“Illness? Like looking at child porn is like a cold?”
Obviously this is not an illness like a contagious disease, but is a terrible addiction probably akin to a severe drug addiction. Judge Howard, by calling it an illness, does somewhat deflect the blame away from the man, and blames the disease, and if that is what bothers you, I understand your objection, it becomes too easy to say “It’s not really my fault, I have a disease.” I don’t know if I would have offered any leniency, but I can understand why the judge would decide to do so, most of the offenders he deals with probably don’t make nearly this much effort to change their ways. Nevertheless, this man should never be trusted, he has a serious addiction that will probably stay with him for the rest of his life and could easily flare up again, regardless of whatever good intentions he may have. After he gets out of prison, he needs to do himself and society a favor by staying as far away from children as reasonably possible.
Here’s an idea. He needs to quit messing with the stuff. He’s not addicted. He just likes to do it. I doubt he is going through any serious withdrawal. He’s a pervert and he needs to get his life right.
Here’s a guy who looked at videos or pics of kids being molested and he said to himself “It’s not that bad”. That’s the problem. He fed himself a steady diet of perversion until he came to see it as “normal”.