Controversial question.
What good does it do for Josh to sit in prison for 12 and a half years?
I'll bite.
1) It shows his victims, and other victims who may not have come forward, that society cares how they were wronged and takes this crime seriously.
2) Hopefully it has a chilling effect on anyone else starting down that road of (in my opinion) needing more and more shocking forms of *advertiser censored*/sex material in order to get their thrill or feel whatever they are trying to feel.
3) Hopefully it has a chilling effect on the next family or church that tries to sweep abuse like this under the rug and/or not take getting help for the offender seriously.
4) Hopefully it helps prevent the next abuser from abusing a child in order to make and share these materials.
5) Hopefully his wife hits menopause before he gets out and he can't father any more children in that family. I know he could father other children but at least hopefully they won't be quite so isolated under Duggar thumbs to be potentially abused and kept quiet.
6) Hopefully science is working on more of a cure for this particular addiction/paraphilia and by the time he gets out they can just give him a shot or whatever, further protecting future potential victims, and at that point maybe he can be a better member of society. Up until now science seems to have told us there's not much that works but maybe in 12 years science will hit on something.
7) If any other victims come to light, who aren't Duggars, their father or brother can't easily get to him with a baseball bat. 8) Maybe in time he will be persuaded to take part in whatever rehabilitation/therapy they have available, whereas if he were out he would not make that choice because he would continue to be coddled by his Duggar environment. Maybe he will find a mentor who runs a good program in the prison and decide to take advantage of it.
9) Maybe being away from Duggars will help him finish maturing and rounding out whatever's stunted his moral/spiritual/personality growth, in case his upbringing is what's wrong with him. Who knows...maybe prison for him will be like being let *out* of prison...*if* growing up a Duggar is what's wrong with him. Not sure on that, but it's possible. Maybe his major malfunction is he'd like to wring his father's neck. And this was his warped way of acting out. Maybe in prison he will realize, "You know, I really should have just told my father off and left Arkansas" I am not sure if this is his major malfunction but if it is, staying in his same environment wasn't going to spur the needed change.
10) It shows other societies that USA isn't the hypocritical cesspool of decadence and amorality we may appear to outsiders who may be judging the USA by what they see on TV. Other societies have every right to judge us (the USA) by stuff like this, just as we judge other societies by (for example) honor killings. When someone is punished in another country for, say, an honor killing, here in the USA I breathe a sigh of relief....thinking at least not everyone thinks honor killings are just hunky dory. Do we want other nations and cultures to think the USA thinks CSAM is just hunky dory? Here's a quote from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: "In this year died King Alfred. He was a noble king and great. It is said that in his kingdom, a virgin might walk naked from one side to the other, and none dare molest her."
