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Alright, this is getting ridiculous; I'm looking at the past 15+ pages and I see the 1 line posts of things substantiating to "This guy deserves what was coming to him, he should be executed", and I am disgusted. There is absolutely NO reason to give this man a life sentence in jail for what he has done.
Is he GUILTY of downloading collections of pornographic images of children? Almost certainly.
From what I can tell from the article, there is substantial proof that he willingly downloaded these images and videos.
There should be no further question of that.
However, we CANNOT say anything more about his motives. We do not know HOW he used those images, whether he used them for sexual pleasure or for any other reason, we cannot say.
I should also stress that there is NO proof, whatsoever, that he participated in, distributed, produced, or in any other way (besides viewing) took part in the pornographic images on his computer. He is guilty of nothing more than downloading and viewing these images.
Now, as a second point of contention, I will demonstrate how inappropriate it is for our legal system to sentence this man to a lifetime sentence without the possibility of parole.
In almost no circumstances is it reasonable (not an opinion, it's actually the precedent in law) for a rapist (if it is the only crime he has committed) to being sentenced to the punishment deserving to a convicted murdered.
Why? Simply because they (the government) has deemed it BETTER for the raped person to live than to die.
It is a necessary precaution to 'stack' the punishments in this way, to ENCOURAGE the person who is committing the crime to NOT kill their victim, even if they have already committed some crime. So that they do not commit a greater crime.
In some ways, you can think of it like the slippery slope argument, or, at least, the antithesis of it.
This precedence is intended to counteract the slippery slope that the criminal/potential worse criminal would take to prevent the first crime from being discovered. [I'm not sure if I am getting my point across in this paragraph, if someone else could explain it better than I, please do so].
Anyways, the point is, the man should NOT be sentenced to such an egregious sentence.
Forget your knee-jerk reactions where you INSTANTLY say "Oh god! That's terrible! Burn the child-pornography viewer!", think about how much ACTUAL harm he is doing.
When you think about it, it really isn't much. If those children were at all harmed in the making of these images (it's possible that they were; we don't know; we can't prove it) then they were harmed, and that sucks, no one condones the people who did that; but you cannot say that this man did any of those things. Because he didn't. He didn't harm those children in any way other than the negligible pain of the POTENTIAL for those children to be harmed in thought on only the most remote and immaterial way.
There is no tangible evidence that this man harmed those children any more than they had already been harmed.
This man deserves a sentence. In fact, a very lofty sentence; give him 5+ years if you have to.
But to sentence this man to life in jail for downloading a picture? That is far too out of proportion for the crime he has committed.
Let the crime fit the punishment, don't give this man an incredible sentence for what, in reality, is a fairly minor crime (though still deserving of many years in jail).
[Forgive me if the discussion has moved on since I began writing this: I started when the last post was on page 30]
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On November 07 2011 00:55 Flyingdutchman wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 00:36 ddrddrddrddr wrote:
This guy isn't supporting any industry. He's downloading for free, so he's not creating a market. Further more creating a "demand" doesn't really do anything since this is about as profitable as having your stuff pirated. You see software companies scrambling to output software because there are lots of people pirating their stuff? If anything's weird, it's the idea that people would be sharing this stuff. There's absolutely nothing in it for them. Is there a porn sharing fetish? About as much as there is a music sharing fetish. It is just a way to get access to more of the product. I've been thinking about the argument you bring up the last few days as it has passed through some of the threads here. Thing is, we are comparing apples and oranges. Since CP is illegal the dynamics of the market for it is very different. Therefore you can't apply the reasoning in the same way. Consider the music industry if music was illegal: In that case it is completely feasible to assume that little communities where people share music would be promoting music in general. In an industry that is widespread, like the music industry in RL, there is some merit to the thought that sharing music is harmful to the development of new material. When it is not widespread, these sharing communities help make it widespread so in that case it would not be harmful.
Well maybe of they're trading, sure. If the music industry industry is illegal, you might protest by sharing music illegally to show people how music is good and to promote the production of music. It would be done with a willingness to self sacrifice. This would mean that pedophiles are molesting children and/or taking images with the belief that it is a good thing to do and for others to do and they''re standing up for what's right. I can hardly imagine anyone advocating for such things. If someone has a fetish, they'll want a way to fulfill that craving, but it's hard to believe that it would be seen as anything more than an involuntary desire.
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i think that he should be punished but he didn't hurt anyone technically, life sentence seems a bit harsh.
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Well, I think sometimes laws are passed to punish, and sometimes laws are passed to deter.
I think the sentence for possession of child porn was clearly deterrent in character. It was never meant to be commensurate to the crime. It was meant to scare people into never doing that crime. In this case, it didn't work.
It's messed up indeed.
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On November 07 2011 00:30 LilClinkin wrote:
Why is society so intolerant to the idea that some individuals may be sexually attracted to children?
