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Most people have wondered how censors can watch so much horrible, degrading stuff without be affected by it, especially the stuff that's so bad that ordinary people need to be protected from ever seeing it.
In what might be the first of its kind, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is claiming damages for the Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) he is suffering after years of exposure to child pornography.
Const. Michael Wardrope says he was exposed to disturbing videos, photographs, interviews and interrogations as a member of the child abuse and sexual offence unit in Surrey, B.C.
"His mental health was impacted by unescapable images and memories from the files he had worked on," says the lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court.
Wardrope says in the court document he was "flattered" when he was recruited to the unit in 2009. But he says he told his bosses he had three young children, had to commute hours per day and didn't think viewing child porn would be healthy.
He alleges his supervisor assured him that overtime was uncommon and that the amount of child pornography that needed to be viewed was "very minimal and almost non-existent," as the work was, for the most part, interviewing children.
Eventually Wardrope suffered a mental breakdown, and the Mounties dragged their feet for ten months before transferring him to another unit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimios on Monday December 12 2016, @01:46PM
What about co-opting pedophiles in the investigation? They are probably more resistant to this stuff and they would be doing a service to society.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Monday December 12 2016, @02:20PM
Sounds like letting the fox guard the hen house.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @03:31PM
Sounds like letting the fox guard the hen house.
More like letting the fox jerk off in the hen house.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TheReaperD on Monday December 12 2016, @04:50PM
Well, if you took pedophiles that are serving life, as you wouldn't want to take a pedophile that is going to be put back on the street after being made to watch tons of child porn, and put them to good use, they wouldn't be a complete waste to society. And they would certainly be experts at identifying child porn properly. Of course, you would want someone to oversee them. The fox may work as a good guard to a henhouse, but only if he knows he's being watched.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 13 2016, @02:34PM
First off, how many pedophiles are in jail for life? And I'm sure the ones who are, are also serving life for murder. One of the ideas behind jail as a punishment is to take away access to pleasures. If you give them back their pleasure, it defeats the purpose of punishment. Sure they are still locked up in a cage. But they are locked up in a cage with the very thing that got them there in the first place.
(Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Tuesday December 13 2016, @03:06PM
It's hard to find the number of life-incarcerated pedophiles. If I looked long enough, I may find it but, not that curious. I expect that the number is not very large. But, it's a job that no normal person wants to do. They may feed a duty to do it in order to protect children but, that's it. Yes, the pedophile may very well get enjoyment out of doing it but, that is a small price to pay to defend the psyche of enforcement officers doing their duty. The officers would still handle oversight, interviews and arrests but, would not be subjected to hours of child porn on a daily basis.
As a side note prisons that focus on rehabilitation have statistically shown to get better results in every major category than prisons that focus on punishment. Though both perform better than our US system that can't seem to make up its damn mind.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday December 12 2016, @07:18PM
They are all busy at the TSA frisking children. Under their clothes, because "they have to be sure" the child isn't hiding a bomb.