Interesting point, although I disagree, as some criminals may not be given the full sentence of the law as there may be mitigating circumstances, depending on the nature of the crime and more pertinently, whether the nature is being treated proportionately or not.
This woman technically took her husband's life in a premeditated manner. Only the husband was horrifically abusive toward her for years and the court viewed her killing of her husband as a form of pre-emptive self defence and rightly acquitted her.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/1122/96318-sulaymanovad/
That's not the same as taking someone's life in a premeditated manner to get an inheritance or because you didn't like them or because you like killing.

I don't think this paedophile should have even faced charges for example.
http://www.herald.ie/news/courts/pae...-28012773.html
That said, I think his previous conviction for raping minors should have exceeded the 10 years he got as I recognise that people who rape minors are a serious danger to society.

There are mitigating circumstances to some crimes. A drug addict robbing a car stereo, or prostituting themselves for their fix, a guy who suffers a severe injury in work scoring pain killers on the street because his insurance doesn't cover it, these are mitigating circumstances. They should receive different treatment than somebody who engages in a Bernie Madoff or Enron style fraud which ruins the lives of thousands.
There are no mitigating circumstances for accessing child pornography using real children, and again we're talking about treating people proportionately here.
So yeah, criminal paedophiles should be punished to the fullest extent of the law and I also mean that for every criminal whose crime was committed with no mitigating circumstances at all.

Do you sentence the person who has downloaded 1 image the same as the person who has downloaded 1,000? Do you sentence the person who has accessed child pornography once the same as the person who has accessed child pornography on a number of occasions. These are mitigating factors just as the mental state of the person who accesses child pornography is.

What about those who have googled for porn related to "young looking boys or girls" and have looked at videos or pictures of teenagers who appear to be under 18 (but may not be). I'm not talking about 10 year olds here, but young looking teens. Then lets say the computer breaks, it goes to the shop, and the repairman finds images of what he thinks are 14 year olds having sex and alerts authorities. How should they be treated?

Yes.

Yes.

No they aren't, as it's irrelevant whether you access real child porn once opr a bazillion times, as you're still empowering a market and enabling more children to be abused, regardless of how many times you do it or what your mental state is at the time. I find it implausible that people suffering from actual psychosis would be tech savvy enough to access and install the software to gain access to child porn.
Paedophiles suffer a sexual warp. It's a disorder, but is not mental illness any more than psychopathy is.

A paedophile who accesses animated child porn because he doesn't wish to involve real children is mitigating circumstances in the sense that it's somebody wishing to use an alternative and harmless medium for their disorder.
One who accesses real child pornography throws mitigating circumstances out the window, by virtue of his actions.

What about them? Again, actual child porn involving actual children being sexually abused is not something that you'd find by using google.

... You're not going to find 14-year-old-kids having sex in some video by using google. No child pornographer is going to put out child porn on the surface web where they would be easily apprehended. We're not talking about legal porn websites of the "hot teen" variety with young looking but adult people, but kids. You cannot arrest and convict people for that, as it isn't a crime and can't arrest people for looking at mere non sexual pictures of kids or young people, any more than you can arrest a zooiphile for ogling a picture of a horse or whatevs. You can arrest the zoophiliac if he decides to shag said horse and you can arrest somebody for looking at pictures of child pornography.
However you'd only find such things really on the dark net. Those who are attracted to children and then access the darknet usually aren't doing it because they keenly follow a forum run by dissidents in Burma or human rights campaigners in Saudi Arabia or China, but do so because they wish to access child porn.
So again, I don't see any mitigating circumstances here.

So the person that burgles one house should be sentenced the same as the person who burgles 1000?

I'm Not so sure about that. I've read about cases that are similar to that from what I remember.

I believe I already covered this in a previous post.

You don't sentence someone because of the market they contribute to but the crime they commit, however even if accessing child pornography did generate the market for it the market is empowered to a greater extent the more the user downloads.

So it isn't covered adequately or coherently.

Yeah well, if someone who accesses a legal porn site with adult performers gets misconstrued as visiting a child pornography site, then that's the kinda thing that you can get sorted out in no time, meaning the person in question has nothing to worry about. I very very much doubt that actual child porn sites exist on the surface web and if they do, then I'll stand corrected. I would imagine that they'd advertise themselves as such sites though, seeing as they've zero problem going on the surface web where they can be traced in about five seconds, so anyone "stumbling" across it should have no real excuse, should they?

There wouldn't be a market to begin with if people suffering from such a disorder didn't attempt to access material which creates the market, therefore accessing it once is still empowering the market,even if accessing it multiple times empowers it to a greater degree.
The crime they commit-consciously accessing material of child rape and abuse- warrants proportionate sentencing that reflects the crime, its nature and gravity.
So with respect, I don't think your point is valid, sorry.

People die due to violence in drug producing nations, should drug users in other nations have their sentences reflect the crimes of the producers?

