"War on Kiddie Porn" Tracking the "War on Drugs"
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I'm not sure why this should surprise anyone:
My point is simply to note the similar flowcharting that the two morals-based crusades have followed and are likely to continue following. It's all a matter of incentives — essentially, "in for a penny, in for a pound."
If you're going to break a law, especially a law with severe penalties, then you might as well break it big time. To the extent that there can be such a thing as a "rational bank robber," he is not going to rob a bank for the office supplies — he's going to demand the cash.
To the extent that there can be such a thing as a "rational drug dealer," he might as well enter the most lucrative, economically efficient drug markets — crack, meth, etc.
To the extent that there can be such a thing as a "rational child pornographer," he might as well make the images as enticing to potential customers as possible. The implications are horrific, but inevitable.
Notice another similarity between smut dealers and drug dealers — decentralization and globalization. Making it illegal, or even impossible, to manufacture meth in the U.S., for example, simply drives the manufacturing process to Mexico. So too with child pornography (or any Internet regulation): to ban it in the U.S. means little or nothing.
The solution, of course, is certainly not to throw one's arms up and decriminalize kiddie porn: it's an unarguably real crime with unarguably real victims.* Rather, the goal should be to recognize both sides of the penalty-incentive equation and weigh the likely deterrent effect on some against the likely escalation effect on others. It's basic economics: twice as much isn't always twice as good (or, too much of a good thing eventually stops being better). That's as true with criminal penalties as it is with consumption goods or production inputs. The policy goal should not be "as much as possible" but rather "the optimal level."
Of course, just as the War on Drugs has become a vicious circle of "more penalties result in more dangerous drugs result in more penalties result in more dangerous drugs," this latest report on child pornography will likely result in calls for even harsher penalties and even more government regulation of Internet use: "More laws result in worse atrocities result in more laws result in worse atrocities." And so on.
Not every human evil can be eradicated. They can only be combated — preferably in the most sensible, and not the most hysterical, manner.
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*Sometimes there isn't even an actual child victim. An excellent example of this "too much of a good penalty" mentality was the attempt to ban "virtual" kiddie porn, in which technologies are used to simulate child pornography (e.g., faces of children digitally superimposed on young adult models). The Supreme Court held that such materials do not not fall under the "no First Amendment protection whatsoever" doctrine for bona fide child pornography. Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002).
Meanwhile, one could argue that such virtual porn might actually be useful as an outlet for unrehabilitated consumers of such pornography. If so, then virtual porn might actually help reduce the production of reality-based porn. Which didn't stop the government from trying to ban it on an equal basis. Go figure.
Child pornography on the Internet is becoming more brutal and graphic, and the number of images depicting violent abuse has risen fourfold since 2003, according to an Internet watchdog report published Tuesday.I am of course not defending child pornography the way I might defend drug decriminalization. The differences are self-apparent (at least to libertarians).
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About 80 percent of the children in the abusive images are female, and 91 percent appear to be children under the age of 12, it said.
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Some commercial child abuse Web sites store their images on different servers and occasionally in fragments, with each piece stored in a different country. Individual fragments often are not illegal.
"Many of them hop around between countries, between legal jurisdictions, which is a problem of an international nature," Robbins said Monday, before the report's release. "Law enforcement agencies have to reconsider their strategy."
My point is simply to note the similar flowcharting that the two morals-based crusades have followed and are likely to continue following. It's all a matter of incentives — essentially, "in for a penny, in for a pound."
If you're going to break a law, especially a law with severe penalties, then you might as well break it big time. To the extent that there can be such a thing as a "rational bank robber," he is not going to rob a bank for the office supplies — he's going to demand the cash.
To the extent that there can be such a thing as a "rational drug dealer," he might as well enter the most lucrative, economically efficient drug markets — crack, meth, etc.
To the extent that there can be such a thing as a "rational child pornographer," he might as well make the images as enticing to potential customers as possible. The implications are horrific, but inevitable.
Notice another similarity between smut dealers and drug dealers — decentralization and globalization. Making it illegal, or even impossible, to manufacture meth in the U.S., for example, simply drives the manufacturing process to Mexico. So too with child pornography (or any Internet regulation): to ban it in the U.S. means little or nothing.
The solution, of course, is certainly not to throw one's arms up and decriminalize kiddie porn: it's an unarguably real crime with unarguably real victims.* Rather, the goal should be to recognize both sides of the penalty-incentive equation and weigh the likely deterrent effect on some against the likely escalation effect on others. It's basic economics: twice as much isn't always twice as good (or, too much of a good thing eventually stops being better). That's as true with criminal penalties as it is with consumption goods or production inputs. The policy goal should not be "as much as possible" but rather "the optimal level."
Of course, just as the War on Drugs has become a vicious circle of "more penalties result in more dangerous drugs result in more penalties result in more dangerous drugs," this latest report on child pornography will likely result in calls for even harsher penalties and even more government regulation of Internet use: "More laws result in worse atrocities result in more laws result in worse atrocities." And so on.
Not every human evil can be eradicated. They can only be combated — preferably in the most sensible, and not the most hysterical, manner.
---
*Sometimes there isn't even an actual child victim. An excellent example of this "too much of a good penalty" mentality was the attempt to ban "virtual" kiddie porn, in which technologies are used to simulate child pornography (e.g., faces of children digitally superimposed on young adult models). The Supreme Court held that such materials do not not fall under the "no First Amendment protection whatsoever" doctrine for bona fide child pornography. Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002).
Meanwhile, one could argue that such virtual porn might actually be useful as an outlet for unrehabilitated consumers of such pornography. If so, then virtual porn might actually help reduce the production of reality-based porn. Which didn't stop the government from trying to ban it on an equal basis. Go figure.
Related Posts (on one page):
- "War on Kiddie Porn" Tracking the "War on Drugs"
- U.K. Criminalizes Possession of "Violent" Porn
Posted by Kip on
17 April 2007
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