Simple math and legal system
This article looked familiar, like many hundreds hysterical articles
in modern US press.
But then I found something unusial
The name of this article is
'Casper man gets 10 years in child porn case'
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/07/02/news/casper/50f4f5d2e75108e78725730a0001d902.txt
The article read, in part, "Johnson said society is spending billions of dollars locking people
up and pursuing criminal cases with no end in sight. While law
enforcement is pursuing 700 cases similar to Gay's in Wyoming, Johnson
noted the state has the lowest population of any state in the country.
Johnson said the prison sentence would be difficult and significant in
Gay's life. But the judge said, "think of this story being repeated
over 700 times in Wyoming. What is the impact in terms of family, and
in terms of children, and earnings? These are things to ponder in this
case."
Can you image how many Child Porn cases are there in US now? Wyoming the
smallest state has 700 active child porn cases with population of 514,000.
25% kids equal 514,000X0.25 = 128500. So there are 385,500 adults in Wyoming
and about 192,750 adult males. 700 active investigations is equivalent to
0.363% of the adult male population.
Similar calculations based on a population of 300 million suggest that
prosecutions currently target 408,000 American men.
These figures are only an estimate, but Wyoming is an ordinary state and no
reason to presume these are not representative of the nation as a whole,
these figures being published official data.
This looks like the Stalin or Hitler repressions, McCarthyism a weak
competitor.
American police are working hard. Simple maths: how much money will we need
to house these offenders, how many prison guards do we need to hire, how
many new prison cells do we need to build and where these money come from.
For one prisoner government pay about $100 a day, so after all these
offenders soon will plead guilty, we will need 408,000X100 = 40.8 millions
dollars a day. Then you can calculate how much it should be in one year.
I think one should also determine the average family. Say it was 2 parents
and 2 children. You can then determine the number of adults and children
that are damaged by these operations. May be we can find better use for this
money, for example to stop real child abuse.
The child porn laws are very dangerous, there could be impact on everything,
and represent a threat to the economy.
I compare it with Stalin repressions. Nobody in USA congress and
states congresses would risk to vote against child porn law. They are
risking losing votes, so any draconian absurdity can pass. Politicians
introduce new laws every year, increasing punishment. If courts
overturn clearly unconstitutional laws Congress simply enacts new ones.
I read a lot about Stalin repressions, these were very similar.
They declared there are enemies of people, and introduced the laws
against enemies, who want to destroy country and bring back
capitalism. Who could vote against this? The laws were passes against
people enemies, and police were given funds. Then the machine started
working, and nobody could stop it. Police had plans of how many enemies
to find in each city, and how many people to shoot. It worked faster
and faster. That was a reason Hitler almost defeated the USSR. All
experienced military officers were in camps. But the war stopped repression machine,
they did not have resources to continue.