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<p>As a victim yourself, you are understandably angry and less tolerant of abusers than someone with less direct understanding of the effects. Still, justice is supposed to be blind. Criminal A doesn’t deserve a heavier sentence because of the heinousness of Criminal B’s crimes. Each case deserves to be judged on its own merits.</p>
<p>Just to be clear, Emerald, I think quite differently about someone who actually touches a child. All my responses on this topic has been directly related to child p*** on the computer, not about those who create the photos, or touch the innocent. I hear your sadness and anger. </p>
<p>I do think, however, that the government and the public go ballistic to convict those who look at pictures on the internet. I don’t think it’s been quite established how best to handle the problem because it’s so new and so pervasive, but I do not think convicting them for years and then classifying them as sex offenders is inappropriate. The biggest consequence to that is identifying so many men as S.O. that the term becomes meaningless. Go after the men who sexually abuse the innocent instead.</p>
<p>Anyone mention this story? Computer virus that puts child porn on your computer.</p>
<p>[Porn</a> PC virus can kill a good name - CharlotteObserver.com](<a href=“http://www.charlotteobserver.com/408/story/1045524.html]Porn”>http://www.charlotteobserver.com/408/story/1045524.html)</p>
<p>futurenystudent, good luck with that law thing because you are surely going to need it. You may have the smarts to get into law school, but you are going to struggle in practice with that BOULDER on your shoulder.</p>
<p>As a former DA, your broad brush strokes that paint all of us as corrupt (along with those judges you sneer at) are shockingly naive, insulting, and untrue (with exceptions noted; yes there are “bad guys”, just like there are unethical criminal defense attorneys as well.).</p>
<p>Limabean, Why is it so hard to understand that if someone can make lots and lots of money selling photos of grown men raping children, someone goes out there and “touches” a kid to film it?!! And that many of the folks who make kiddy porn aren’t pedophiles themselves–they do this ONLY because they make money doing it? If nobody bought the stupid smut, fewer children would be assaulted.</p>
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<p>That is correct, but we are talking about two different groups of people: those who buy the smut, and those who find it (intentionally or not). If someone is caught buying it, then there is no further need to prove intent; obviously they intended to get it. But if they are caught possessing it, there should be a further step of determining how they came to possess it. As the article linked by NJres points out, it is possible to possess it without having intended to obtain it.</p>
<p>This is all horrifying to me. 3 year olds? 8 year olds? I’m quite sure this case didn’t involve 17 year olds. Nor, I’m quite sure, is it really so easy to come across child porn on the Internet “by accident.” </p>
<p>Yes, the victims are the children. Those are the ones I feel sorry for. Maybe if the guy had been my close friend for years I’d feel differently, but he wasn’t. I don’t have unlimited amounts of sympathy to spread around; I’d prefer not to use it for people like him. Especially, perhaps, since I was sexually abused as a child myself, over a period of several years, by a very prominent and respectable doctor at Rockefeller University, of all people. (I was in my early teens and certainly didn’t think of myself as a child at the time, but I do now.) He somehow managed to persuade me, naive as I was, that it was all part of his “examinations,” so I never told anyone about it for many years. (My mother out in the waiting room afterwards: “What took so long? What were you doing in there?” Me, highly embarrassed: “Oh, nothing. He was just examining me.”) All I can say is, thank God there was no Internet then, given the photographs he took of me (and, specifically, my genitals) without my clothes on at the beginning of every visit. Sometimes I wonder how I could have been so naive, but what did I know? (I saw his obituary in the paper a couple of years ago when he died in his 90’s, and couldn’t help wondering if the photos were still in his basement somewhere. Oy.)</p>
<p>Sorry to get off-topic, and this was hardly what I would have expected my first post in weeks to be about, but the subject made me think of it.</p>
<p>^^^Holy cow, Donna. Is there anything you haven’t experienced??</p>
<p>(Good to see you’re back.)</p>
