Phoenix man receives 848 1/2 years in prison for sex crimes

Honestly, I'd bet that a max sentence for a woman in this case would be 5-10 years in prison and lifetime probation. What would likely happen is some sort of therapy option -- a stay at a state mental hospital until she's better and then freedom.

(sarcasm = on)
Mental hospitals are great! They can take a 1st degree capital murderess like Mary Winkler and totally turn her around in only 67 days -- fully reforming her.
(sarcasm = off)

When a man gets arrested for child pedophilia it is viewed as a moral failure on the his part. In other words he had the reasoning ability to reject pedophilia but chose not to and is dealt with on that rationale.

But when women get arrested and sentenced for child pedophilia they are viewed as victims of a mental disease that caused an aberration of their true law abiding nature and are "treated" accordingly for the most part.

Child pedophilia is reprehensible but I do believe it is a severe mental disease akin to insanity and should be viewed as such for the male perpetrators too.

One could say that society and the law have it half right but could be better served by treating the disease rather than the symptoms in both genders.

The medical community not too long ago recommended vein opening (bleeding) as a sure cure for many common illnesses and the basic act of the attending physician washing his hands was considered unnecessary. The methods and attitudes about treating illness by medical science has obviously changed for the better and it is time for social/criminal science to become enlightened too. And it probably would be that way if misandry and gender politics where not so ingrained in the social viewpoints of society.

recent research has shown that criminal behaviour is basically "in the genes". (So much for the "standard social science model"). But that doesn't mean there is no free will involved, at least not on a philosophical level.

But it's cause is to be differentiated from mental illnesses,such as schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, depression, manic-depression, etc. "Insanity" is a legal term, not a medical one. (The term "psychosis" has no relation to the term "psychopath"). Although it may be true that some child molestors are mentally ill, but that still would not generally be the cause of the behaviour as such (though maybe the illness could affect judgement or inhibition).

Just to confuse the issue, "mental disease" is, I think, a term sometimes used to refer to an organic brain disorder, which can in turn cause schizophrenia (the latest theory on schizophrenia as a disorder, is that it has more than one possible source*), or be the source of dementia or other problems.

*One doctor has been maintaining, for years, that schizophrenia is in fact a "disease" due to a virus transmitted by cats. (So get rid of Felix before it's too late!)

-ax

It is interesting to note that the judge was a woman. I wonder as well the ratio of women jurors to men. The amount of sentencing was a personal statement by the judge. Following most cases, not religiously it seems that women are excused more often than men, and they get much lighter sentences. An inequality of justice regardless of the excuses. The punishment should be the same regardless of gender when it comes to rules. The spirit of the law has been stolen, the letter of the law has been misread, and the existing administration of the law is criminal.

David A. DeLong

Maybe she is a victim of "Neighbor's daughter was looked at funny by the trash man" syndrome, so she had to take the therapeutic (for herself) measure of getting revenge on the male sex as a class, thus the harsh sentence.

-ax