Various people had criticized the new groping searches by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) as assault and, when done on children, something akin to molestation. According to police, one alleged child pornography addict found the TSA the perfect job. TSA Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia has been arrested for uploading explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site. What is astonishing is that Gordon posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.
The arrest follows the disturbing posting of a video showing the pat-down of a 6-year-old girl — a case that Homeland secretary has called entirely appropriate.
Gordon, 45, began working as a TSA screener at the Philadelphia airport in December 2005. He could now face a sentence as long as 250 years and the fine of $3.2 million.
That is quite a potential sentence when the evidence appears composed of what appears to be the act of downloading — particularly five explicit photographs of young girls. What is missing is the allegation that he perpetuated the abuse as opposed to uploading the photos of others. There were 104 illicit photographs allegedly uploaded over four weeks and another 600 images or movies containing child pornography on a flash drive.
These sentences are often stacked by prosecutors charging each image as a separate crime. The result are sentences far in excess of manslaughter. It also forces defendants to plead guilty rather than face life in prison — even if they insist that they are innocent.
Source: Philly
Asking questions are actually nice thing if you are not understanding something entirely, except this post presents fastidious understanding yet.
LK,
I think I can make that one. 😀
I think there is a real deficit reducing potential here. Hiring background checks could identify pedophiles and many of them would undoubtedly work for lower wages or even pay for the opportunity to do screening of young women, children, or whatever their particular specialty is.
BIL, “… this one is near the top of my list at #2 right behind the tied for 1st more general classifications of psychopathic and sociopathic behavior.”
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“sociopathic behavior”, well, we can’t lock most of our sitting elected officials up forever either based on their sociopathic behavior but I’m open to a good argument on why we should. I can change my mind 🙂
LK,
“Still, we can’t confine them to hospitals forever because of their potential to escalate. That’s a slippery slope I don’t want to go down.”
I agree. However, if it is an escalating precursor behavior I’m also not sure there is much more that can be done other than what is already being done: sexual offenders lists, supervised probation/parole and considering past offenses as aggravating circumstances when it comes to sentencing. There are a lot of mental disorders I wish we had the methods to treat or cure, but I have to say, this one is near the top of my list at #2 right behind the tied for 1st more general classifications of psychopathic and sociopathic behavior.
BIL, Hard-wired behavior/precursor behavior:
Yes, I have great internal conflict over crimes where there have been links to acts that are predictive and would also like to see work done on that end regarding explicit child porn and pedophilia.
I see articles about kids or adults known to be animal abusers/killers and I think ‘we (society) would probably be better off if s/he fell in front of a bus’ based on what has been determined to be predictive behavior. Still, we can’t confine them to hospitals forever because of their potential to escalate. That’s a slippery slope I don’t want to go down.
With some crimes, spouse abuse for instance or non-sexual child abuse, you just know that that isn’t going to end well for some woman or child and it propagates down through the generations, it’s a learned behavior; again the ‘bus’ thought crosses my mind. Mental health treatment should be mandatory for wife/child beaters and repeat offenders should be be removed from society until they’re ‘cured’, or die of old age.
Mental health screenings/treatment if necessary should be mandatory for everyone with explicit child porn; mental health treatment should be mandatory for all animal torturers/killers.
Once someone starts to engage in child sexual abuse they should not be allowed to live in society, it’s my understanding that they don’t stop. If my understanding is incorrect on that point I’ll withdraw that statement.
LK,
Thanks for the answer. I don’t disagree in principle with anything you have said, but my concern is that this is a very specific form of paraphilia. Much like some behaviors – for example sexual arousal at killing animals as is often found in the case of emergent serial killers – I wonder if possession of child pornography isn’t just a precursor behavior. I don’t know of any research on the topic, but it makes me curious. I’d also be interested in knowing if CBT has had any success with deterring those who possess child pornography from engaging in that behavior or escalating into actual pedophilia. From my understanding of pedophilia, it’s a seriously wired in problem. Even castration and drugs are often ineffective treatments.