Where’s the Beef?
Sheila Mclaughlin of The Enquirer in Cincinnati wrote an EXCELLENT piece that looks at the very common practice of letting arrested and charged online predators walk away with as little as probation to a maximum of 90 days of served jail time. Read here: Are these guys a threat?
Absolutely ridiculous.
The article focuses on cases in Ohio, but it is a problem happening across the country.
One of the biggest problems, according to the article, is that some judges see online luring as a victimless crime, because cops are on the other end of the invitation for sex. Judges say they aren’t sure just how to punish online predators or how to predict whether they are truly a threat.
One judge was quoted as saying: “There’s so much junk that goes on on the Internet, it’s really hard for judges to get a handle on (this kind of crime). Are we catching people that would otherwise molest children or are we sort of creating the opportunity for a crime that never existed before? Would they have done something, or are they just kind of voyeurs on the Internet? We don’t have a crystal ball that tells us the right answer.”
Are you kidding me? These dirtbags know EXACTLY what they are doing and what they WANT to do.
Complicating matters in certain areas is a crunch on jail space. Officials have to wrestle with the issue of putting a online predator in jail means some DUI offender is not going to be sitting in jail. So you have to ask: “Which is better for society? A drunk driver running around loose or a guy that’s trolling on the Internet?”
Um… DUH. How about the guy that wants to molest kids.
The drunk driver…? Take away his/her car and license and make them take a bus! No need to waste space for them in jail!
Either way, the only good out of these cases, it seems, is the publicity and media circus that follow them. At least the embarrassment of being convicted of a sex crime will punish the offenders. Now family and friends know they’re trolling on the Internet, and that they are sleazy enough to ask a child to have sex with them.
What do you think?
June 14th, 2007 at 11:28 am
[...] Pandora’s Blog An open discussion devoted to keeping YOUR kids safe online, brought to you by the folks at PC Pandora… « Where’s the Beef? [...]
February 4th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
[...] you’re going to stop predators, but there is a way to convict more of them that are caught. As I’ve blogged before, and as has been well documented, too many caught predators are simply being released without much [...]