Does any body ever stop to ask these people why they feel these sexual attractions? Personally I'd be fascinated to know what makes them tick. I have a hypothesis that many of them strongly correlate feelings of emotional closeness/love with sexual acts. Thus, when they want to be loving to a child (which is a normal human instinct) they unintentionally associate this with thoughts of sex involving the child. Maybe they don't wish to actually have sex with the child, but only to sexually pleasure the child? Who knows, I'm sure every paedophile is different and some may not have any logical grounding to why they feel their sexual attraction.
As far as I can see, the only thing wrong with a sexual attraction to children is the fact that any sexual act involving a child is inherently wrong, as a child is too immature to give informed consent to such acts.
Modern society has attempted to condition us to be tolerant of homosexuals, but historically they were shunned and stigmatised in a similar fashion to paedophiles of today. I personally have never been able to rationalise why homosexuals feel sexual attraction to members of their own sex, and I'll admit, the thought of homosexuals does intrinsically make me feel uneasy. However I'm a mature adult; I can accept the explanation from homosexuals justifying their behavior, even if I cannot rationalise it: "I was born this way, I just am the way I am, and you should accept and not judge me based on a sexual attraction that I have no ability to control". This seems quite similar to what a paedophile may say about their attraction to children. In my mind, you either simultaneously accept paedophilic attraction and homosexual attraction, or you dismiss both.
Remember, attraction and sexual acts are distinctly different things. If you are having trouble understanding or wish to deny this simple truth, consider this situation (this should be easy as the majority readership of TL is heterosexual males): Your best friend gets married. His wife is physically attractive to you: Blonde/brunette hair, well-endowed breasts, curvacious hips, assign whatever attributes you find physically attractive to this fictional wife. Would it be normal to feel sexual attraction to this woman? Yes. Is it a crime? Of course not. Feeling attraction and acting on the attraction to escalate to a sexual act are very different things. As I'm sure most (I hope) of you would agree, attempting to have sex with your best friend's wife, regardless of how attractive she may be, is a morally corrupt thing to do. Just the same as having sex with a child.
Hopefully you can see the distinction, and stop stigmatising paedophiles to the degree where it is considered OK for one to be locked up in jail for the entirety of their life.
Furthermore, for those who say that paedophiles who view pornographic content are 'supporting the industry', I have to strongly disagree. Child pornography (I assume) is such a niche market that the producers of content are most likely consumers of the content as well. Fact is, there will always be people producing child pornographic content.
There's a growing following that is claiming pedophilia is a mental disorder. 'Pedophilia is biologically pathological to the extent that it causes the person to be uninterested in reproductively viable (i,e,, sexually mature, opposite-sex) persons. Given the reproductive significance of preferring fertile sexual partners, pedophilia in its stronger forms would meet Wakefield's (1992) definition of a mental disorder, and thus can be conceptualized as the result of disruptions in the mechanism(s) underlying sexual age preferences,' (Seto 2000). Padophiles have a higher reported PPG when viewing children than mature women. A lot of pedophiles tend to have significant mental disorders that include not finding mature women sexually attractive. They usually regress psychologically and actually believe the relationship to be mutually benefiting. This may occur as a teenager or when elderly. The fact that a pedophile is married is meaningless.
You may disagree about child pornography but your opinion is simply wrong. It's estimated to be a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing insanely fast due to the internet. Organized crime is involved in smuggling of children for porn. By increasing the punishment for simple possession, it should significantly lower the demand for children and thus human trafficking/commercial sexual exploitation of children is reduced. And those interested in child pornography..it's estimated to be 1 in 1,000 adult males (Hamish McCulloch, assistant director for trafficking in human beings at Interpol).
Just as a side note. It's annoying to see pedophiles and child molesters used interchangeably. Not all pedophiles are child molesters just as all child molesters are not pedophiles. A child molester is person who engages in any type of sexual activity with someone legally defined as a child (in some places, 17) while pedophiles' victims must be per-pubescent children (for instance, a toddler).
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So this guy gets life in prison for having pictures on his computer, while Casey Anthony kills her daughter and gets off.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
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On November 06 2011 10:11 Tremendous wrote:
Execute the bastard! No need to waste a prison cell on scum like that !
This guy gets it 
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I think the production of child porn supports a life sentence, but not the possession of.
And anyways, considering how little this guy actually had to do with the creation of the pornography or the support of the creators, he should get a sentence akin to someone buying illegal drugs.
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To Dknight's post: By that logic, being homosexual is also biologically pathological because partners of the same sex are not reproductively viable. Yet homosexuality is becoming widely more accepted (well not in some places). Should gay people be considered mentally ill and be imprisoned?
About the article, I do believe the sentence is excessive. If they want to make sure he doesn't commit any "heinous" crimes (quoted because of society's obsession with punishing sexual crimes over violent ones), they should give him a few years in jail and put him on the Sexual Offenders list. I do not believe life in prison is a fair punishment. Child molesters and rapists are not treated very well in prison, and that guy can't really be considered either because he hasn't done anything yet.
