Crime writer John Grisham has said America is unjustly jailing too many citizens for viewing child pornography. In an interview with The Telegraph, Grisham, who earned $17 million last year and tied for 6th place in Forbes’ ranking of top-earning authors, attacked the widespread incarceration of those who watch child porn.
“We have prisons now filled with guys my age. Sixty-year-old white men in prison who’ve never harmed anybody, would never touch a child,” he told The Telegraph’s Peter Foster in an interview to promote his latest novel, Gray Mountain.
“But they got online one night and started surfing around, probably had too much to drink or whatever, and pushed the wrong buttons, went too far and got into child porn.”
Grisham, who is well known for legal thrillers such as A Time to Kill and The Firm, has sold more than 275 million copies since his 1989 debut. Grisham first joined Forbes’ top-earning author ranking in 2000, with a $36 million annual paycheck. He has made an estimated $200 million before taxes and fees in the last 14 years.
“I have no sympathy for real pedophiles,” he said, speaking to The Telegraph from his office in Charlottesville, Virginia. “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.”
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