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Prime Time Crimes Against Children & Child Porn

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Comments

  • #62
    Noreen1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,654 ✭✭✭Noreen1


    Danima wrote: »
    We cannot have mandatory minimum sentences for crimes like these, imagine your 16 year old daughter taking pictures of herself in a sensual pose. She's the producer of child pornography in this instance, but is there really a crime committed - should she be sentenced to life in prison?

    Now if she gives a copy of this picture to her 16 year old male or female friend, would it do anyone any good to put him or her beyond bars for 5 years, and on the sex offender register?

    Especially when it comes to kids post-puberty, we need to allow some discretion in prosecution and sentencing.

    I wouldn't regard a picture of a 16 year old in a sensual pose as child porn - though, having said that, if my 16 year old daughter were to take such a picture, and give it to her friends - she'd find herself with an awful lot of explaining to do!
    I do take your point, though.

    Nevertheless, realistically speaking, sentencing of paedophiles in this country is a joke! I read of one case where an elderly man raped his 8 year old grandaughter, over an extended period of time, (till she was 13, I think - then proceeded to transfer his attention to a younger cousin)He was sentenced to 3 years, and served about 15 months.
    Sure, the poor old guy was "lonely, and in need of affection":mad: And the judge bought it, FFS!!

    I don't know about the rest of you - but it makes my blood boil.:mad:

    Noreen


  • #63
    nacho libre
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,950 ✭✭✭✭nacho libre


    ChildWatch.ie wrote: »

    Pat
    Childwatch.ie

    just a question, how can you ensure that some of the people tasked with detecting this crime maybe not paedophiles themselves. i assume they have to go through rigourous psychological tests but if someone is clever and cunning could they not fool the assessors and use such a job as a cover to fulfill their desires.

    also it seems you are saying the IT expert paedophiles will rarely, if ever, be caught.


  • #64
    ChildWatch.ie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7 ✭ChildWatch.ie


    Hi Nacho - in reality anyone can do anything.

    Investigators do undergo scrutiny and support. Considering the amount of people working in this space throughout the world, I have not heard of a problem where investigators use this material for pleasure or illegal intention. It is difficult to imagine that anyone who comes into contact with this material from a protection point of view could gain pleasure from it. Investigators do not get to pick and choose what they have to examine, and so are exposed to all forms of material. People who are into porn (let alone child porn) tend to look at what turns them on. Imagine that they are forced to look at everything that is on offer, particularly the extraordinary fetish activity that only a very few consumers would tolerate - this stuff exists in the illegal child material space, and the investigator doesn't get to pick an choose their content.

    As regards expert users: yes, they are very hard to catch.

    Regards, Pat


  • #65
    Princess Consuela Bananahammock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,623 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    ChildWatch.ie wrote: »
    Hi Ikky. I don't want to second guess mm.ie's thinking on this, but I am familiar with the argument that accepts that you simply will never eradicate child sexual abuse in society as a whole, but we should strive to cancel out the widespread distribution of the material on the internet.

    There are many people who encounter this material who in previous times would likely not have considered sexual activity with children - say a person from the 70's. In that era, children were abused where a peer or parental influence was a factor. Now one can view such material relatively anonymously, and more important search for children online and literally be someone else - create a false profile.

    There are four basic types of producers, distributors or consumers of child abuse and exploitation material. Top of the tree is the expert user - using a myriad of security techniques - could be a quartermaster and coordinator for a paedophile ring - may manage sites. Next you have the closed traders aka paedophile rings and these are very difficult to infiltrate when run properly. Next you have the open traders like Timothy Leahy who work through BBS, forums, IRC etc. And last you have the common browser who is encountering child material and may drop the interest, continue to accumulate images, may decide to try it out on a live child if the opportunity is available, or may be our 15 year old who in turn becomes a victim by virtue of encountering it.

    Police spend a huge amount of time wading through the muppets (open traders and simple browsers), but need to get at the mandarins who in the main include the closed rings, site managers, child prostitution pimps and traffickers who also feed into the mire to get customers for their offerings. This mandarin group are the serial abusers of kids and them material that they produce is disturbing in the extreme.

    In the program, Jim Gamble stated that 70% of the material CEOP was encountering this year was brand new - never before came up on INTERPOL's image management software. This is very worrying and we should not underestimate what it is telling us. This material is being produced by closed and open traders.

