On Tue, 13 May 2008 16:13:33 GMT, Palindrome wrote:
>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.
You have made several assumptions in that analysis that you have not
justified. You assume that all people who commit .ual crime will
also want to look at the type of .ography that suits their
prediliction. Yet .ography is *not* invariably found at the homes
of .ual criminals. And yet again you assume the very thing you are
trying to "prove" - that people who are willing to commit one type of
crime will be more likely than normal to commit a different type of
crime.
>> 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".
Oh, I see. In order to "prove" something, you simply declare it to be
axiomatic!
> 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.
Your understanding is wrong. The percentage of those convicted of
child abuse who also have child .ography is around 60% IIRC.
>> 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.
I disagree. It depends entirely on a person's situation. There are
people who have easier private access to children than to the
Internet. Unemployed single men willing to babysit for relatives, for
example. In addition, the probability of being caught is probably
higher wrt downloading illegal images these days than with hands-on
abuse. Unlike other things you do in the privacy of your home, your
online activities can all be monitored in real time, and logs and
other permanent evidence of the crime can be examined later. The
sentence likely to be imposed is also about the same for both
activities - in fact it is often higher for child . than with
actual child abuse. I should think there are a *lot* of people who
would be more certain that they could persuade a child to keep a
secret than they would be confident of keeping their computer
activities secret, especially after all the high-profile media reports
of .ography convictions.
My experience with hetero.ual .ography is that the people who use
it the most are the people who do *not* have an active . life.
People who have a regular .ual partner are more likely not to need
it. I know several people who have an active . life but abhor
.ography (or at least they say they do). Why should it be any
different for paedophiles?
>> 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.
How can the "no inference can be drawn" in the above statement
co-exist with your position that a person with child .ography is
more likely to abuse a child?
--
Cynic
|