<p>I have a question for some of you who feel these young men should be sent to prison for years and years for looking at child p***. What if these young men are either mentally disabled or autistic? The real tragedy is for their families, who already years and years and considerable $$$ in helping their child as well as their child. Since the young men wouldn’t be able to live on their own, the family had to move too.</p>
<p>Should these young men go to prison and be further subjected to ill-treatment there? (Prisons don’t have special facilities for the mentally ill or autistics.) Do you still feel as angry? Please understand that I discovered in my study that there were many, many young men who were arrested. It’s a situation that the government will have to deal with. These young men might be “computer savvy”, but they don’t understand the aspects of socially acceptable behavior. They don’t know that they could be arrested for a violent crime, when they are looking at pictures they didn’t pay for or take. In my research, I identified at least a dozen men. What do you say to that?</p>
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<p>Wow, what else are 24 year olds allowed to do that 50 year olds aren’t? Theft? Rape? Murder?</p>
<p>Limabean, </p>
<p>I’ve never seen any study that said mentally disabled or autistic men are more likely to be attracted to little kids and to enjoy looking at videos of them being raped or performing inappropriate acts than men without such disabilities are. I do know that some Asperger types are more likely to blurt out their desire to engage in sexual conduct in inappropriate ways; I’ve never heard of one doing this to a child. </p>
<p>If a young man is attracted to little kids and is so autistic or mentally disabled that he doesn’t understand that downloading kiddie porn is wrong and is, according to you, incapable of living on his own, then he should not be given unlimited access to a computer. You can keep most of the porn off by setting the filters at a high level.</p>
<p>If there are such men–how are you so sure that they’ll keep it at the watching pictures level? If one of them rapes or otherwise molests a little kid, do we say “There,there, you didn’t understand” and leave them free to do it again? </p>
<p>I just don’t “buy” the argument that there is some large group of autistic and mentally disabled men whose mental incapacities are such that they don’t understand that watching a film of a grown man raping an infant isn’t socially acceptable but simultaneously do understand that raping the infant yourself is wrong. </p>
<p>Sorry, but I do NOT believe that you have really found a dozen such men. Oh, I can believe that you found a dozen such men who didn’t understand that it isn’t acceptable to watch such stuff…but I don’t think they draw the distinction that it wouldn’t be okay if they paid for or took the pictures, as you state. Nor,as I said above, do I think that there are dozens of autistic and mentally disabled men who really didn’t understand that watching videos of little kids getting raped was wrong but do understand that being the one who actually raped the little kid is wrong. </p>
<p>I think that if such men as you describe watched violent kiddie porn they’d be more likely, not less likely, to try to recreate it themselves than “normal” men who watch kiddy porn.</p>
<p>And usually mentally ill people get sent to hospitals for the criminally insane. They aren’t put in the general prison population. </p>
<p>You’re just plain wrong when you say that watching kiddie porn leads you to be classed as a violent offender. It doesn’t. That’s total nonsense. Moreover, there are different levels of sex offenders. In the state I live in, the names of the lowest level offenders, the ones who have “only” looked at sick stuff, aren’t posted. There is a general description of the offense. “Sexually assaulted 8 year old with a knife” is one for one of the three registered sex offenders in my neighborhood. Another had sex with his 16 year old stepdaughter, and it specifically says that no violence was involved. </p>
<p>You come up with the names of 12 autistic or mentally disabled men who are listed on the sex offenders websites as ‘violent’ criminals and who have NOT done anything more than watch kiddy porn and I’ll believe your “research.”</p>
<p>Will a virus put you in jail?</p>
<p>
[A</a> child porn-planting virus: Threat or bad defense? | Safe and Secure - CNET News](<a href=“http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10394352-238.html]A”>http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10394352-238.html)
not likely</p>
<p>The whole subject of how one continues friendships, relationships with someone who becomes a convicted felon is a very touchy area. It very much depends on the relationship you had before all of this happened, and whether you can handle having someone in your life who has been involved in nasty crimes. This is an issue that causes agonies within families even. I have a friend who has a brother who did time for a felony, and it has been a problem having him in her family’s life to a point where very tight guidelines had to be drawn. </p>
