[Niamh.]

Thoughts?



Author John Grisham has criticised the US justice system for handing down "harsh" prison sentences to those viewing indecent images of children.

The American said some of those jailed had probably had too much to drink and should have faced lesser punishments.

Mr Grisham told UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph that judges in the US had, as he put it, gone crazy on incarceration.

But the 59-year-old writer insisted he had no sympathy for "real paedophiles", saying they should be locked up.

He used the interview to launch a wide-ranging attack on America's judicial system for sending "too many people" to prison.

The US has the world's largest prison population, with about 2.2 million adults behind bars.

In 2012, close to 25% of the world's prisoners were held in American prisons despite the US accounting for just 5% of the world's population.

Mr Grisham, who has sold more than 275 million books during a 25-year career, focused his anger on the length of imprisonment imposed on offenders who download images of children being sexually abused.

He said a "good buddy" of his had been imprisoned for three years for viewing child pornography on a website labelled "sixteen-year-old wannabe hookers" when his drinking was out of control.

"We have prisons now filled with guys my age. Sixty-year-old white men in prison who've never harmed anybody, would never touch a child," he told the Telegraph.

"But they got online one night and started surfing around, probably had too much to drink or whatever, and pushed the wrong buttons, went too far and got into child porn."

US judges had "gone crazy" during the last 30 years, he added.

"I have no sympathy for real paedophiles. God, please lock those people up. But so many of these guys do not deserve harsh prison sentences, and that's what they're getting."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29639956

[Tom4784]

It doesn't matter if you've 'never harmed anybody' if you look at indecent images you are taking part in the abuse of the child involved. I do agree that America's laws can be quite jail heavy and that some minor laws could be tweaked to result in fines rather than jail time but looking at Child Porn certainly isn't one of them.

[lostalex]

How did it even come up? and what does being a 65 year old white man have to do with it? he makes it sound like 65 y/o white men shouldn't be treated so harshly, wtf.

also it's not illegal to look at anything online in the US, it's only illegal if you download it or host it on your computer and share it with other people. If someone gets arrested for it it's because they downloaded it, or they hosted it. just looking at webpages is not illegal in the US.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

It doesn't matter if you've 'never harmed anybody' if you look at indecent images you are taking part in the abuse of the child involved. I do agree that America's laws can be quite jail heavy and that some minor laws could be tweaked to result in fines rather than jail time but looking at Child Porn certainly isn't one of them.

I agree, if anything British and Irish judicial systems could probably take a leaf out the USA's, we're far too lenient imo

[Livia]

I predict a sharp drop in sales for Mr Grisham.

And I agree Niamh... some crimes should be punished so much more severely than they are, and fiddling with kids is one of them.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Livia

I predict a sharp drop in sales for Mr Grisham.

And I agree Niamh... some crimes should be punished so much more severely than they are, and fiddling with kids is one of them.

yeah, what the hell was he on when he thought defending people who watch child porn was a good idea?

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

yeah, what the hell was going through he on when he thought defending people who watch child porn was a good idea?

I know! It's one of those things that makes my mouth drop open with astonishment. Now, every time I see one of his books or films, this is what I'm going to remember! I bet his agent is sedated today...

[the truth]

he is 100% right

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by the truth

he is 100% right

course he is

[Livia]

Originally Posted by the truth

he is 100% right

Sometimes this place makes me lose the will to live.

[the truth]

were far too draconian on this matter and our hyesterical 24 hour tabloid culture denies any kind of interpretation, nuance, different levels of crime and punishment.....eveeryone who does anything is jumped on hysterically. if adrunken fool taps into a dodgy website 1 time , possibly by mistake. is he a perverted paedophile to be hunted down and destroyed , the way a a real serial pererted paedophile should be? are these the same crimes? nope. this is what grisham is getting at. but conversation is banned in the land of so called free speech. mindless culture, stupified nation

[lostalex]

Originally Posted by the truth

were far too draconian on this matter and our hyesterical 24 hour tabloid culture denies any kind of interpretation, nuance, different levels of crime and punishment.....eveeryone who does anything is jumped on hysterically. if adrunken fool taps into a dodgy website 1 time , possibly by mistake. is he a perverted paedophile to be hunted down and destroyed , the way a a real serial pererted paedophile should be? are these the same crimes? nope. this is what grisham is getting at. but conversation is banned in the land of so called free speech. mindless culture, stupified nation

but the situation you just described isn't what he is talking about. No one is put in jail for just wandering onto a website. That has never happened.

[Toy Soldier]

I think his point is a bit muddled but basically what he seems to be getting at is that, quite clearly, looking at a website with naked 16 year olds on it is very different to abusing a child or even looking at images of child abuse (which is abuse by facilitation - it might seem "harmless" to some as it's just looking, but people make these images and videos for a reason, and somewhere down the line, someone is abusing a child).

At the risk of going over old ground ... a 16 year old* is quite blatantly NOT a child. Many 16 year olds could feasibly pass for 18. Some could pass for 25 :/. That's not to say that the girls on that site haven't been coerced or even had their images stolen, which makes the site itself morally reprehensible, but... yeah... not children, not a paedophile.

(* if he is in fact telling the truth about what his buddy looked at)



My sister in law (18) has an ex boyfriend (aged 20) who was charged by the police for "distribution of child pornography" for sending his friends a picture of his ex girlfriend, who was 17. Now, obviously what he did was a scumbag thing to do, but the charge? Ridiculous. "Oh yes it's perfectly legal for you to have sex with your 17 year old girlfriend... but don't take pictures or you INSTANTLY BECOME A PAEDO!!!"



SO... what I personally think is, not that the charges and sentences are too harsh, just too arbitrary. If there are children involved, throw the book, no questions asked. The same goes for if force was used. If it's an underage teenager involved then more questions need to be asked and the punishment needs to accurately reflect the level of consent (whilst still keeping in mind that the age of full consent is there for a reason, and looking into whether there was any persuasion or coercion). I'm not saying that people should walk out of court without punishment, just that (to be frank) the punishment for looking at a sexually mature 16 year old's boobies should be pretty lenient. It's not (particularly) "wrong". In the UK, we can do what we want with 16 year old boobies all day long (with consent, of course) and it's perfectly legal. Except make images of course. That's being a paedo, as mentioned.

[Kizzy]

Blurgh... I'm sick of seeing these apologists for deviants everywhere. I'm glad America is clamping down on those using these sites,1000s of children trafficked and abused and yet that is somehow seen is inconsequential to a fat old white man getting his rocks off?
Unbelievable.