“We’ve gone nuts locking up sex offenders.”
Oh, John Grisham. [shaking my head]
I just cannot express my disappointment enough…but I will try.
One the eve of publishing his new legal thriller, which frankly I was looking forward to, John Grisham has managed to alienate a large percentage of his readers and come across as a creep, all at the same time.
He spoke out about how unfortunate it is that older men are receiving prison sentences that are too harsh for their crime. What is the crime? Accessing child porn. Yes, that’s right. Mr. Grisham is not in favor of men his age and older receiving 10 years in prison for browsing and downloading child porn.
John Grisham on old white men who view child porn: “They haven’t hurt anybody.”
“There’s so many of them now. There’s so many ‘sex offenders’ – that’s what they’re called – that they put them in the same prison. Like they’re a bunch of perverts, or something; thousands of ’em. We’ve gone nuts with this incarceration.” Grisham went on to tell a story of a “good buddy” who got caught in a child porn sting. Apparently, “His drinking was out of control, and he [the harmless old white guy] went to a website. It was labelled ‘sixteen year old wannabee hookers or something like that’. And it said ’16-year-old girls’. So he went there. Downloaded some stuff – it was 16 year old girls who looked 30.”
DOWNLOADED SOME STUFF? There is a major difference between accidentally viewing a site and clicking off it quickly when you realize you stumbled upon something illegal, and actually looking around and downloading?
How can he say they have not hurt anybody? How can he say that? Does he not realize that the images on child porn sites are REAL? That REAL children were raped and tortured for the entertainment of sick evil people! And he says just looking at it should not have such a harsh sentence because they really “haven’t hurt anybody?”
*Pause for a moment while I attempt to not throw up from disgust and rage*
I’ve been browsing the Internet for years; sometimes distracted, sometimes while tired, sometimes while drinking wine, and never EVER have I accidentally stumbled across child porn. It is NOT that easy to find unless you’re looking for it. Do you know what I would do if I somehow did “accidentally” stumble across child porn? I’d have the FBI on the phone in seconds, alerting them to what I’d found. Seconds!
Let’s address the topic of inconsistent sentencing. First, I highly doubt that “prisons are full of 60-year-old white men” who just happened to click accidentally on a child porn site. Even if I were drunk and stupid, I would still know that a child porn site is NEVER okay, and if I found one, I certainly would not surf around on it and download stuff. (see what I would do in previous paragraph) Those old white men who are in prison are there because they deserve it, not because they’re just a bumbling old fool who did not know better.
I do agree that there is a major disparity between the 10 years minimum that people get for viewing child porn when others who are physically assaulting/raping children sometimes get only a slap on the wrist. THAT is the problem, though. It isn’t that child porn viewers are punished too harshly, it’s that other sex offenders aren’t punished harshly enough!
To be honest, I would 100% support a life without parole sentence for anyone involved in the rape/molestation/violent assault of a child. That includes playing any part in child exploitation for sex and child porn. 100%
All people who look at and download child porn are “a bunch of perverts.” They are sex offenders. They are inherently dangerous. And they belong in prison. There is no question about it.
And John Grisham, I am sad to say that you have lost a fan.