Child Porn Prosecutions: Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?

[WSJ_law_blog]

It seems like every day we’re bombarded with press releases from U.S. attorneys hailing the conviction of yet another child pornography user.

Thanks to a DOJ initiative, more than 2,000 individuals are prosecuted each year for computer-based child exploitation crimes, most of them for downloading or sharing sexual images of minors. Severe federal sentencing guidelines — spurred by Congress in recent years — can push up the recommended sentences to 15, 20 years or longer.

Does that kind of punishment — for viewing but not creating the images — fit the crime? Some federal judges think not and are giving lower-than-recommended sentences. Here’s the WSJ report. “The fact that a person was stimulated by digital depictions of child pornography does not mean that he has or will in the future seek to assault a child,” wrote William Griesbach, a federal judge in Green Bay, Wisc.

Sentencing guidelines for child porn users are severe. They can easily face more prison time than the blokes you watched on Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator,” who were caught attempting to actually meet with minors for sex.

But Drew Oosterbaan, the DOJ official in charge of these prosecutions says a threat undoubtedly exists from passive viewers of child porn. “[i]f your daughter’s camp counselor is using child porn, common sense dictates there is a threat to your daughter,” he says.

LB readers, tell us what you think: Should child porn viewers be locked up for decades?