bbc: Call for child porn users amnesty (from church child organisation)

[Monkie]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4296613.stm

"Fewer users of internet child pornography should face court action, a child protection group has said.
The Churches' Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) wants to encourage otherwise low-risk offenders to confess and hand over their computers.
The threat of court action discourages this - instead they could just be cautioned and placed on the sex offenders' register, CCPAS suggests."

"But some child protection experts believe efforts to find offenders may be hampered by putting low-risk perpetrators of child internet pornography through the court system.
A court appearance can lead to offenders losing their job, and put them at risk of assault or persecution.
CCPAS director David Pearson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Most people who are downloading indecent images of children are not known about"

what kind of message does this send to victims??
does the church need more priests??
what is this with a church organisation still protecting the abusers??

[FloridaPat]

1. This from a church? Low-risk offenders will just hand over their computers

What drugs are these people taking.

[Rush1184]

15. And they only get the computer back when the priest is done...

[Bridget Burke]

2. The CCPAS is NOT "a church"--it's an independant organization.

Apparently they work with churches of various denominations, offering training (seminars, books, videos)--for a price.

Preventing and/or dealing with abuse is a good cause. Interesting that, no matter how bad the problem, someone can always find a way to turn a profit.

http://www.ccpas.co.uk/

[moggie]

3. They're not talking about abusers

I think the point the CCPAS is trying to make is that many of these people are not abusers yet, but may become so if they continue. There's a quote from the CCPAS director in the article: "It wouldn't be a soft option. This is a genuine attempt, in order to protect children, to prevent people continuing down a road which might lead in some cases to directly abusing children". I don't know how reasonable that is: it depends on the existence of people who are only using porn without actually abusing, and treatment programmes which can prevent them from going down the slippery slope. But at least this outfit is thinking creatively about how to reduce child abuse, because the current methods don't seem to be working too well.

[Cats Against Frist]

5. IMHO, pedophilia is incurable

And no program is going to stop it. As a mother, I have a zero-tolerance policy for this, and no compassion for viewers of child pornography or child molesters.

Wait -- I have compassion for them in a sense that I feel bad that whatever has happened to them, in their past, that contributed to the eroticization of the child body, happened to them -- but at the same time, I fully believe that locking people up, castration (yes, I said that), or a course of serious drugs and a flouresenct yellow shirt that says "I think little kids are sex objects," are about the only option. In this case, hate the sin, love the sinner, and lock that sinner up.

I don't think this program would work, because, as far as I'm aware, people don't suddenly "give up," compulsions and -philias. Of course, if this is a religious organization, they usually think Mammon Jesus can cure anything -- and it may have some success rate in alcoholism and drug abuse treatment, but the record for homosexuality, sex addiction, pornography addiction and pedophilia aren't too good.

[emad]

4. Call for child porn users amnesty

BBC


Fewer users of internet child pornography should face court action, a child protection group has said.

The Churches' Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) wants to encourage otherwise low-risk offenders to confess and hand over their computers.

The threat of court action discourages this - instead they could just be cautioned and placed on the sex offenders' register, CCPAS suggests.

The UK police hunt for web paedophiles - Operation Ore - was launched in 2002.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4296613.stm

[emad]

6. Op Ore: Blair imposed news blackout on investigation of Labour:

CounterPunch
January 29, 2003
Blackout in Britain
Alleged Pedophiles Helm Blair's War Room
by MIKE JAMES

A child-sex scandal that threatened to destroy Tony Blair's government last week has been mysteriously squashed and wiped off the front pages of British newspapers. Operation Ore, the United Kingdom's most thorough and comprehensive police investigation of crimes against children, seems to have uncovered more than is politically acceptable at the highest reaches of the British elite. In the 19th of January edition of The Sunday Herald, Neil Mackay sensationally reported that senior members of Tony Blair's government were being investigated for paedophilia and the "enjoyment" of child-sex pornography:

"The Sunday Herald has also had confirmed by a very senior source in British intelligence that at least one high-profile former Labour Cabinet minister is among Operation Ore suspects. The Sunday Herald has been given the politician's name but, for legal reasons, can not identify the person.

