Best-selling author John Grisham caused a stir during a discussion of high U.S. prison rates by saying many child porn sentences were too harsh.
Grisham argued that the country had "gone crazy" locking up too many people in general, but made pointed comments about men being arrested for viewing child porn,
according to The Telegraph.
"We have prisons now filled with guys my age – 60-year-old white men in prison who've never harmed anybody, would never touch a child," Grisham told The Telegraph.
Grisham used as an example a friend from law school who was busted for child porn for viewing a website involving a 16-year-old girl in Canada during sting set up by the Royal Mounted Police and FBI.
"He shouldn't 'a done it," Grisham said in the interview, saying his friend served three years in prison. "It was stupid, but it wasn't 10-year-old boys. He didn't touch anything. And God, a week later there was a knock on the door: 'FBI!'"
When confronted with the argument that viewing the images keeps alive the industry of abused children needed to create it, Grisham told The Telegraph that sentencing policies didn't address those issues.
"I have no sympathy for real pedophiles," Grisham told The Telegraph. "God, please lock those people up. But so many of these guys do not deserve harsh prison sentences, and that's what they're getting."
Jon Brown of the children's charity NSPCC told
BBC News that Grisham's comments gives child abusers a green light for their behavior.
"Mr. Grisham's comments send a dangerous message that 'just looking' at images online causes no harm," Brown said.
Grisham's comments didn't go over well on social media either, where they were panned by most commenters.
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