(Benjamin Yount, The Center Square) Wisconsin state Sen. Van Wanggaard spent 30 years in law enforcement and says he never came across anything as “sick” as a child sex doll.
Wanggaard on Tuesday led a Wisconsin Senate committee hearing on a plan to outlaw child sex dolls in the state.
“For $30,000, and it talks to you and everything else, I’m just thinking these people are really sick,” Wanggaard said.
The legislation would make it a crime to have one of the new realistic sex dolls designed to be a child.
“It’s not just what this doll looks like,” Wanggaard said. “I would imagine that there gotta be a set of operating instructions with this thing that talks about it being a minor.”
Wisconsin currently doesn’t have any laws regarding underage sex dolls. Five states – Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah and Hawaii – are the only states with laws against the dolls.
Wisconsin’s proposed law would mean a felony conviction, and up to three-and-a-half years in prison for a first offense. Anyone who owns a child sex doll that looks like a specific child would be looking at 15 years in prison.
Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, worried about loopholes that suspects could use to skirt the proposed law.
“If someone can say that it’s a dwarf,” Taylor added. “Someone who is smaller, and not a child.”
Sen. Jesse James, R-Altoona, said like in other child pornography cases, there will likely be plenty of evidence to show the doll is a child sex doll.
“When we come across child pornography cases, these aren’t just 10 images and stuff like that. We’re talking thousands of images,” James, who used to be the police chief in Altoona, told lawmakers. “This isn’t something that’s going to be a tiny case.”
Wisconsin law makes it illegal to have sex with a human being under the age of 18. Though there are other state laws that add penalties and prison time for having sex with people at other, underage ages.
