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On November 07 2011 02:18 Excomm wrote:
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.
The worst part about it is that there is no one to help this person. He can't get out of this because no one is going to stand up and say "this is wrong" because of the subject matter being dealt with. This person is marked for life as not worthy to live, and there's no real life for him even if he doesn't go to jail... Yay, society is awesome!
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On November 07 2011 02:18 Excomm wrote:
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.
Its a sad world we live in..
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I wonder how the children in the pictures would react if they knew this. I mean, is this what they would want? I'm curious, I'm not saying either way.
But then again, children are tiny psychopaths.
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It's impossible to prove, but what if the images of child/man/woman activities were consensual? Would that make him owning the images better in the scenario that he has them just to control his fantasy?
I don't think paedophilia is a good thing, but I have no issues with people who know they have this urge but control it in a safe environment. Pictures do not harm people (you can say that the pictures harm people who were raped/abused, but in reality they aren't getting harmed from it), and unless the images were depicting a forced scenario (child not wanting to engage in actions) then I do not see why this man has to have his life ended.
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I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already (I skimmed through the thread) but to put this in perspective the age of consent for sex is NOT 18 in all of the United States. In the U.S. the age of consent can go as low as 16, which means that a 50 year old man/woman can legally have sex with a 16 year old boy/girl. There are a lot of European countries with the age of consent at 14-16 and Canada I believe has a general age of consent at 16.
Now this particular guy had pictures of boys from ages of 6-12, so he does not exactly fit this argument, but I am generalizing here since you can get a pedophile charge with anyone photographed under the age of 18. Think about that for a moment. You can legally have sexual intercourse, not rape or something illegal, with a 16 year old, but if you have pictures of that same 16 year old you can go to jail.
That is some serious hypocrisy. Essentially, at 16 year now old enough to decide if you are ready for sex, but not old enough to decide whether someone can photograph you doing said act.
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Considering the perpetrator of actual child rape usually gets less than 20 years, this is quite ridiculous.
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Life in jail for looking at some pictures? We sure are a civilized people aren't we?
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I will be going slightly offtopic with this post, but i hope it will help people in thinking about the root of the problems rather than making judgements about the symptoms.
Please excuse any grammar mistakes in advance, thanks.
please treat this post rather as personal opinions and theories rather than a listing of scientific facts.
It is more a mix of both.
topic #1 - pedophilia itself
I will start with the question: How do people realize what their sexual orientation is? In an experiment about sexual attraction, two groups consisting of pairs of straight men and women were made.
In one group, the so created couples had to cross a safe bridge, in the other group, they crossed an apparently unsafe one.
At the end of the task, the respective couples were asked how attractive they found their partner at task.
Results: The people crossing the unsafe bridge found their partner at task to be siginificantly more attractive.
Interpretation: The arousal while crossing the unsafe bridge wasn't attributed to the anxiety, but to the task partner being attractive.
Now, apart from this result being interesting in general, why did i mention this experiment?
Cause the first question is: How do pedophiles find out that they are pedophiles?
Like with homosexuals who have to find out that they actually are homosexual, there have to be situations which help people in discovering such parts of their selves.They have to attribute their state to a trait and accept it as stable.
I'm thinking of various alternatives:
1. They get aroused near children
This doesn't automatically show them that they are pedophile, cause the arousal doesn't have to be sexual, like you don't automatically get an erection while you are near chicks, they might just feel uneasy etc, they might think that they don't like children in general.This is where the individual attribution determines the outcome.
(now the deductional part)
-> This point might explain why sexual abuse mostly happens where people constantly interact with children (examples: priests, teachers, fathers and other relatives). Those are also the groups which are most at risk for such cases. Most of those people simply didn't know they were pedophiles until they came into contact with children. But that's not all! What the groups have in common here is that they all have a position of authority towards the children.But at this point it's too late to draw them away from this position, cause the pedophilia was latent all the time, now that those people have found the niche, they automatically abuse the power to exploit the children (willingly or not, abuse of positions of authority is very common among humans, see the stanford prison experiment for further information.)
So we can identify this as a factor putting these people at risk: position of authority over the children under the condition that pedophilia was never discovered (letting them achieve such a position).
2. They come across child pornography on the internet and get sexually aroused
Compared to point 1, this one is a pretty much immediate indicator of pedophilia. If one sees child pornography and doesn't close it, delete it or whatever, instead starts jacking off to it, he should have realized that he has a problem.
