After being in this "War on Child Porn" for over 20 years, here are my thoughts on child porn.

“Child pornography offenses are one of the most over prosecuted crimes within the criminal justice system. Petty drug crimes are the only offenses that can compare with CP crimes in this regard.

Prosecutors abuse the system when they prosecute each and every CP offense---regardless of the circumstances--- to the fullest extent of the law. I have seen federal prosecutions in which a defendant received 120 month---10 years---for simple possession of a few images. Such prosecutions are not only crazy, they are a terrible waste of resources.

Nobody—nobody—should ever be sent to prison for only looking at some naughty pictures of underage people. Nobody should ever have a felony conviction for viewing CP either. If a guy has thousands of images and is trading them or is sending images to an underage female, then a prosecution is warranted. But sending people to prison for looking at a couple of images---any kind of image---borders on punishing people for thought crimes and not what they have actually done.

I am not advocating CP or saying it is healthy, but too many guys are being locked up and their lives ruined for being in possession of a few illicit images.

Production of CP? Send them to prison. Production involves a contact crime such as child rape or molestation and is a product of an evil mind. Simple possession of a few images of CP is not the product of a deranged individual.

But it continues. The general public has been made to believe---through the media---that every viewer of CP is a child molester—or a future child molester--- and a threat to snatch up and rape their child. They somehow believe that viewing such images is a gateway to contact crimes against a child. This false belief fuels these CP prosecutions.

We have had this happen before so history is repeating itself. The ill-fated and disastrous War on Drugs was approved by the general public, as the media and the politicians were able to persuade gullible people that marijuana was a gateway to harder drugs----heroin or cocaine. That is not true. While it is true that most heroin addicts did indeed start with marijuana, many folks have used marijuana for years without graduating to harder drugs.

Too many people in this country are ignorant, uninformed, uneducated, or stupid---pick the word you want to use---about any subject other than what is found on their favorite TV program. Many people never read a book or magazine article as it is just easier to allow TV to educate them and their children. As a result, we have people advocating for laws that have no scientific or even a common sense basis.

Many CP prosecutions are the result of an emotional response to a problem that does not exist. CP is not a “supply and demand” product, as CP is freely traded among viewers; money does not change hand as it does in the supply and demand module.

If we want to foolishly believe that viewing CP creates a demand for more to be produced, we would have to believe the following----If for some reason, nobody wanted to view CP or illicit images anymore, there would no longer be a demand for them. In the supply and demand principle, if there is no demand, there is no supply. If nobody wanted to view CP anymore, does anyone in their right mind believe that the producers would stop producing CP? Does anyone think that a CP producer would wake up some morning and think to himself, “I think I will stop raping and molesting little Suzy since nobody wants to view my images anymore?” No, the impetus of CP production is not to create a supply, but to satisfy the lusts of these monsters that rape children and film it.

I cannot believe anyone actually thinks the law of supply and demand applies to CP.

We are filling up our federal and state prisons at an alarming rate with young men who have done nothing but view some illicit images. It is absolutely insane, but as long as politicians----and don’t forget, DAs ARE politicians---can continue to keep being re-elected by being tough on crime---especially sex crimes---this madness will never end.

We have politicized he criminal justice system to the extent that there is no justice.

rewdiazepam

PS I am equally disturbed at some of these prosecutions of young men who have solicited young teens for sex on the internet. These teen girls know exactly what they are doing; it is not as if they are eight or nine years old. Yet, the young men have to take the full responsibility and pay the price. The younger female teen waltzes away to find another victim.

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“Regarding the judge’s belief that the War on Child Pornography is much like the ill-fated War on Drugs, we are making the same mistake with the prosecutions of child pornography as we did years ago in the War on Drugs.

We sent thousands of low level drug offenders to prison for decades on the false premise that marijuana was a gateway to harder drugs such as heroin. This is not necessarily true. Many marijuana users never use harder drugs.

We are using the same approach to simple possession charges of child pornography. Many falsely believe that a person looking at CP must be a potential child molester. Again, not necessarily true.

While it is true that many heroin addicts began with marijuana and that many child molesters have viewed CP, neither viewing the CP images nor the use of marijuana caused the situation to escalate as some claim.

In both instances, we did nothing but fill our federal and state prisons to capacity, ruining families, and putting this country trillions of dollars in debt.

In each case, instead of treating the root cause in most of these cases----drug addiction or an addiction to porn----as a medical problem or mental health problem, which can be treated, we treated it strictly as a criminal justice system problem and sent the offenders to prison.

We saw how badly the ill-fated War on Drugs turned out. The War on Child Porn is headed in the same direction.

We never seem to learn.

rewdiazepam

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“The following article was written by Richard G. Kopf, Senior United States District Judge in Nebraska.

tinyurl.com/hhn5fvv

The link above directs to a story which is most familiar to 90% of those arrested for possession or distribution of child pornography. I know several of the cases represented here, and the story sounds much like those offenders represented on the forum.

The child pornography problem is neither with the possessors nor the viewers. And, no, the problem is not with the poor guy who has no idea of the workings of P2P network and leaves a couple of files in his shared folder and is then arrested on a distribution charge.

I cannot buy the re-victimization argument any more than I can the “supply and demand” argument as a reason for the long CP sentences.

Child pornography is not a commercial product and is traded freely among viewers, so to me, the supply and demand argument holds no water. The re-victimization of the child in the image or video is equally difficult for me to understand since none of the victims even know when their image is being viewed or by whom? How can a person be a victim when he or she is not aware of a violation?

Apparently the FBI does not truly believe the re-victimization theory either. If so, they violated and re-victimized children by allowing thousands of images to be freely traded when they took over and operated a child porn site for two months last year during the “Playpen” operation on the Dark Net.

tinyurl.com/j6pyrkj

Maybe “Vicky” the child victim mentioned in the article should sue the FBI?? I would wager that some of those images the FBI allowed to be traded and distributed were images depicting Vicky.

The problem is the producers who abuse these kids and film the acts. Here is the true child abuse.

This article was written by a distinguished judge who has handled hundreds of CP cases. He also made this statement which I agree with and have preached for years-----that the War on CP is being waged much like the War on Drugs and the end result will be an abject failure.

His statement is found in the comments section-----

“Fourth, I am convinced that the war waged against consumers of child pornography uses a nuclear weapon which should be reserved for the producers. Otherwise, we fill our prisons with child porn addicts just like we fill our prisons with drug addicts. The war on drugs has failed by focusing on addicts, and the same is true for addicts of child pornography. That said, I have no solution to the problem except to say that too much prison time for addicts helps no one including the victims.”

Anyway, the link will provide everyone with a simple story about the timeline of a typical child pornography arrest.

rewdiazepam

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So, Tina, I have been fighting this CP witch hunt for years.

Ralph