There are still unconfirmed rumours that another senior Labour politician is among the suspects. The intelligence officer said that a 'rolling' Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair and the government if arrests occur."

The allegations are the most serious yet levelled at an administration that prides itself on the inclusion in its ranks of a high quota of controversial and flamboyant homosexual men, and whose First Lady, Cherie Blair, has come under the spotlight for her indulgence in pagan rituals that resemble Freemasonic rites. Unconfirmed information also suggests that the term "former Labour Cabinet minister" is misleading and that the investigation has identified a surprisingly large number of alleged paedophiles at the highest level of British government, including one very senior cabinet minister.

http://www.gaiaguys.net/OperationOre.htm

References:
<http://www.sundayherald.com/30813>

EDIT:
SOME UK journos have taken the view that the December 2003 conviction of double child-murderer Ian Huntley - seen here with ex girlfriend Maxine Carr who was convicted of perverting course of justice by giving him false alibi - is directly liked to "senior Labur party member":


Full story on Huntley trial:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/17/newsid_3985000/3985667.stm

One of the worst aspects of this appalling case was that Huntley successfully evaded police detection of serious sex offences and was able to get a job as a school caretaker because all police records about his proclivities were somehow missing.

A lengthy UK investigation into how social services, education authorities and police failed to halt Huntley ended in a whitewash.

Some UK journos have suggested that the reason for this is because Huntley's criminal past was deliberately erased in order to conceal his true parentage - and the link to his senior Labour Party natural parent.

[Jack_DeLeon]

7. I sort of agree with this...

IMO it should never be a crime to simply view certain images.

However I still think that those who sexually abuse children (those under 14 years old) should be put to death. ;)

[Monkie]

9. i sort of understand that,but for church related groups to be saying it...

at a time of increased awareness of how large this problem really is.
the churches are still dragging their feet on their own issues with child abuse and the way they have handled those cases.
i even believe this organisation was formed for the sole purpose of helping churches deal with how badly they handled child abuse by their own officials AFTER the public outcry over coverups.

[mordarlar]

12. The problem is if there is a market to VIEW the pictures there IS abuse...

occuring. No CHILD should be subject to being photographed in a sexual way. The very nature of the photos means there are children that are being abused.

[MountainLaurel]

13. Exactly!

And those who are viewing the photos are no better than those who created them.

[moggie]

14. Not necessarily

I'm uncomfortable playing devil's advocate about this, because I'm certainly no supporter of paedophilia: anyone who abuses children should be punished, severely. But not all the material they look at involves abuse. There was a news item a few years ago where schools in a particular UK area (Edinburgh?) banned parents from taking camcorders to school nativity plays, because videos of such plays had been found circulating among paedophiles. It beggers belief that anyone could get off on watching a nativity play, but that's the nature of the affliction: they're attracted to things the rest of us find totally innocent. There have been numerous cases of parents coming under suspicion for having bathtime photos, for example. And then there's the question of synthetic images: Photoshop jobs, even hand-drawn images. Not every image which is porn to a paedophile involves real abuse.

I don't know the answer, but, as a liberal, I'm uneasy with banning a whole class of images. Are we going to ban books too? How about Lolita?

[mordarlar]

16. The poster before me was saying people should not be prosecuted for viewin

pictures of child pornography.

People are not prosecuted for looking at images of school shows. I was referring to the pictures that would lead to prosecution. If a person is viewing an image of legitimate ABUSE there obviously was abuse taking place.

I agree with you that all images of children should not be banned as some sick individual might find a negative use for it. Yet the pictures of legitimate abuse are taken and circulated because there is a market for them. Viewing pictures of legitimate abuse is only serving this system.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WhiteTara]

10. Do I smell a new child prono scandal

in the making? Sounds to me like someone is getting too much attention by the police and are trying to downgrade their crime.

Oops! I can't spell

[Megahurtz]

11. Perverts protecting perverts?

:puke: