Maybe Bumfight videos would be a better example. If the people who made them were criminals, were the people who bought them accomplices?
I think that example works. As to the current law, I don’t know. However, one could contemplate it as reasonable for the viewing of these videos to be made illegal in order to stamp out the commission of the original crime. That, presumably, is the reason that looking at kiddie porn is illegal; the looking itself does no harm, but it feeds the industry that produces the porn. And it is the kiddie porn industry that does the damage.
Sorry, diogenes, but after reviewing the sites you cited, I cannot from them draw the conclusion that you do: That a 4 year old will always be damaged by being molested.
In the first link, the researcher makes a key qualifying statement, saying “I hypothesize”. And another source in the first link says ‘‘The brains of adult survivors are fragmented and resemble a hard drive on a computer that has crashed,’’ which while a nice simile, doesn’t really make sense from a true neurobiological viewpoint. The first link is a newspaper reporter’s summary of what a number of different sources say, so isn’t a reliable source of factual data in and of itself.
The second link does go to a rather scholarly summary of the effects of child sexual abuse, but clearly states it is presenting a hypothesis, and at its conclusion notes that the hypothesis covers most, but not all cases. It goes on to note that the Post-traumatic Stress model may also contribute a therapeutic solution.
I do not discount what either of these links say. Terrible, terrible damage can be done to anyone who is sexually abused. But to say in your blanket statement that
has not been shown to be true. Nor does it serve the purpose of protecting and rehabilitating the victims.
Can we at least agree that sexual moslestation is harmful to four year olds whether the damage is permanent or not.
I can go with that.
me too
Great. Can we also take this a step further and agree that the recovery of the victim should be irrelevant with regards to the punishment of the perpetrator?
Not necessarily. That goes into a whole vast area of debate over appropriate punishment for crimes, and I’m not getting into that discussion.
I concur with Qadgop. Parts of the news article are merely anecdotes. Other studies suggest that in some cases, there is a correlation between certain social behaviors and child abuse. But the one thing they leave out is: Did one cause the other?
Subject A was abused (and note the studies often say the subject CLAIMED he/she was abused, not the same thing, especially if “recovered memory” is involved) and later developed “significant adult psychopathology.” This in no way proves that one caused the other. Maybe the same home environment (poverty, social situations, etc.) caused both.
Not the sort of evidence I would want to use to put someone away for a couple of centuries.
I’m not talking about cases where the molestation is in doubt. I’m talking about caught in the act (for instance, via photographs).
Are you saying that if someone is caught in the act of molesting a four year old, we should wait twenty years to find out how the victim turns out before we decide punishment?
Call me reactionary but I don’t think it matters. Anyone who rapes a four year old needs to go away for a long, long time.
Don’t build a strawman out of my answer, Diogenes. I reckon I’ve dealt with far more victims and sex offenders than 99.9% of the people on this board. And we’re talking gruesome sex crimes, not just some guy with a pic of a naked 12 year old taken at a nudist colony on his computer. I am familiar with the need for protection of the public, punishment of the offender, rehabilitation of victim and offender, and recidivism rates. I believe that a significant number of offenders should never, ever be released. But I also believe that one size does not fit all.
Qadgop, if it is a gruesome sex crime then, if your definition of gruesome is similar to mine, I would concede that it would always harm a 4 year old. “Greusome” involves, i would say, some form of personal, bodily injury/damage.
But just being molested (having some genital contact, nothing more) can’t be said to “always” cause damage. Sometimes? Absolutely. Like i said before, it’s like saying smoking causes cancer. No, smoking does not cause cancer or else every single person who ever took a puff off a cigarette would get cancer. It inceases the probability that you’ll get cancer. Being molested increases the probability that the child will grow up to have some problems. But to say it happens to 100% of kids who are molested (kids including 17.9999 year olds, as well) is just wrong.
If a 4 year old is just placed on a chair, naked, and some creepo snaps pictures of him/her, i doubt any harm occurs. wouldn’t be more harmful than mommy taking a cute little picture of the toddler playing (naked) in the bathtub. Of course, that’s the least-harmful form of “molestation” i can possibly imagine.
And to me, that offense you cite alone merits significant prison time, intense therapy, sex-offender designation status and community supervision (by a parole agent and others) for a long, long time. With more sanctions and punishment if the photographer was making money on the pictures. If repeat sex offenses follow, further incarceration should ensue.
But there has to be some discretion about sentencing. Recidivism in sex abuse cases is high, but anywhere from 30 to 50% (depending on whose statistics you check) don’t re-offend.
