With momentum building for sentencing reform and federal judges among the most avid supporters of rolling back harsh mandatory minimum sentences, one judge is standing up for lower sentences for a particularly controversial category of defendant — those guilty of child pornography offenses.
As with other offenses, lawmakers have ratcheted up the sentences for child pornography sentences — including for online possession. And some judges have insisted that, as reprehensible as the offense can be, long prison terms are not the answer. Full Article
“lawmakers have ratcheted up the sentences for child pornography” Yes, they have. What a farce! The law enforcement/judicial system cannot catch the 90+ percent who actually molest children so they, the lawmakers, keep making harsher laws to justify their existence!
They are using the “lookers” as scapegoats for the actual abusers. This makes as much sense as charging someone who watches a video of a robbery or assault with a worse crime, and imposing a longer sentence, than the actual perpetrator would receive. After all, software catches the lookers, they have to work to catch abusers.
There are a few judges, like Judge Weinstein, who realize how wrong this is but don’t seem to be having any success at putting a halt to this downhill slide! And the gutless politicians are not about to tell the truth. That would be “political suicide” so they just continue to ruin lives to keep their jobs.
I came across the report to Congress on strategies for battling internet crime on children. The goal is to “eradicate” crime on the internet. Come on. Do they think they are God? If they had a policeman in every house looking at you on the internet… Ah, the NSA!…some of the policeman themselves would be involved in the crime. How are you going to control that? Policeman watching over policeman? The word “Orwellian” seems to be overused, but you know if it smells like totalinarianism….