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On November 07 2011 00:39 chickenhawk wrote:Show nested quote +So i guess you know what you're talking about? You're some kind of expert in psychology? Did you study how traumatic events in your childhood can reflect on your later life? You make me sick. Lets ask the dead.. sure they will give you an answer. Saying that rape is worse than dead is stupid, are you going to give a low prison time to a rapist because he killed the person? That he show mercy? That is almost the something to say that abort is better for the child than foster-home, its so stupid.
I never said rape is worse than beeing killed in general. Every person is different. Some can deal with it. Some can't.
But on the one hand making a strong claim like rape is worse than murder is nothing but irrational. Saying that people who were molested as children would rather be dead is complete nonsense and you all know it - if they wanted to be dead they would be dead. They might claim that they want to be dead but then they're just lying. and on the other hand calling people who got a different opinion insensitive, irrational, posters just makes me sick. End of story.
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One thing I hate about stuff like this, is the fact that people think all pedophiles rape childeren.
Most of them will never admit to being attracted to them(outside of the internet), simply because everybody will hate them for it.
Which means they will not seek help, which they do need(peadophiles)
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On November 07 2011 00:36 LetoAtreides82 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 00:32 Lafie wrote:
So, he gets longer punishment than Anders Breivik, interesting. Funny you mention that. Anders Breivik killed 76 people and he faces a maximum of 21 years. That's sick
The justice system is so flawed it disgusts me, I have not seen one country that exhibits a logical system.
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Edit: Sorry
User was warned for this post
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I never said homosexuality is not biologically pathological. I actually think it is. It's more widely accepted because homosexuality occurs between two consenting, mature adults. Pedophilia involves sexual contact with children who the government has deemed unable to give consent because their mental state is not ready.
A lot of prisons that house convicted sex offenders require at least 40% of the population to be a sex offender to ensure they're not mistreated by the rest of the prisoners. In effect, it's creating 'sex offender gangs' in prisons now just as white gangs began. Just an interesting sidenote.
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It seems some people in this thread feel that rape is worse than murder for the victim of the crimes. While I appreciate it may be a little off topic would that belief not require a decent society to kill the victims of rape to lessen the effect on them? I don't mean that as a sarcastic comment or a strawman I'm just genuinely curious as that would seem to make sense.
Sorry mods if this is too off topic, it is related to the discussion being had so I *hope* it's an ok question.
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I think the reason why he got life w/o parole is probably because the judge is a parent. A lot of judges are old, and are parents, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that the judge allowed the fact that he/she has a child to influence their sentence.
Parents tend to feel very strong about anything concerning children, especially young ones and especially their own. Regardless, the fact that if he actually raped a child he could've gotten less time still throws a spanner in the works.
C'est la vie.
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On November 06 2011 10:16 Prospero wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2011 10:11 Tremendous wrote:
Execute the bastard! No need to waste a prison cell on scum like that ! Did you read the article? It questions whether or not downloading child pornography merits a similar punishment as first degree murder, and whether judges should sentence according to what they fear (looking at child porn leading to molestation) versus what they actually did (looking at child porn). I'm not sure downloading the stuff warrants execution.
Hello, slippery slope...
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On November 07 2011 02:05 Thienan567 wrote:
I think the reason why he got life w/o parole is probably because the judge is a parent. A lot of judges are old, and are parents, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that the judge allowed the fact that he/she has a child to influence their sentence.
Parents tend to feel very strong about anything concerning children, especially young ones and especially their own. Regardless, the fact that if he actually raped a child he could've gotten less time still throws a spanner in the works.
C'est la vie.
Then that judge should be deemed unfit for duty.
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On November 07 2011 02:07 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2011 10:16 Prospero wrote:On November 06 2011 10:11 Tremendous wrote:
Execute the bastard! No need to waste a prison cell on scum like that ! Did you read the article? It questions whether or not downloading child pornography merits a similar punishment as first degree murder, and whether judges should sentence according to what they fear (looking at child porn leading to molestation) versus what they actually did (looking at child porn). I'm not sure downloading the stuff warrants execution. Hello, slippery slope...
You can't punish someone for a crime they might commit. Fortunately, real life isn't Minority Report.
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This case basically sets precedent to increase child molestation because the punishment for actually molesting a child is far less than owning about 100 pornographic images on a file sharing network. The idea that this sentence will deter people from making child pornography is farcical. The number of suppliers of child pornography will probably increase as the decline of online transfer of CP goes down. As long as people are willing to pay for this smut people that could previously get their fix online will probably seek out local producers.
Just like cracking down on substance abusers to try to decrease demand didn't work, the only way to decrease the production of child pornography is to hit the suppliers in the wallet. You can hate and despise people who make or look at CP all you want, but it is unlikely that what happened to this man will deter the CP industry in the slightest. I also think it is unlikely for this sentence to hold up on appeal. For those of you who would rather have the man dead, don't worry too much because as soon as the prison population hears what he was convicted of he is as good as dead. The prison population in US prisons despise child molesters so much that he will likely be sodomized at any opportunity and if he doesn't kill himself he will likely be killed by one of the inmates if he spends any appreciable time in jail. Keep in mind that this is going to happen to someone who never molested a child and had no prior criminal history.
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EPT