Well, if we’re going to be REASONABLE here …
there was the case of a guy who was a convicted sex offender. He was not just a pedophile, but a pedophile sadist. He did the time for his crime and was eventually released on parole. But a surprise inspection by his parole officer turned up drawings and stories that he’d made about kids being tortured sexually. Gruesome stuff, by all accounts. So back to jail he went.
He and his lawyer fought it, on the grounds that he’d never published his work or even shown it to anybody, it was merely his own private stuff, bad as it was. The authorities agreed it was a private stash, but still thought it sufficient to send him back to jail. Since he was on parole, he was vulnerable to this sort of thing, apparently.
I find myself on the one hand agreeing with the pedo and his lawyer. How can he go to jail for just recording his thoughts? Granted, they’re some pretty damned sick thoughts, but freedom of speech isn’t about just letting those thoughts we approve of be expressed.
OTOH, do I want this guy free to cruise down the streets of my neighborhood, where you can generally see kids playing in the yards most any time of day during summer? No, not really.
I guess you could call me for free speech in this instance but EXTREMELY ambivalent about it.
Because if it’s the case I’m thinking of, it was one where he was ordered to get therapy and NOT continue with that stuff.
As for damage-wouldn’t it also depend on how it is delt with? You don’t tell the child that “Oh my god-you’re ruined, it’s okay, I still love you, you go ahead and grieve for this awful, horrible thing-I’ll take care of you!” Nor do you say, “Well, it happened, but it’s over with-let’s not think about it.”
Because I can see both extremes.
Yes, I agree that if someone took a 4 year old for the sole purpose of having it pose naked to take pictures to sell to pedophiles so they can have some porno to jerk off to… that would surely merit prison time, etc. Absolutely. BUT, if that’s all that’s done to the 4 year old then to say there is a 100% chance that the kid will grow up to have problems is bullshit. The kid probably doesn’t even know what’s happening. I see naked kids running around on the beach every now and then. If a pedophile happens to be hiding behind a sand dune jerking off to it, the kid isn’t being hurt at all. The pedophile should still be tossed in jail, though. not for 200 years…
I’m willing to bet one of the conditions of his parole was the he NOT do things like that. Parole was a gift given to him by the State, and since he failed to meet the conditions clearly spelled out to him, back he goes!
Diogenes, dude, you should really like, you know, read your cites.
“Always” is a little extreme, I think.
Evil Captor, I agree with Blalron, there are terms of patrol which can cause re-incarceration that would be perfectly legal for you and I. For instance, parole for drug-based offenses often requires abstinence from alcohol as well, even though alcohol is perfectly legal for you and I to consume in reasonable quantaties without endangering other people.
This seems to me to be a coming constitutional argument over the rights of parolees. For example, my state, Colorado, just passed a mandatory one year parole for offenders. I don’t know who, it could be just drug, violent, or even all offenders. I’ll have to look it up. But basically, even if you get sentenced to three years, for who knows what, smoking dope in your basement, and you serve all three years, you still have a parole term that says no alcohol. So you get out and get busted for alcohol six months into your parole, you can still get sent back to prison. Now you’re serving more than your entire original sentence for doing something that would otherwise have been legal.
Interesting.
I wasn’t really counting just taking nude pictures as “molestation” (although that is certainly exploitive, criminal and deserving of jail time). I really meant actual, physical molestation. We know that early childhood trauma can affect brain development. I admit that I overstated it with the “always” description, and I realize that the degree of trauma is going to be less, say, for simply fondling a child than it will be for raping a child or forcing him/her to perform oral sex, but I really don’t want to set up a “safe” zone of molestation where an offender knows that one particular act will only get him a few years while another would get him a life sentence.
I said earlier that I thought the sentence in the OP was excessive. If a person has only looked at images and harbored fantasies without acting on them, I would guess that person might possess some wherewithal to hols himself back and may respond to therapy. I would also want this therapy to be concurrent with close supervision and a strict prohibition for that person having any contact with children.
I wonder if an institutional setting might work, a confined setting, not prison, where non-offending pedophiles (pedophiles who have not yet harmed a child) would be subjected to intense therapy.
I would also not be averse to Depo shots for these people. I’ve worked very closely with a developmentally delayed person ( a person with a sexual attraction to children and had, in the past, attempted to molest them) who got these shots once a month. It worked to curb his sexual fantasies (which he talked about out loud) and it actually created a better quality of life for him. He was able to live in a group home and go out into the community. Without the shots he would have had to be confined. The shots did have some feminizing side effects (loss of facial hair, growth of breasts) but I think the trade-off was worth it.