Like your whole argument is based on a legal understanding that we don't employ in the west and isn't consistent, people were sharing images of child pornography before there was a market for it, in fact much of the child pornography out there is free, it's shared among those paedophiles that consider themselves a community. But you are saying that in child porn, and only in child porn should the number of offences be irrelevant. 1 or 1 million it's all the same, apart from the fact it isn't.

Drug addiction or drug use is not a remotely apt comparison to predatory or sexually abusive crimes. You're viewing crime in general through some sort of one-size-fits-all prism. I'm talking about the nature and context of the actual crime. I already explained to you with examples and comparisons given about mitigating circumstance and proportionate criminality.

More a desire for the sentencing to be more consistent and should be proportionate, which I acknowledge is jmo.
No, what I actually said is that sentencing should reflect whether there's mitigating circumstances or not regarding criminals in general and that they should be punished as severely as the law allows if there's no mitigating circumstances, not just for paedophiles. However my point was that once a paedophile chooses to engage in criminal paedophilia involving real children, be it via abuse or accessing abuse, no mitigating circumstances exist, any more than any exist for rapists.

It's irrelevant if they share for free, there's still a free sharing market, meaning that the incentive is there to abuse more children to cater to this market, even if the dividend is to get free goodies from their fellow child abusers or enablers of child abusers.

No I am asking you about the production and consumption of illegal material, in one case you think that people should be sentenced for consumption because it motivates production and in the other case you don't.

I get that child sex abuse and paedophilia are difficult and emotive topics but you're views here are ill considered.

No, you simply see someone who burgles a house once and someone who accesses child porn once as on equal footing, whereas I recognise that one offender may be committing an act for all sorts of reasons and should be treated accordingly and another who commits an offence because of a disorder that's inherent in their makeup, and should be treated accordingly. You also don't seem to differentiate by what are considered minor and serious crimes in society, such as burglary vs child abuse. There may be degrees of child abuse but child abuse is still a serious crime, either way you cut it and will be regarded as such by society as one crime isn't fueled by a pathological disorder and the other one i, meaning the propensity for serious crimes is greater in the offender with the inherent disorder.
And it would motivate production and even if it didn't, it would still be accessory to a very serious crime.
It's not emotive to view the context of the crime and nature of the crime or to opine that help should be given to non criminal sufferers of a disorder, so even though the topic is emotive, I don't think I'm viewing it emotively.

That's fair enough if you think my views are ill considered, as I don't consider your points valid due to your not viewing the context of specific crimes, so I reckon we'll just have to agree to disagree.

This is true but still meaningless. Having sex with kids is ldo wrong. Having sexual urges towards kids is ldo something people have no control over. Does anyone honestly believe people choose to be pedos??

Being a pedo who doesn't diddle any kids (and would never do such a thing) is the same as being a really unattractive heterosexual guy (that no chick would ****) that doesn't go around raping women. Nothing immoral about it, it just sucks to be him.

What? You think people are choosing to be attracted to kids?? The greatest stigma our society has??

I never said they had control over their attraction to children, I said they had control over their urges, meaning they have the control to not act on their attraction, meaning they have the control not to access child pornography and if they lack the impulse control and indeed access it, then that doesn't diminish their responsibility and their actions- or giving in to their urges- is down to them.

make child sexual abuse life in prison, or death w/burden of proof + 1 or 2 parameters. offer discreet therapy/sexual surrogates for pedos.

Ah, i agree with that.

That's besides the point. The urge is always to do something abusive which is not the case for adults.

They both suck but they are not both the same. I've not been talking about morality here although as a separate point I would argue we do have some control over how our thoughts and desires develop over time and there can be some moral responsibility.

I don't agree but this is meaningless so I won't bother to argue.


Just like homosexuality.

It's patently obvious that people don't have control over what they're sexually attracted to.

It's not like homosexuality because there's no problem with being homosexual.

We do have some control over how out thoughts and desires develop. For example, we can choose to starve of indulge our thoughts which has an impact on how they develop over time. It's one reason people should seek specialist help if they are having urges to do something they know is wrong even if they think they will never offend.

If people can control how their desires develop then starving them is an argument against seeking specialist help.

Could be except maximal starvation may well be far from the best thing to do. It illustrates the point that we have some degree of control over how these things develop. Sometimes thinking is an action that we can control to some extent and that that action will influence how our thoughts develop over time.

Unless you're putting forward the view that there is no expertise available and therapy is like homeopathy (I assume you're not) then this is a very good place to seek out expert help and for the rest of us to argue for it's provision. Learning cognitive techniques for dealing with something as serious as this, from those offering pap psychology would be a bad plan.

No there is expertise there and I agree that pedophiles even if they have no intent of acting on their desires should seek help. I also think that with appropriate work the pedophile may learn to better manage their desires but they do not control who they are attracted to.