I don't have any reference regarding the interaction of attitude (towards pedophilia) and nature (pedophile or not), which comes into play when people commit sexual crimes towards children or keep child pornography on their computer, thus "embracing" that part of themselves.
Now i don't state that this is complete, you are free to add your own thoughts to this, but i want to skip to my
Interpretation and conclusion:
Looking at the points above, it has to be understood that being a pedo is not a choice.
Someone in this thread mentioned a 30 % prevalence found on a wikipedia article, which i personally find hard to believe, but i don't have any data.
For the hardliners on this thread:
1.Pedophilia isn't a choice, it's a disease.Both the children and the pedophiles are victims of a system of taboo not allowing optimal treatment until it's too late for both of them.
2.Now in this specific case they found a consumer of child pornography, but did they find the creators of that awkward material?This can't be called justice until the people who made these photos and videos are found and given an harder verdict.Don't forget that this guy only had the chance to embrace his pedophilia when he found the material under circumstances we don't know, but in any case, the main fault is of the people seeding and creating it.
3. You might even be a pedophile, but not knowing it yet. We are a product of genome,environment and own behavior , and if your genome favors pedophilia and the environment made it pop out, it might only be partially your fault.
Now this is a critical point:
If people realize that they are pedophiles when they have an authority position over children, then it might be too late to avoid abuse.
Considering this, the material on the internet is a double-edged sword:
1. It helps pedophiles in recognizing the sexual orientation, so opening the possibility of a treatment where it's possible before any child gets damaged.
2. It might favor the embracement of the disease, most likely in an environment where they have to keep that orientation secret cause they wouldn't get any help.They might aswell neglect their nature.
What i think is a better system for society:
-Give opportunites for people to out themselves anonymous as pedophiles in a medical environment and offer treatment, recognize it as a disease, not a choice. (And i believe there is even treatment for this kind of disease despite some people seeing castration as the only alternative.If not, just keep them away from children or under electronic surveillance or in an asylum)
-If you found material on the internet just now, would you report it to the police under the risk of being suspected of the possession? The criteria for guilt concerning possession of material are way too strict now for normal people to help the law enforcement at removing the material.
I would probably just close/delete it and try to forget what i saw cause everything else would be too risky under the current circumstances.
-Once it's recognized as a disease, law enforcement will be able to obtain the sources of the material from the pedophiles in exchange for no penalty and therapy
In this way the true baddies in the system will be discovered:
1.Pedophiles who want to earn money with this disease.
2.Pedophiles who want to look for and create "peers" sharing the same interest.Bringing them together would only make sense in a therapy.
-Teach pedophiles about the effects of sexual abuse on children to show them what the real problem is.A law shouldn't be justified out of itself.It will also help them at making the right choices.Every human being has at least some slight control over his actions.It's not like it's different for criminals.
topic # 2 - American law system in general
I don't have enough knowledge of it to make judgements.
topic # 3 - the catharsis hypothesis
Now there are people wondering whether it's better for people to consume something you are "addicted" to, though in this case it's not a drug, but pornographic material.
The catharsis hypothesis by Freud stated that to get rid of an emotion, you had to give in to that emotion. This has been proven as false. The best way to deal with an emotion is to control it and
canalize it into constructive directions instead of repressing it or giving in to it.
There are no actual results known to me concerning pornographic consumption, but i suggest that it's worse to be exposed to such material and pedophiles should be kept away from child pornography in order to
live a normal life.
Yes, that judge is batshit insane, but doesn't surprise me. I would never enjoy being a judge, go figure in the US.
Deciding over other peoples fates with the risk of being wrong and ruining innocent lives cause politicians want you to do so based on the hunt of electoral votes and other interests is something only few people can do while remaining normal.
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[QUOTE]On November 06 2011 10:14 stokes17 wrote:
Its basically equating possession (not production or distribution) of child pornography with first degree murder or first degree rape. Is this fair? I'm not sure.... but is interesting for sure.
EDIT: the article points out that he would have likely gotten a lighter sentence if he had actually molested a child.... seems a little odd[/QUOTE]
Obviously, what he did is wrong and should be punished. But the fact that he would be punished less severely for actually molesting a child..... that is just blatantly messed up.
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The life sentence may be enforced in this case to scare other Child Porn users/distributers/watchers/etc. They will see this trail and know that the justice system does not mess around with this kind of stuff.
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I'm a huge supporter of harsh punishments, but this is too much.
