There has been a great deal of media coverage on child pornography this past week. There is an article in the National Post by Conrad Black that triggered a few questions.
Child pornography is heinous. No one will quibble with that statement.
But the questions being raised by people like Conrad Black are to me, more about justice and mercy and how we respond to crime than about child pornography.
Are we to punish the ones who look at child pornography the same way that we punish those who pay to look and those who produce it? If the punishment for looking at child pornography is almost the same as producing child pornography, then I fear that we are taking away the last secular restraints from potential heinous behaviour. If those who look at child pornography are treated almost the same as those who produce pornography, who abuse the children, why would they ever attempt to restrain themselves from acting on their desires?
We have different degrees of murder and manslaughter and robbery and concomitant punishment. Should we not have the same attitude toward those who avail themselves of child pornography in the hope that the different punishments will act as deterrents for those who are on the edge of the abyss but have held themselves back from going over the edge? There are without question some crimes so evil that only jail for life is the answer. But is not part of justice a hope for redemption, rehabilitation? Are we not compelled to decipher the difference between those who can be “saved” from those who cannot and then choose the appropriate punishment?
Our prime objective must be to prevent the abuse of our children. If different degrees of punishment will keep many from acting on their impulses are we not obliged to talk about it?
I think we sell ourselves short as a society if we do not talk about this issue. We are a democratic society whose morals, values and ethics are based on a fine balance between justice and mercy. We are capable of coming to the table with our emotions in check as we think our way through the ramifications of the penalties that we impose on those who turn to child pornography.