    To get back to the thrust of my point: when it is said that we need to drive them underground, I think that mm.ie means that we should push this activity back to the closed trading rings which would severely limit the current market for this material, and allow police to focus on these small groups that are more difficult to catch, but who are the hardcore child molesters and rapists.

    I hope that I have got this across OK. I agree that it is enormously difficult to communicate the gravity and urgency of the problem using 'normal' acceptable language and descriptions in public. Some of this material blows even the hardened investigators off the side of a cliff.

    Pat
    Childwatch.ie

    I was just very curious as to mm.ie's credentials. How has he/she come to be able to view this material in a legal capacity? Also, how is reacting in an overly-emotive capacity helping?

    I'm a firm believer in that, if you want to solve a problem - any problem - you first have to understand the problem. If this means getting to know the motives and feelings of paedophiles, then so be it. Find out what makes them do it. Then try to formulate a solution.

    It's not a pleasant job, but it needs to be done. Trouble is, if you say this in certain people's presence, they seem to think that you're endorsing the behaviour or condoning it.

    At the end of the day, if it makes kids safer, then it's worth doing.

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



  • #66
    ChildWatch.ie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7 ✭ChildWatch.ie


    Ikky

    There are a number of groups that specialise in working with paedophiles throughout the world - the Granada Institute is the primary resource in Ireland to my knowledge. I think that anyone involved or discussing issues to do with paedophilia in general will immediately sail into troubled waters because it is such an emotive issue. Just this week a serial rapist took a failed injunction case to stop newspapers from reporting his whereabouts. The judge ruled that where a person was a significant threat to the public, then the public's right to know can override his right to privacy (that is a rough non-legal grasp of it). Now there are a host of people are questioning if people on the sex offenders register can be named and shamed, and their current whereabouts revealed. This is a very difficult topic to take on in any capacity and I take my hat off to the PTI team for touching this at all.

    Pat


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  • #67
    Princess Consuela Bananahammock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,623 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    ChildWatch.ie wrote: »
    Ikky

    There are a number of groups that specialise in working with paedophiles throughout the world - the Granada Institute is the primary resource in Ireland to my knowledge. I think that anyone involved or discussing issues to do with paedophilia in general will immediately sail into troubled waters because it is such an emotive issue. Just this week a serial rapist took a failed injunction case to stop newspapers from reporting his whereabouts. The judge ruled that where a person was a significant threat to the public, then the public's right to know can override his right to privacy (that is a rough non-legal grasp of it). Now there are a host of people are questioning if people on the sex offenders register can be named and shamed, and their current whereabouts revealed. This is a very difficult topic to take on in any capacity and I take my hat off to the PTI team for touching this at all.

    Pat

    The Murray case is a curious one. Can the judge prove that he is still a threat to society (and if he can, what the **** is he doing in public??!) If not, I think Murray had a case, but that's neither here nor there.

    The publicity of the sex offenders register I think would be a mistake. If someone has mental problems (and if they're looking at child porn, let's face it, they do) then isolating them is not going to help. Ask anyone with a background in mental health.

    This is purely a practical point: do you really want you potential child molesters depressed and isolated? Do you really think this would be a safe option? ("You" generally, not you personally, Pat!) Personally, I think that this would put more kids at risk than anything else.

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



  • #68
    ChildWatch.ie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7 ✭ChildWatch.ie


    Ikky. In the simplest sense, I believe that such a move would lead to a form of vigilantism that is not acceptable in society. Aside from practical legal issues, there is all too often a situation where innocent bystanders are 'lynched' by the mob. However, where a parent has young children living in the midst of someone with a track record of raping children, then the heat in the debate goes through the ceiling. The solution is to have a system of tracking paedophiles which is in effect very difficult to achieve. I have met and spoken to a woman whose child was interfered with by a person known to the justice system for child sex offences, and that person was living in close proximity to the family in question. Her argument was that she would have had an opportunity to protect her child in a different manner if she had know of the presence of this person. Now here child's live is severely affected by a 5 minute incident that she feels could have been prevented if she had access to information about the person in question. This is a very complex emotion and practical issue. When a very emotionally distressed mum holds your hands and asks why the offenders right to privacy was greater than the security of her child and the massive fallout within her family following the incident, it is very difficult to justify the current status.

    Any thoughts?

    Pat


  • #69
    Princess Consuela Bananahammock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,623 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    ChildWatch.ie wrote: »
    Ikky. In the simplest sense, I believe that such a move would lead to a form of vigilantism that is not acceptable in society. Aside from practical legal issues, there is all too often a situation where innocent bystanders are 'lynched' by the mob. However, where a parent has young children living in the midst of someone with a track record of raping children, then the heat in the debate goes through the ceiling. The solution is to have a system of tracking paedophiles which is in effect very difficult to achieve. I have met and spoken to a woman whose child was interfered with by a person known to the justice system for child sex offences, and that person was living in close proximity to the family in question. Her argument was that she would have had an opportunity to protect her child in a different manner if she had know of the presence of this person. Now here child's live is severely affected by a 5 minute incident that she feels could have been prevented if she had access to information about the person in question. This is a very complex emotion and practical issue. When a very emotionally distressed mum holds your hands and asks why the offenders right to privacy was greater than the security of her child and the massive fallout within her family following the incident, it is very difficult to justify the current status.

    Any thoughts?

    Pat

    Oh it's a very fine line, I agree.

    Having a "serial track record of raping children" is a bit different from having a one-off conviction for looking at child porn. The former should not be out in public, end of.

    We are not talking about a right to privacy here. We're talking about keeping sensitive information away from people who might abuse it: are the public responsible enough to have access to this information (you mention yourself the vigilate point).

    How do you think it should be policed? Do you think that there is a fear of depressed and isolated paedophiles thinking that they have nothign to lose? If so, how do you protect children from this threat?

    Again, it's not a matter of priacy: it's a matter of which course is the safest?

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



  • #70
    Nehaxak
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,717 ✭✭✭Nehaxak


    ChildWatch.ie wrote: »
    This is a very complex emotion and practical issue. When a very emotionally distressed mum holds your hands and asks why the offenders right to privacy was greater than the security of her child and the massive fallout within her family following the incident, it is very difficult to justify the current status.

    That's bloody rediculous. How the hell could you justify not telling the mother ?

    They shouldn't even be rehabilitated, it's well known they can't be rehabilitated so why the feckin' hell are they even allowed back into communities where children and schools exist but especially so that they're allowed to live near the very children they once abused ? I mean ffs that's just bloody scandalous.

    I'd go so far as to say that if ever this country is to have a rebellion or uprising against the state itself, that it won't come from terrorist groups or otherwise but from groups of parents themselves who are just bloody sick to death of the state itself and state funded services who seem to go out of their way to protect child molestors yet do little or nothing to protect the children and definetely not as much effort to help children as they do to protect child molestors. It stinks, it absolutey stinks.

    Oh and let us not even mention the case of the "well respected" Judge who bent the law in his own favour to avoid prosecution, even going so far as to remain long enough in his position to retire on a hefty pension for his troubles !

    I do really hate this country sometimes and my hatred for the Catholic church in this country and this state for protecting and continuing to protect them in regards child abuse goes beyond words that could be expressed here :mad::mad::mad:

    Also, given we're bound by EU law and Irish law in that we removed the death penalty, at the very very least we should be enacting laws to castrate offenders in order to remove their stupid twisted sexual desires for children. Why can we not do that ? Would that not be an option to use ?
    While I understand it's not only men who offend in this way, they by far outrank female abusers and I'm sure even chemical castration could be used on female offenders too.


  • #71
    Foxhound38
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,547 ✭✭✭Foxhound38


    I think the issue with castration has historically been the same as the problems surrounding the death penalty - how can anyone be 100,00% sure that the person in question is guilty befor irreversably and permenantly harming them? However, with the advent of methods such as chemical castration, this should be re-examined as that can, at a later date if the allegation is proven false, be reversed. Perhaps the method should be re-examined in that context.

    There is a school of thought that paedophillia is less a mental disorder and more a distinct sexual orientation. If true, this is even more disturbing, although it would explain why rehabilitation efforts have been seen to be broadly ineffective - if the paedophiles themselves can't be fixed, nor have any control over the content of their sexual urges (in the same way as a homosexual has no control over theirs), it could tell us that there are far, far more out there than previously thought. Most people can suppress their sexual insticts when necessary, which would put the child molesters in the minority that can't. It begs a complicated philosophical question: if you were presented with a paedophile, who is unquestionably sexually attracted to children, but who has never and has resolved never to act upon their urges, in a manner similar to the Celebacy Vows of a priest (OK, mightn't be the best example, but you can understand what I'm trying to say), what action would be acceptable by society? Is leaving such an individual at large a risk society can possibly take, considering the potential for this individual to abuse children? Is it the case that many of the people accessing this material online are simply getting these urges out of their systems and would never abuse themselves? Should society treat them differently from those carrying out the abuse?