<p>A major problem is that someone who has done hard time for a felony will have a very difficult time integrating back into society, finding jobs and friends, and they may become very dependent on your support. You may not want to be such a pivot point for that person. </p>
<p>It would depend on all of the circumstances for me to come up with the way to go, and it would evolve over time. It is a serious social issue about felons reentering society and going on with their lives. To ostracize forever is not a smart way to go.</p>
<p>jonri,
Obviously I have first hand knowledge of men who have been convicted as a sex offender and are mentally disabled or autistic. Excuse me, but do you seriously expect that i have to name these men to “Prove” they have been so convicted? One man went to the Butler prison (autism is not a defense for ‘mentally insane’) and actually asked me to identify him whenever I wrote about him, but why further harm him? (He’s the one whose family had to move because he lived in Florida and that state lists every SO online, and restricts where they live. He wanted me to mention him because he hoped his experience would help others. It was horrible to hear how he was treated!)</p>
<p>Another man had such trouble making friends (most autistic struggle making friends). When he ‘discovered’ a site where others seemed happy he joined, he simply followed their lead. Of course, you and i might read that as “watch out…they’re just trying to lead you on”, but this man didn’t pick up on that. (typical autistic trait) In fact, he admitted to me that he wasn’t even interested in the sexual part. he was just happy to have ‘friends’.</p>
<p>You mentioned that these men shouldn’t have had access to a computer. Well, I ask you. Do you know any adult autistics? They have trouble making friends (in fact, one of their main disabilities is that they struggle w/ social relationships). They like logic…computers. Guess what? The computer is a great solice to them. By contrast, people aren’t black and white. Adults have lots of ‘hidden messages’ in their language and it can be very confusing. That’s also one reason why autistics may be interested in young children: they don’t twist words and have hidden meanings. (remember, I’m talking about autistics who look at photos, not someone trying to entice young children.) To many it’s not about the sex…they don’t look at pictures that way. They go on a computer to learn stuff. Where do most young people learn things like what sex is all about? Not from a book or their parents, but from their friends. but these disabled men don’t make friends easily. they go on the computer and learn about sex there. Do they learn about empathy? That’s a very tough topic to teach. NO empathy is one aspect that is not easily ‘learned’.</p>
<p>Remember, tv and the computer have all sorts of pictures and videos that are legitimate. How are they to even know what is legit and what isn’t? They don’t have friends who would tell them. If you say: their parents", should tell them, that’s a mistake too. Many of these parents didn’t realize their adult son was even interested in sex or would look at porn, much less use their computer for that. In fact, these laws are the perfect storm: dorky man, no friends, naive about sex, prefers younger children because they themselves are young/immature/and naive and computer savvy.</p>
<p>Finally, how do i know these men won’t continue to look, even after being convicted? Again, you need to understand an autistic. they are VERY rule-bound. If you tell them a “rule” they will follow it. For example, I know one man was told, “don’t cross the road when the light is red”, he had trouble understanding he could cross if there isn’t a car anywhere around. He had to wait for the light to change.</p>
<p>PS: they are convicted of this crime because they simply “Possessed” the pictures. That’s all they need to agree with. They knew it was on their computer = quilty. The law does not take into account culpability or motivation. That’s very different from most other felonies, even murder, where motivation is taken into account.</p>
<p>Those studies you asked for: they are coming. the public doesn’t really want to read them though. It’s better to be disgusted than to see the harm these laws are doing to this population of men and their families. It’s very popular to be “appalled” about some sensational story than to actually understand these laws were not intended to convict these men. These laws cast a very wide net.</p>
<p>limabeans, </p>
