Grisham offers apology, regrets over comments
Remarks on child porn spark outrage
Bestselling author John Grisham is retreating from controversial comments about child pornography he made in an interview with a British newspaper.
Grisham triggered outrage after he suggested a lot of “guys my age” were being locked up when they had done no more than “had too much to drink” and visited an illegal website.
The author of The Client, The Pelican Brief and scores of other legal thrillers attacked the U.S. judicial system in an interview with the London Daily Telegraph, saying judges had “gone crazy” over the past 30 years, locking up far too many people, from white-collar criminals such as lifestyles guru Martha Stewart over stock tips to black teenagers on minor drugs charges.
“We have prisons now filled with guys my age. Sixty-yearold white men in prison who have never harmed anybody, would never touch a child,” said Grisham, 59.
But Grisham’s provocative comments missed their mark and by Thursday he was doing damage control.
In a statement issued by his publisher Doubleday, he said: “Anyone who harms a child for profit or pleasure, or who in any way participates in child pornography — online or otherwise — should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
“My comments made two days ago during an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph were in no way intended to show sympathy for those convicted of sex crimes, especially the sexual molestation of children. I can think of nothing more despicable.
“I regret having made these comments, and apologize to all.”
In the interview, Grisham was asked about the argument that viewing child pornography fuelled the industry of abuse behind the creation of the pictures. He said that current sentencing policies failed to draw a distinction between real-world abusers and those who downloaded content — accidentally or otherwise.
“I have no sympathy for real pedophiles,” he said. “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.”
Since 2004, average sentences for those who possess but do not produce child pornography have nearly doubled in the U.S., to 95 months in 2010 from 54 months in 2004, says a report issued two years ago by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
The issue of sex-offender sentencing has created some debate in the legal community after it emerged that in some cases, those who viewed child pornography online were at risk of receiving harsher sentences than those who committed physical acts against children.
Grisham, who earned $17 million from his work last year, is one of the highestearning U.S. novelists and is a self-declared Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in her failed 2008 attempt to win the White House.
He has waded into political issues in the past, writing newspaper columns that argued against Guantanamo Bay prison and the death penalty as well as serving on the board of the Innocence Project, a campaign group that uses DNA analysis to end miscarriages of justice.
Grisham gave the interview to promote Gray Mountain, his latest novel in which a young lawyer takes on “Big Coal” as it destroys the rural landscape of Virginia.