www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/1...on_child.html?r=news

I've lost count.

the sentences for this in the US are ridiculously harsh.

One of the mantras spouted by self appointed campaigners is that all those who seek to work with children must be suspect so that should include themselves as well.

(I was assaulted by a well known such person on a flight-dreadful woman who got drunk and groped me)

I would suggest that all who self-appoint go through rigorous checks all the time.

The other is that looking at porn inevitably perverts one and they progress to physical acts- a favourite of the coppers. But what about them then ?..we know they are no different so are there heaps of budding assaulters in the police force ?

(police should go through vigorous psychological testing all the time)

I would say that a genuine paedophile would do the following :

1. Not apply for teaching or any other job that had a high level of checks and in addition would "out" them by their behaviour very quickly ( e.g innapropriate behaviour with children etc. etc ) Almost impossible to cover up.

2. Apply for a job with minimum qualification and minimum checks ( e.g Child Protection - which has nothing except a CRB check and training would really be on the job )


Therefore, I think within the Police CPTs you have a mixture of genuine people ( mainly female ) and the rest are potentially already paedophiles who have seen this as a route to free Child Porn and titillating stories.

In addition if it is "Grooming" which creates sexual dysfunction - then constantly being exposed to images of children in sexualised ways must surely warp anyones sense of what is the norm in sexual behaviour.

Finally - if you are dealing on a daily basis with sex - then surely this is not healthy.

My suggestion would be that they scrap child protection teams and farm out all work under a general banner - so that only occasionally would any person have to deal with such things. This would give them perspective - it would mean that all Police and social workers were trained to the same standard.

The idea of specialisation does not work except for jobs like forensics where the skills involved are specialist. Yes councillors and those interviewing very young or vulnerable may be specialist - but in the end I cant see any difference between arresting a vicar for downloading child porn ( you still have to secure the evidence and do the prosecution ) to a shoplifter.

I think we are creating loads of perverted people in the Child Protection industry.

In addition within teaching etc much of the sexual pressure on teachers comes from the media and quite often you do hear the defence that a teacher was having a breakdown at the time they got "involved" with an underage or sixth former. Now I am sure no one in their right mind denies that teenagers are sexualised at an early age these days with 60% being encouraged by the state to have sex before they are legally able to consent. Teachers and authority figures are often targetted by such sexualised young people because they know them.

I would like to see a ZERO tolerance of sex in schools up to the age of consent and on mainstream TV and Videos and gaming. I realise that once again I will be accused of being Mary Whitehouse follower - but if we genuinely want to allow kids to have a childhood without the intrusion of what the LAW agrees is a an inability to consent or understand what sex is until 16 years old is reached - then we have to wait until then to expose kids to all but the basic biology.

Our society has massive double standards. We sexualise our children and then when they go out and experiment they can be charged with Sex Offences for the rest of their lives. As we have seen - it is becoming more common for people to go to the Police 10 or 20 years later after their teens and then complain about people of the same age or just older - leading to their arrest and imprisonment for what was a normal relationship 10 or 20 years ago.

This can only get worse unless the law is changed to reflect reality. There should be a 5 year max bar on all sexual offences except Rape to bring it into line with most other crime. Then we should seriously consider stopping the "state" grooming young people for sex. Finally I agree we need tougher checks on self appointed guardians AND on those who gravitate towards child protection jobs. These people have to be suspect.

Quite a few interesting issues here that I'd like to chip in on.

The argument that looking at certain genres of porn turns the viewer into an afficionado of that genre is just plain wrong. Reactions to child porn might equally be strongly negative, ambivalent or indifferent. Marmite haters don't start to like it if forced to eat it on toast every morning do they???

By the same token, the police also believe that anyone who listens to a firebrand Islamic preacher or a right-wing activist will automatically agree and become a terrorist/nazi, therefore such people and their message should be outlawed. Well, excuse me, but I can choose for myself who and what I agree with and I don't want or need the state to decide for me.

My suspicion is that people working in child protection areas, like in many specialist units, are a little too seduced by the sensational or glamourous aspects: Walter Mitty types in some respects.

I don't agree that working full time in tough fields like child protection is necessarily destructive to the character. Hospice or oncology nurses, for example, find ways to deal with their jobs, and the vocational value may well counterbalance the the bad feelings. However, I DO agree with BR that generalised teams would be better, just to keep skills going on a rotational basis, and to maintain a reasonable perspective on life and society.

I also agree with BR that if underage sexual activity is illegal then it should be enforced as such. However, I think sexual relationships are a matter of personal choice, and the governing factor for when to start and what to do should be education, not the law.

At the moment, we have a twisted situation where a 15yr 11month old girl with a 20yr old boyfriend is being "abused" despite how happy she may be in the relationship. A month later, society has changed its mind, and suggests that sexiness and attractiveness are the most important qualities for the young lass. So young people are being told on one hand that healthy, enjoyable and safe sex is abuse (until they turn 16, whereupon it suddenly becomes ok), and on the other that they should be at it all the time.

See also from last friday : www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-299939/...led-child-abuse.html

Here's another one :
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/chil...ng-girls-566538.html

And I'm sure everybody here remembers the anti-child porn senator Mark Foley.

At the moment, we have a twisted situation where a 15yr 11month old girl with a 20yr old boyfriend is being "abused" despite how happy she may be in the relationship. A month later, society has changed its mind, and suggests that sexiness and attractiveness are the most important qualities for the young lass. So young people are being told on one hand that healthy, enjoyable and safe sex is abuse (until they turn 16, whereupon it suddenly becomes ok), and on the other that they should be at it all the time.