<p>I read your PM which made me see red, to say the least. You and I shall never agree on this topic. It’s possible that someone in your family or a friend has been convicted of this crime unjustly. I’m certainly not claiming that every person who has been convicted of violating ANY law was actually guilty. Mistakes do occur. </p>
<p>There’s no point in arguing with you. You’re the self-proclaimed expert on the “law” in this area, although it is self-evident that you are not an attorney and have a very poor understanding of the legal standard necessary to convict someone of a crime. </p>
<p>BTW, do you know any young adults who were raped at an age under 10? I do. I feel one heck of a lot sorrier for them than I do for any adult male who watches violent kiddy porn–which was, after all, what the friend of the OP’s daughter was convicted of paying to watch.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t think there’s any evidence that autistic or mentally disabled men are more likely to be pedophiles. By stating that they are, I think limabeans has done them a disservice.</p>
<p>And, any parent who assumes that his/her adult son isn’t interested in sex because he’s autistic or mentally disabled is INCREDIBLY naive.</p>
<p>“Others, like me, are more inclined to think that there was likely a pretty good reason he was sentenced to 8 years after a plea bargain (implying it would have been a longer sentence otherwise).”</p>
<p>Yes, especially given that the defendant was college-educated and had a good lawyer. If we were talking about a terrified 18-year-old with an overworked public defender, well, sometimes they make horrible bargains. But when a defendant with some wherewithal agrees to eight years, the government had him by the $*(&% on something serious.</p>
<p>limabean, in what jurisdiction do you see the prosecutors relying on evidence that they hid from the defense? That’s an open-and-shut violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. If you know a good plaintiff’s attorney, there’s a tremendous business opportunity there.</p>
<p>Limabeans: “he hoped his experience would help others” Empathy for others is generally lacking in autistic individuals.
And the 50 yo vs. 20 yo argument - you’re kidding, right?
This is so lacking in logic that I’m beginning to think that Limabeans is a ■■■■■.</p>
<p>The only reason I feel bad for the guy is because he’s going to be pounded (in more ways than one…) during his stay in prison.</p>
<p>But besides that, hey, you do the crime you do the time. What he did was sick and heinous. Hopefully he can leave prison in one piece and get the necessary therapy in order to overcome his illness and become a healthy, productive member of society.</p>
<p>Thank you gravity, for seeing that I’m not trying to “anger” people, as a ■■■■■ would. It’s just that I have come to know several guys who have been arrested and it’s a terribly sorry story for them too. It’s their own undoing, that’s true. But it’s still sad.</p>
<p>No jonri, I NEVER proclaimed myself to be an expert, where did you see that? I’ll have to read my other posts here, but geez, you misunderstand me. I also NEVER wrote that the guys who were convicted of possessing child porn on their computer are the same as an abuser/raper. You might think they are, but these men looked at pictures. They didn’t/wouldn’t touch a child. </p>
<p>And finally, jonri. Maybe you’re a ■■■■■? I never said, nor would I say, that autistic men are pedophiles. In my research, I have spoken to experts, true experts, in the field who have testified about this very issue. And no. Autistic men are NOT more likely to be pedophiles than any other men. I did describe this situation as the “perfect storm” however. I said that because they like computers, they use computers to ‘learn’ about topics like sex, and they don’t know to stay away from these sites.</p>
<p>But clearly you do not have experience with autism when you write, “any parent who assumes that his/her adult son isn’t interested in sex because he’s autistic or mentally disabled is INCREDIBLY naive.” It’s hard enough for me to imagine my typical teenager to be interested in sex. but my other kid, who doesn’t talk to others, (at all), who is ten+ years years behind in his maturity compared to his same-age peers, who prefers to count floor tiles when we go grocery shopping interested in sex? Nope. But, after I spent enough time on this subject, I did realize it could have been a huge issue if someone didn’t tell him to stay away from these sites. No one else was going to tell him.</p>
<p>So, my message to any reader who’s still reading this: please stay away from these sites. LimeWire in particular. Federal agents are watching to see who goes on these sites. I can’t prevent these photos from being taken, but I hope this discussion will prevent you from being interested in looking at the pictures.</p>
<p>wrong thread</p>