In response to the front page on Jan. 31, \u201cMan sentenced for child abuse,\u201d as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse between the ages of 3 and 11, I applaud all law enforcement, especially the U.S. Attorney for NH, Jane Young, and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office in NJ. Finally, a sexual predator received justice congruent with the harm suffered by a 12-year-old child due to Project Safe Childhood, a 2006 a federal initiative. Granted this initiative only targets sexual predators who exploit children via the internet, however the penalties, potential 30 years sentence, fine of $250,000 and lifetime supervised release begins to equal the lifetime trauma suffered by all abused children. (In this case the criminal received 20 years, $6,000 fine and only ten years of supervised release, but at least it exceeds the average state punishment.) <\/p>\n
Why does the lifetime trauma of childhood sexual abuse warrant more severe penalties when the internet is involved than when a family member torments a child in their home? The stolen innocence, degrading of self esteem, lack of trust, shame, betrayal, inability to become a vibrant healthy adult and acquire a happy future and family remains the same. I\u2019m advocating for rescinding all misdemeanor laws re: all childhood abuse but especially for childhood sexual abuse and making them all felonies. Abusing a child is never a minor offense. I am grateful for Project Safe Childhood. It is time for NH to penalize all childhood sexual predators with felonies.<\/p>\n
Paula Czech Lesmerises <\/p>\n
Concord<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In response to the front page on Jan. 31, \u201cMan sentenced for child abuse,\u201d as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse between the ages of 3 and 11, I applaud all law enforcement, especially the U.S. Attorney for NH, Jane Young, and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,510],"tags":[212,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-10457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","category-opening","tag-letter-to-the-editors","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10457"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=10457"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}