I understand the reasoning behind this, but I don't think it's in the right area. Is viewing child porn once really only the level of rape and murder?
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Certainly seems like overkill.
I'm not entirely convinced that possession of (or viewing) the pornography should be illegal. Essentially it's a recording of an illegal act, and I'm not aware of any other situations in which a photo or video of an illegal act is itself criminal to possess.
It is rather simple to find videos of vandalism, assault, even murder. As far as I know you would not be prosecuted for viewing or downloading them.
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way too much. Some people get less for murder. 3-4 years of therapie would be enough.
USA USA USA
"I'm not entirely convinced that possession of (or viewing) the pornography should be illegal."
it should be. Less people watching that shit prolly makes less people do, film and sell stuff.
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On November 07 2011 03:48 Steelavocado wrote:
The life sentence may be enforced in this case to scare other Child Porn users/distributers/watchers/etc. They will see this trail and know that the justice system does not mess around with this kind of stuff.
The justice system is designed to give each his own due. A punishment fitting the crime.
How can you possibly justify the law being used to spike a persons head on the wall to "scare the peasants"?
What if you drove through a red light and a judge said "fuck it, i wanna send a signal, give this guy 5 years instead of a fine".
You commit a crime, you get a punishment for that crime. No person deserves to see his life destroyed so society can make a point out of him.
This collectivist thinking is really fucked up.
As for the punishment the guy got, it is clearly to harsh. When raping a child lands you a smaller punishment then looking at child porn the scale seems to be off. Nobody is argueing wether he should or should not receive a punishment, simply the degree is up for debate.
I believe life is too long. He can receive help for his condition, learn to supress his urges and go back into society leading a somewhat normal life.
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On November 07 2011 04:11 Pertinacious wrote:
Certainly seems like overkill.
I'm not entirely convinced that possession of (or viewing) the pornography should be illegal. Essentially it's a recording of an illegal act, and I'm not aware of any other situations in which a photo or video of an illegal act is itself criminal to possess.
It is rather simple to find videos of vandalism, assault, even murder. As far as I know you would not be prosecuted for viewing or downloading them.
The thing is, no one (I hope) is paying money to watch those kind of things. (If they are they can just watch movies) But with CP you are encouraging the distributor to continue in said practice, which ultimately leads to more crimes commited.
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On November 07 2011 03:58 1Eris1 wrote:
I'm a huge supporter of harsh punishments, but this is too much.
I understand the reasoning behind this, but I don't think it's in the right area. Is viewing child porn once really only the level of rape and murder?
no1 gets even punished like that for rape or even child rape usually. thats what bothers me.
Its like saying: Go rape children, but dont watch pics of it. wtf?
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In polish prison that guy would be raped to death or "hung himself".
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On November 07 2011 04:18 1Eris1 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 04:11 Pertinacious wrote:
Certainly seems like overkill.
I'm not entirely convinced that possession of (or viewing) the pornography should be illegal. Essentially it's a recording of an illegal act, and I'm not aware of any other situations in which a photo or video of an illegal act is itself criminal to possess.
It is rather simple to find videos of vandalism, assault, even murder. As far as I know you would not be prosecuted for viewing or downloading them. The thing is, no one (I hope) is paying money to watch those kind of things. (If they are they can just watch movies) But with CP you are encouraging the distributor to continue in said practice, which ultimately leads to more crimes commited.
How?
If you're not paying then how, unless you personally encourage the maker, do you actually support it? I mean, the people who do it (for free), let's be honest, are most of the times "normal" people who put it online as part of the sexual arousal, I believe. The joy they get, aside from people encouraging them over forums or whatever, is probably just having uploaded it. As far as you anonymously download the pictures for free without any encouragement then how are you supporting the market?
I read nothing of him giving the maker(s?) thumbs up, you know?
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On November 07 2011 02:28 rederoin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2011 02:18 Excomm wrote:
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. Its a sad world we live in..
Its true, Unless this man goes on a "secure offenders" ward then most likley he will be killed, since as this man rightly put it, the prison population hate sex offenders. For example, in the UK a while back there was a man killing all the rapists and sex offenders he was put in a cell with, and said he would continue to do it if they put more in the call with him  It is funny that even in prison, where the scum of the earth usually ends up, they have a warped sense of moral justice.
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I feel whatever he got he deserved, you say he didnt harm any children, and i feel that is wrong in many ways. Sure he didnt make the porn himself or produce it, but without the demand, there would be no supply.
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EPT
