Comment You missed the madness (Score 2) 331
it was just evidence (photo and/or video) of folks actually raping kids. [...] And if it puts a dint in the practice, I don't think I'd characterize aggressively pursuing leads, as madness.
What you have just described isn't madness at all. I would argue that it makes perfect sense for law enforcement to treat child pornography as evidence of serious criminal activity (child rape) and to pursue aggressively the perpetrators of such a crime.
Unfortunately, there is madness in Western countries surrounding the issue of child pornography and pedophelia. Here are some examples:
- In the US, any image of an unclothed child is considered to be a serious crime. There have been many documented cases of photo labs reporting photos of unclothed babies in the bathtub (in no sexual context) to the police, and then the babies were taken from their parents and the parents were charged with manufacturing child pornography, a sex crime.
- In the US, while it is perfectly legal for 17-year-olds to have consensual sex with each other, if they happen to take a photo of this lawful sexual activity, they could be charged with manufacturing child pornography. Several teenagers have been charged with the sex crime of manufacturing and distributing child pornography for simply texting their boyfriend or girlfriend photos of their unclothed selves.
- In Australia, adult women with small breasts are considered to be children for the purposes of child pornography laws, so they may not appear in any adult entertainment without it being considered to be child pornography.
- In the US, all doctors and mental health professionals must report to the police anyone who comes to them seeking help with sexual attraction to minors. This discourages pedophiles from seeking the help that they need to avoid committing actual offenses against children. In our lust to burn the witches at the stake, we put real children at risk because pedophiles aren't getting the treatment that they need.
So, yes, our hysteria surrounding child pornography does rise to the level of madness. I'm not sure how we fix it, because it is political suicide to appear to be soft on pedophilia, but in the meantime, the madness is definitely doing more harm than good.