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The Abuse of Child Abuse
04-16-2010, 02:50 PM
An interesting article about the apparent exaggeration of what constitutes the sexual abuse of children, driven by a mix of obsessed crusaders and an industry that's grown up around "treating" alleged victims. Doesn't minimize the enormity of actual abuse, but it does raise questions about what actually constitutes abuse, and how many people have actually been abused. Worth reading even if you don't agree with the writer's conclusions. Quote:And here is where the excesses of the crusade against child abuse
become not just over-zealous and silly, but irresponsible, even
abusive. Most of us didn’t have to grow under the shadow of imminent,
omnipresent paedophilia - the dirty man at the pool was little more
than a creepy amusement to be avoided. Today, he and others of his ilk
are being used to bulk up statistics on serious child sexual abuse, our
children now convinced there is no escape, that their doom is awaiting
them in the shadows of their own homes. It’s despicable. No child
should have to be frightened of that.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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I have noticed that I do tend to roll my eyes a bit at the latest scare.
And I'm beginning to get genuinely narked at the latest repressive "for the sake of the children" legislation.
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I've got something more like an actual comment coming, but in the meantime, something I heard about on the radio:
Woman forces boy to touch her breasts, gets life
Yeah, I'm sure feeling someone's chest is so horrible that the person is responsible needs to have their life destroyed for it.
Alternately, "This is not how the power is to be used!"
-Morgan.
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Morganni Wrote:I've got something more like an actual comment coming, but in the meantime, something I heard about on the radio:
Woman forces boy to touch her breasts, gets life
Yeah, I'm sure feeling someone's chest is so horrible that the person is responsible needs to have their life destroyed for it.
Alternately, "This is not how the power is to be used!" ...
You're... you're joking right?
Please tell me you're joking.
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Epsilon
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No, afraid not.
Mandatory sentencing, lack of judicial notification of sentence, no please bargaining offered, combined with a prosecutor who chose to use the most extreme version of the law they could convince the jury of.
Epsilon Wrote:Morganni Wrote:I've got something more like an actual comment coming, but in the meantime, something I heard about on the radio:
Woman forces boy to touch her breasts, gets life
Yeah, I'm sure feeling someone's chest is so horrible that the person is responsible needs to have their life destroyed for it.
Alternately, "This is not how the power is to be used!" ...
You're... you're joking right?
Please tell me you're joking.
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Epsilon The American legal system is a joke, but the story is not. Keep in mind that this is a country where people can be, and have been, arrested on child pornography charges for taking pictures of their own kids in the bathtub.
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IIRC, people have been arrested on child pornography charges for taking pictures of THEMSELVES.
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That they have. I'd have to go searching through the Fark.com archives to find links, but there's one particular prosecutor somewhere who's trying to convict a bunch of teenage girls for taking pictures of themselves in bath towels, underwear and bikinis.
And let's not even get into the cases where two teenagers having sex were caught and both were prosecuted as sexual predators -- with each other as the alleged "victim".
Anyway, I wish the prosecutor I mentioned above the best of luck with his obsession, because it'll be assholes like him who'll get this thing carried all the way to a federal court where, hopefully, a judge with an ounce of common sense will quash this kind of abuse of the law once and for all.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Rev Dark Wrote:No, afraid not.
Mandatory sentencing, lack of judicial notification of sentence, no please bargaining offered, combined with a prosecutor who chose to use the most extreme version of the law they could convince the jury of. A 34 year old woman forced a 13 year old boy to touch her breasts and kiss her. If A 34 year old man had fondled a 13 year olds breasts and kissed her we would not be having this conversation. The woman is sick and she deserves to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I'll grant that there are cases of child abuse allegations being taken too far, but this particular case is not the one to hitch your wagon to.
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Epsilon
Yes we would. Insane laws are insane laws regardless of the gender of the people involved. Thanks for giving us an example of where this sort of twisted nonsense comes from, though.
You should look into the concept of "perverse incentives." Basically, if you make the sentence for absolutely any crime life in prison, then genuinely bad people who set out to commit crimes (as opposed to foolish people who drink alcohol, as in this case) will just automatically kill their victims all the time, in order to reduce their chances of getting convicted. That's what happens when a minor case of assault and battery is regarded by the "law" as identical to someone like Jeffrey Dahmer killing and eating people.
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khagler Wrote:Yes we would. Insane laws are insane laws regardless of the gender of the people involved. Thanks for giving us an example of where this sort of twisted nonsense comes from, though.
You should look into the concept of "perverse incentives." Basically, if you make the sentence for absolutely any crime life in prison, then genuinely bad people who set out to commit crimes (as opposed to foolish people who drink alcohol, as in this case) will just automatically kill their victims all the time, in order to reduce their chances of getting convicted. That's what happens when a minor case of assault and battery is regarded by the "law" as identical to someone like Jeffrey Dahmer killing and eating people. This is pure bullshit. There is absolutely no scientific evidence which supports this claim.
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Epsilon
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I will, somewhat less boldly, second epsilon.
I did some digging through google scholar, and didn't find any quoted instances of perverse incentives on murder. There seems to be a meme that perverse incentives does impact this class of crimes, as it was mentioned several times. But I was not able to find/access any studies that addressed the issue.
I won't say it's pure bullshit, but I certainly question it's validity.
The argument assumes that criminals plan for the case where they are caught (as a general rule they do not). And I will go dig up the needed articles for that if people don't believe me.
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
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It did occur, historically, during the "Bloody Code" period of British legal history. It's where the phrase "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" came from.
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Jinx999 Wrote:It did occur, historically, during the "Bloody Code" period of British legal history. It's where the phrase "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" came from. Citation?
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Epsilon
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