Draaaaaaaaank.

Source

With that said, it was with much relief that I read in a CNN article today that 700 suspected pedophiles worldwide have been arrested in a globally coordinated sting operation, spanning nearly 10 months and 35 countries. This number of arrested pedophiles is only trumped by the number of children that were discovered and returned to their families: 31. Thirty-friggin-one. While it honest to God turns my stomach when I even try to fathom what these kids might have gone through, the sheer fact that they may eventually be able to return to some semblance of a regular life one day gives me what I can only describe as spine shivers.

I wholly believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty, which means that I will not say right this second that I hope that these 700 suspects receive grievous bodily harm hourly for the rest of their natural born lives. For all I know, 1 or 2 or all 700 may be wrongful arrests. What I will say is that for those people who are involved in this kind of sick and demented practices, I hope that you become the new bottom to your latest cell-mate’s top.

When it comes to crime and related punishment in general, I personally believe that we are entirely too harsh on victimless crimes such as drugs or copyright infringement (I am using the term “victimless” very lightly – I am aware that certain drugs do involve child labor or violence which I don’t agree with, etc.; for the moment let’s just generalize and say that we’re talking about Joe Blow who is growing pot in his personally owned field by himself) but that we are incredibly lenient when it comes to punishments handed out for violent or abusive crimes.

It may be an unpopular opinion (or maybe it isn’t, I don’t know), but I believe that all pedophiles should receive an automatic indeterminate sentence, like one of the suspects in this case. [Editor's Note: For those of you not from Canada or those of you unclear on what an indeterminate sentence is, it's essentially a court ordered life sentence that will only be lifted after a panel of psychiatrists deem the inmate 'fit for social reintegration'; essentially when the mentally fucked up are no longer fucked up.]  They shouldn’t be allowed an initial slap on the wrist before they’re incarcerated for life.  I guess I’d make a single exception of the “stupid” cases where it’s a 19 year old guy and his 15 or 16 year old girlfriend who are consensually having sex outside of the age of consent ruling, but true child sex crimes should carry an automatic indeterminate sentence.

I will be interested to see the results of this operation in the coming months and years.  To see any number of pedophiles put in jail warms my heart, and if even a tenth of the accused end up behind bars, I’d consider that a win for society.  That’s 70 less people on the face of the earth that I need to worry about.  To alter a widely used quote: “Arrest ‘em all, and let Bubba in cell block D sort ‘em out.”