That's indeed a huge contradiction, easily explained by the rise of feminism. Women want a society where they can do whatever they want with their bodies, but at the same time, they don't want to be competing with the flawless bodies of 16 year old girls.

that is obviously an isolated but shocking tale that demonstrates that the authorities talk through their hats and are as ignorant of how it all is, as the general public are.

Having just read about that bizarre involvment between the soon defunt CEOPS and the undoubted child neglectors the McCanns (although I have no idea of the truth in that case), it's clear the whole matter of porn and abuse has been hopelessly politicised with help from the media.

I still think the odd claim that viewing porn perpetuates the crime is applied selectively to certain crimes.

Smoking pot or using any illicit drug directly leads to the massive criminal trade in drugs and the thousands of deaths every year in Mexico , Columbia etc and in particular of very poor people caught up in trying to make a living in it quite apart from the police killed.

Drug takers are as responsible for those deaths as the killers themselves.

Blackit wrote:

That's indeed a huge contradiction, easily explained by the rise of feminism. Women want a society where they can do whatever they want with their bodies, but at the same time, they don't want to be competing with the flawless bodies of 16 year old girls.

Well yes, that would do it. Not a very convincing argument, but at least it's a start.

We should be very careful. There seems to be a rising tide here toward making excuses for those who believe that;

A. Sex with the underage is OK.

B. Child pornography is only a problem for those who seek to obliterate it.

It's a dangerous tide and this board would be the poorer should the wave ever hit the shore.

Let us try to understand, sure. But blaming feminism with the explicitly made reason that the motive is jealousy is limp {and probably very, very wrong} in the extreme. It should also be borne in mind that if this argument is intended to be taken as valid it might equally be argued that the views expressed by Blackit here are informed by exactly the opposite motives. Something I'm sure {at least I hope} isn't the case.

Locked Out wrote:

A. Sex with the underage is OK.

[/quote]

I'm not sure anyone here thinks that, but I for one think that sex with the underage is not necessarily bad. At the moment, the message young people are getting is that perfectly happy and fulfilling sexual activity is "abuse" solely because it happens before their 16th birthday. No wonder there's so often a somewhat warped attitude to sexuality and relationships thereafter.

Blackit's argument about jealous feminists doesn't convince me. The situation seems to have arisen because it's just not been thought through properly with sufficient thoroughness and perspicacity.

My position on child pornography is this. There is no ethical basis for banning possessing or looking at such images, because it neither harms nor offends. Looking at a picture cannot cause physical harm and it's unlikely that it can be shown to lead causally to clinically definable mental disorders. Likewise, A cannot be offended by B in another location looking at images that are not to A's taste. I've posted before about how I dislike the notion of banning things because some people just dont like them.

However, the act of creating child porn images may cause harm to the subject of the image, and for that reason I believe this should not be permitted. Likewise, paying for images should be prohibited because it may perpetuate situations that might be causing harm to the subject of images being created. Of course, creating cartoons or pseudo images harms no one, nor do snaps of children running around naked on holiday at the beach.

Child Porn is wrong. The people who create child porn should receive a LIFE SENTENCE.

Like drug users - people who view child porn should be offered an escape from it - counselling and help.

Surely by doing that we stop it - and this would work for Drugs as well ( as Veritas says - both are the same and addictive criminal behaviour )

I agree with LO that we must not make excuses for Child Abuse at all - there is no excuse for someone having sex with someone under the age of 16 years old and in addition there is no excuse for someone under 16 having sex.

I believe that between the age of 13 to 16 people SHOULD be held responsible for their actions. Prior to that I believe it is a different ball park.

No one should be having sex before 16 if society has decided together that it should be ILLEGAL. Which the last time I looked was the case.

Therefore, the Police must prosecute the following :

1. Any Doctor or Local Authority which gives out contraception or sexual advice to UNDER 16s because they are breaking the 2003 act on GROOMING. They cant argue the silly defence that "they will do it anyway" because that is a PAEDOPHILE argument and as LO says this is not justified.

2. Any person who gets pregnant or buys contraception or morning after pills and they are under 16 should be prosecuted as well.

3. Any shop or pharmacy or pub which does not get PROOF OF AGE ( over 16 ) to buy any sex related product should be prosecuted.

This is the only way we will stamp out UNDER AGE SEX - which by definition is PAEDOPHILIA ( Note that the old definition of Pre Pubescent which Paedophile means has been overtaken and changed by the UK and USA and Australian media led by Murdoch which now means anynoe under the age of consent which is 16 for most people and 18 for teachers )

So there we have it - the state is GROOMING unless it enforces its own laws.

That is awful dribble BR. Sorry it just is.

No the law is drivel.

Why have laws which are then applied only against some people and not against others who are worse offenders.

GROOMING is done more by the STATE than by any individual. The law is only applied to individuals when the greatest encouragement to partake in Under Age illegal sex is made by STATE edicts which give the teens the means and wherefore to act illegally.

If the STATE offered FREE CARS to all 15 year olds to drive around in EVEN THOUGH they cant legally have a license until 17 years old there would be an OUTCRY. So why can the STATE do this when it comes to SEX.

The reason being that UK citizens are too uptight to talk openly about issues like sex because they are repressed by years of media dumbing down.

The STATE can GROOM openly with no action against them. That is why the UK has the highest number of sex offenders in the World and why it has the highest Teen pregnancy rates in Europe.

Why have a law which is only brought into play 10 or 20 years later when it cant be proved ? That is bad law.