected him to get much more then that.

when in Rome do as the Romans do.....
you know the rules full well when you enter another country. you absolutely know that no other country is gonna cut you as much slack with crime as the united states does.

Michael Fay also spent 4 months in
jail. A sentence which would likely
be much shorter if he were convicted
of the same crime(s) in the United
States. I feel like he got more than
sufficient punishment for his crime.

the fool knows he was in another country. he vandalized property knowing full well punishment would be diffrent. Even he didn't know, you don't do a crime if you can't do the time.
Even if he didn't know he was gonna get caned, he knew that there would be some kind of penalty for doing what he did.
If he didn't think it was that severe then its just like saying ok, i'll rob a bank since i'll only get 3 days in jail for it. Or I"ll murder somebody since i'll only get a week in jail for it.
So i guess if you don't know what the penalty is its ok to do the crime?
If its too harsh then you should be let go because you had no idea that the punishment was that severe?