Michael M . . . A recent study conducted by researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology, or RIT, is already being cited in Federal Court cases to support the false presumption of a high rate of unreported child molestations by those convicted of child pornography offenses. This is despite the fact that it suffers from exactly the same serious flaws and inaccuracies as the infamous and thoroughly discredited “Butner Redux” study, which first appeared in the Journal of Family Violence in 2009.
For those who may be unfamiliar with the Butner Redux controversy, here are some of the basics. There were actually two studies conducted at FCI Butner. The “First Butner Study”, a preliminary study done in 2000, suggested a significantly higher rate of hands-on offenses among the population of child pornography offenders than had been known at the time of sentencing. That study involved just sixty-two people in a Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) group, whose crimes “involved the production, distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography, or involved luring a child and traveling across state lines to sexually abuse a child.”
Butner Study Redux, or the second study, was conducted between 2002 and 2005. It began with 201 SOTP participants and concluded with 155. The 46 exclusions were for voluntary withdrawals, expulsions, and one death. The results of the study suggested that at sentencing, 26% of the study subjects were known to have committed a hands-on offense against a minor. By the end of their SOTP treatment, 85% had admitted to molesting at least one child. The study’s conclusions were widely circulated in the media and cited by prosecutors in court cases to justify longer prison terms for CP defendants.
Almost immediately, the Butner studies came under intense scrutiny and criticism for institutional bias, sloppy methodology, misrepresentational sampling, flawed data gathering, and subject coercion.
Just something i found that shows how bad things have gotten for us. People killing themselves rather than face the double jeopardy punishment we face every day.
8 Men Have Killed Themselves After Online Pedophile Hunter Stings: Report
BY SIMON VEAZEY
January 9, 2019 Updated: January 9, 2019 Share
At least eight men have killed themselves after being unmasked by pedophile hunters since the trend of volunteers posing as children online started several years ago in the UK, according to the BBC.
Pedophile hunters snare people with fake social media profiles, engaging with them until the unsuspecting adult arranges a meet-up. The volunteers then inform police, film the encounter, and post the video online, where it could be viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
The “naming and shaming,” according to new BBC research, has led to at least eight deaths in the UK over the last six years; roughly the time since the trend began.
Dustin hit the nail on the head. LE always goes for the lowest-hanging fruit, the end user. They do it with CP and drugs. Doing so gives them an endless supply of people easy to arrest and incarcerate. The notion that just because someone looks at CP, they will commit a hands-on offense is just as stupid as believing all who play violent video games will eventually go on a mass-shooting spree. CP viewers are being punished for what LE thinks they will do, not what they have done, a mindcrime. Minority report is being carried out with CP offenders.
As for this bogus study, the “therapy” group I was in, if you didn’t invent victims and run up the number of offenses you committed, you didn’t graduate. Some in my group had been in it for 5 years. You tell them what they want to hear so you can finish it as soon as possible.
The FCI Butner study was so flawed I find it hard to believe RIT there would do a redo of this study.
I believe long after I have the Butner study that those who participated were in a sense Pavlov’s dog…that if they felt a reward was coming their way they would agree with the facilitators of the study. Was RIT awarded grant money to bring this failed Butner Study back to life?
Notice the conclusion that the proposed answer to the supposed problem is longer and stricter probation. I’m convinced that the federal probation office that commissioned this study dictated the results to RIT as a condition of payment. Nothing short of sledgehammer-induced hypnosis will persuade me otherwise.
Probation officers love having registrants on their roles, and most would rather have them exclusively. It feeds their egos and self-grandeur because registrants are the most compliant, least likely to complain when they overstep their authority, the easiest to revoke, and the least likely to get sympathy from the courts no matter how weak the case against them. Plus, they’re generally terrified of the drug dealers and spouse abusers they’re assigned to monitor, particularly if they’re gang-related.
Everyone I know that’s been convicted for CP possession have one thing in common – they don’t like being around people and nearly all social interaction is online, just like the tv show “Catfish.” The thought of an IRL meeting an online acquaintance is terrifying to them.
Sorry, but I do not and never will buy into the notion that those who view CP victimizes the children depicted. If it does, then the same reasoning should apply to LE and prosecutors who use them as bait to lure people who generally don’t bother anyone in the first place. It’s ironic that the FBI is probably the largest CP distributor in the world.
Those depicted in CP are damaged by those who make it, and I join the segment of society that wants to string up the producers of CP. I find it very sad, disturbing, and infuriating that so much effort and resources are dedicated to finding and prosecuting CP viewers (many of whom never would have done so in the first place but for the sting that led to their conviction) and not one nickel or minute spent to fight its production.
I have always thought that CP was today’s equivalent to pot in the early 80s. Back then people were convinced if you smoked pot you would eventually become a crack head and rob and/or beat up your own mother for drug money. Then when prisons started getting overcrowded with low level offenders, they realized they should concentrate on the distributors rather then end users. Laws and public opinion slowly changed, and now we even have legalization in some areas, as well as old convictions thrown away. I do not believe now or in the future CP should be legal, as it promotes harm to children, however I do think the rest of the drug cycle will happen for people with a CP conviction. I believe that once we reach a saturation point of offenders, and the “gateway” theory is debunked, then we can move forward. It only took 30+ years for pot,….
I strongly disagree that CP is the new pot. There are studies that show pot has medicinal value and is natural. The majority of Americans have tried pot, a small minority has viewed child porn. Because so many parents have kids, child porn is an easy Target and people will never feel pity for those who consume it.
Look no further than prostitution.
Please understand, I am in NO way equating pot to CP, only in the legal sense of how enforcement and punishment evolved over decades. Pot has been shown to NOT be a gateway drug most of the time, just as CP possession rarely leads to contact crimes. Law enforcement needs to stop going after the end user, and start targeting the producers, same as the DEA started going after the cartels rather than the junkies….