Making Punishments Fit the Most Offensive Crimes

In today's Wall Street Journal (10.23.08) an article by Amir Efrati discusses how criminal prison sentences for possession of child pornography, primarily on personal computers, has steadily increased in recent times. It states that "In 1991, a person with no criminal history who possessed violent child pornography images and movies and shared them with others would face a maximum of two years in prison in federal cases. Today, that same person could face more than 20 years." The article goes on to describe cases where there was no sharing of images with others, just viewing child pornography, and the subsequent prison sentences. In recent years judges who view the increased prison term guidelines as excessive have begun to impose their own lesser sentences, spurred on by a U.S. district court judge in Des Moines, Iowa in a case earlier this year in which he stated that the sentencing guidelines for child pornography crimes "do not appear to be based on any sort of [science] and the Court has been unable to locate any particular rationale for them beyond the general revulsion that is associated with child exploitation-related offenses," (Robert W. Pratt, U.S. district judge). Of course we want to protect children, but should the law impose sentences that serve to placate the public but show no sign of impacting the behavior, e.g., actual child abuse, that is supposedly being punished?