Cynic wrote:
> On Tue, 13 May 2008 13:26:35 GMT, Palindrome wrote:
>
>>> I do not believe that the probability is any greater of a person who
>>> looks at child . committing an actual .ual assault than a person
>>> who looks at adult ..
>
>> I find it hard to accept that you believe that.
>
>> Were looking at images of child abuse to be permitted by law, the pool
>> of those doing so would certainly increase.
>
> Yes, I agree that that is quite probably true.
>
>> Thus, at the moment, the
>> /percentage/ of child abuse image viewers that go on to commit offences
>> must be higher than the percentage of adult . viewers who go on to
>> commit assault.
>
> I do not see how that statement follows. It assumes that people who
> don't view . do not abuse children.
OK, let's see if a few numbers help.
Start with a population of 1000. Of those 20 go on to commit child abuse
and 20 to commit adult . (the numbers are purely for illustrative
purposes and not to suggest that they are in any way representative of
the UK population). 200 of them would look at child abuse images and 200
would look at adult ., if both were legal. But only 100 of them
actually look at child abuse, as it is illegal to do so.
The 200 looking at adult . will almost certainly contain all those
that go on to commit adult ..
The 200 that would look at child abuse will almost certainly contain all
those that go on to commit child abuse.
However, 100 of that group are put off by the thought of prosecution.
These are the ones least likely to go on to actually abuse children.
Thus 10% of those looking at adult . become rapists. But 20% of those
looking at child abuse images become abusers.
Hence the probability of a particular individual who watches adult .
becoming a rapist is 1 in 10. However, the probability of a particular
individual who watches child abuse images is 1 in 5.
Now some will watch both. So they would have a probability of 1 in 10 of
carrying out adult . and a 1 in 5 probability of carrying out child
abuse.
>
>> There is a greater probability of a child abuse viewer
>> going on to commit actual abuse than there is of an adult . viewer
>> going on to commit an actual assault.
>
>> Only if both . and child abuse viewing were legal would the
>> probabilities equalise.
>
> I'm not sure that you realise it, but you have just employed circular
> logic. Your argument makes no sense unless you *start* with the
> assumption that a person who does not look at child . but would
> like to is less likely to abuse a child than a person who does look at
> child ..
I think that is a "given". It may be images that they have created
themselves, but from my understanding, very very few (none?) of those
prosecuted for .ual abuse of children haven't had a collection of
illegal images.
>
> The reverse may even be true - i.e. the . is used as a *substitute*
> for hands-on assault, and so people who would like to look at . but
> don't are more likely to carry out a physical assault.
That seems highly unlikely. The opportunities for actual abuse must be
much more limited than the opportunity to view images - even if is
images of their own creation.
>
> Out of all the many people convicted of child .ography offences
> during Operation Ore, only one was found to be a hands-on child
> abuser. I suspect that is a lower percentage than the amount of child
> abusers that would be found in a *random* sample of similar size.
> Which casts a great deal of doubt on the assumption that .ographers
> are more likely than average to be abusers.
>
You can suspect it. I suspect the opposite. I suspect that there is a
vast number of people with illegal images, of which only very, very few
go on to commit actual abuse. So many with them, compared to the
incidence of actual abuse, that no inference can be drawn by catching
someone with such images. Certainly no inference that they are the one
in a million (rather than 1 in 10 million of the population as a whole)
likely to do so.
--
Sue
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