    I don't pretend to have an answer to these questions - thinking about them makes my head hurt! But I think if we are to have any chance of combatting child abuse, an effort must be made to understand all facets of the problem, even if some of those facets are difficult and uncomfortable to think about. :confused:


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  • #72
    Nehaxak
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,717 ✭✭✭Nehaxak


    My two kids got a letter from their school yesterday, on the second last day of school (school broke for summer holidays today).
    The letter stated that the Gardai are warning parents about continued attempts of abduction of children in the Finglas, Glasnevin and Ballymun area's.

    I mean really wtf ? :mad:
    How the hell is this allowed to happen, apparently it's being going on for months too but parents of schools here were only officially warned the day before the schools break for summer holidays ?

    Is it any wonder that some communities are considering asking Republican dissident groups to police their communities from stuff like this when the law of the land is failing them so badly. Child molestors seem to be allowed free roam to abduct children off the streets, leaving the parents with no choice but to turn to vigilantism.

    Have Childwatch even been made aware that this is happening in the Ballymun, Finglas and Glasnevin area's ? If not, why not ? ...and if you are aware, what exactly are you, have you or will/can you do about it ?

    The lack of response (or anything at all!) from the state to help at all in this regards is pushing parents into a corner and leaving them with very few options other than what I've mentioned above, that are already under serious consideration and for all I know may already be in place at this stage.


  • #73
    Princess Consuela Bananahammock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,623 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    Nehaxak wrote: »
    My two kids got a letter from their school yesterday, on the second last day of school (school broke for summer holidays today).
    The letter stated that the Gardai are warning parents about continued attempts of abduction of children in the Finglas, Glasnevin and Ballymun area's.

    I mean really wtf ? :mad:
    How the hell is this allowed to happen, apparently it's being going on for months too but parents of schools here were only officially warned the day before the schools break for summer holidays ?

    Is it any wonder that some communities are considering asking Republican dissident groups to police their communities from stuff like this when the law of the land is failing them so badly. Child molestors seem to be allowed free roam to abduct children off the streets, leaving the parents with no choice but to turn to vigilantism.

    Have Childwatch even been made aware that this is happening in the Ballymun, Finglas and Glasnevin area's ? If not, why not ? ...and if you are aware, what exactly are you, have you or will/can you do about it ?

    The lack of response (or anything at all!) from the state to help at all in this regards is pushing parents into a corner and leaving them with very few options other than what I've mentioned above, that are already under serious consideration and for all I know may already be in place at this stage.

    Would it be possible to get a scan of that letter?

    It is most unlike the Gardai to scaremonger like that and it said attemps were happening, you can be damn sure it ould have been in the papers by now. The Hearld, for one, would not be missing this chance.

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



  • #74
    Nehaxak
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,717 ✭✭✭Nehaxak


    I'll ask my other half to scan it in her job tomorrow if she can.
    It was reported on a couple times in some of the free irregular papers, northside people and some other one I'm told.

    Mainstream media rarely if ever report anything bad involving Ballymun anyway since the regeneration started some years back so that's nothing new.

    I don't buy/read print newspapers myself so I wouldn't know either way if it has been reported on.


  • #75
    Princess Consuela Bananahammock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,623 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    Nehaxak wrote: »
    I'll ask my other half to scan it in her job tomorrow if she can.
    It was reported on a couple times in some of the free irregular papers, northside people and some other one I'm told.

    Mainstream media rarely if ever report anything bad involving Ballymun anyway since the regeneration started some years back so that's nothing new.

    I don't buy/read print newspapers myself so I wouldn't know either way if it has been reported on.

    True, but the moment kids are involved - now that sells papers, which unfortunately, is all they care about.

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



  • #76
    Nijmegen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,086 ✭✭✭Nijmegen


    To chip in to the interesting conversation - I have seen reports from schools, primary and post primary, regarding predators reported in the area. This ranges from people enticing kids into cars to people attempting to sexually assault schoolgirls walking around off school grounds but outside of normal break times.

    The notices have ranged from notes home to formal announcements in class to impromtu classes on personal safety and schoolyard chat.

    It is not, however, uncommon.


  • #77
    ChildWatch.ie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7 ✭ChildWatch.ie


    Nihaxak

    we are a technical support group dedicated to protecting children through our research and online activities. The GS would not contact us about this (or any other) type of activity.

    We are an independent organisation and not aligned to anyone. Thus we are not on their mailing list

    Pat


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