Dear editor,
Last year [the media] reported the arrest of Christopher B. Kennedy of Gregg Township for possession of child pornography. In January, Centre County President Judge Jonathan Grine sentenced Kennedy to a minimum of five years in state prison, up to a maximum of 10 years, for that crime.
There was no allegation that Kennedy himself sexually abused children. Have law-enforcement authorities arrested and charged the actual perpetrator(s) of the abuse? What might be an appropriate sentence for such a person or people? Is possession of pictures of abuse as bad as literal abuse?
I think I’m as appalled as anyone at any abuse of children, sexual or otherwise. But today we live in a country where Jeffrey Epstein, who sexually abused and trafficked hundreds of underage girls, served just 13 months in prison, with time off for good behavior.
Or contrast Kennedy’s sentence to a case closer to home: In 2017, Monsignor John S. Mraz, an Allentown diocese Roman Catholic priest, was sentenced to serve from six to 23 months in prison for possession of child pornography.
The punishment Judge Grine imposed on Kennedy seems draconian by comparison to those light sentences. Maybe Kennedy’s actual crime was being insufficiently wealthy and insufficiently connected to powerful men who rule this country.
How can that be respected as justice?
Not all images that depict sexual abuse of children are treated as illegal here. The Penn State library collection includes the classic Japanese motion picture In the Realm of the Senses, which features sexual mistreatment of women and children as entertainment.
Why do the courts grant a pass to people and institutions that disseminate such a film while they jail offenders like Kennedy? How can such a double standard be justified?
Again I ask, how can Kennedy’s sentence be respected as justice?
Ken Lawrence
Spring Mills
