It has been nearly ten years since JonBenet Ramsey, the six year-old beauty queen child was killed. For months after the killing, the media played the deeply discomforting and disturbing beauty pageant videos of JonBenet dolled up as a child of six-going-on-twenty-five-years old. There were many suggestions that the parents killed their daughter, or that some unknown weirdos killed her. The theories ranged from deviant pedophiles to religious nutbars being responsible.
We now know that John Mark Karr has confessed to accidentally killing JonBenet Ramsey as part of a kidnapping and sex plot. He was arrested in Bangkok and is going to be extradited to the US for the formal side of charges and a trial. There was evidence of sexual behaviors at the crime scene that eventually led to Karr being indicted. There was other stuff too.
The company I work for does a lot of work on child sex crimes, tracking and gathering evidence on online predators to help the police track down these people. Some employees who work with the BeWebAware unit occasionally see material and behaviors that will make you vomit. The officer from the Toronto Police who started the BeWebAware program, resigned a few months ago, after a dozen years on the job. He was having nightmares in the daytime from the material he had seen.
There are certain things that should not be done in this world. My attitude has always been that what floats your boat is not my business as long as the parties involved can actively consent and are of the age of majority. The rest of it might be painful, unsanitary, medically dangerous, or personally unappealing, but still not my business, as long as you act with some discretion, in private. This behavior can range from putting jalapeno peppers on a good pizza (merely inappropriate) to watching videos of nude wrestling grandmothers cavorting in food (very odd), I don’t have an opinion. Touching, eroticizing or sexualizing those under the age of majority is Wrong.
The JonBenet Ramsey investigation? If he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, I can’t imagine a punishment that would be more appropriate, than putting John Mark Karr in the general prison population for the rest of his life. I have the same opinion regarding Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo, to name two of Canada’s most heinous sex criminals. Put them in general prison population and treat them as you would any other bank robber, meth dealer, killer or biker thug: Feed them, give them medical care, training, education and try to rehabilitate them enough to rejoin society after paying their penalty.
If John Mark Karr goes skydiving without a parachute from the third floor, then so be it. It shows the penal system has failed, but I can live with that personal and societal guilt.
What the arrest of John Mark Karr does not do, is to censure those who think a beauty pageant where children are dressed up as sex goddesses is appropriate by any definition. I have no answer how to fix that.
RoadDave 