Despite Islam’s condemnation of homosexuality in the form of loving and consensual relations between two men or two women, it seems to be tolerated as an open secret when it takes place in the form of sexual violence and abuse in Madrasas in Pakistan. Many poor families entrust their sons to these religious educational institutions, […]
Death penalty for sex crimes
Florida prosecutors announce that they are seeking the death penalty against an African-American child sex offender who had been punished for an earlier sex offense and was then found to have molested his girlfriend’s two daughters over a long period. A 2023 law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis makes this possible. A number of state […]
Child porn without children?
Can child porn be a crime when it involves no actual children? A Danish appellate court has so ruled in sentencing AI artist Barry Coty to 18 months’ in prison. Denmark used to be famous as a place where even real child pornography was legal, during which time sex offense rates actually went down. Outlawing […]
Chemical castration? No, this is not a Margaret Atwood novel
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood of the United Kingdom is considering options for expanding chemical castration treatments for sex offenders. Chemical castration combines drugs with therapy to lower testosterone levels with the aim to lower one’s sex drive. There are currently chemical castration pilot programs happening in English prisons, but they are on a voluntary basis. […]
A slippery slope for sex and censorship
In this rather astonishing story an Australian female author was charged with child pornography for having written a fictional novel about an 18-year old woman’s relationship with a man who has fantasized about her since she was a toddler. The defendant has pleaded not guilty to possessing, disseminating, and producing child abuse material. The case […]
Sex offenders comprise a large subset of the U.S. homeless population
The Cicero Institute, a nonpartisan public policy think tank, recently published a report about the sizeable sex offender population that exists amongst homeless people in the United States. Some of the results of the study reveal that in 32 states more than 10 percent of unsheltered homeless populations are registered sex offenders. And in eight […]
Bias in Sentencing Men for Sexual Offenses Against Minors
The extant research on sentencing decisions has primarily focused on all offenders rather than specific types of offenders.
HARD COPY: Statutory rape earns gay men twice as much prison time A newly published study in Behavioral Sciences and the Law documents statistically significant discrimination in judicial sentencing for U.S. men who become involved in relationships with teen boys, as opposed to girls of the same age. Out of a large sample of men incarcerated for […]