Are governments getting soft on sex crimes or what?!?

At the risk of addressing a rhetorical question. The point is they can spend as long as their whole life behind bars, if that's what the parole board decide. I do feel we miss the key feature, that it's the parole board which is setting these people free.

I'm not sure where a debate on the subject would go. It's not really questioned that sex offenders have an alarmingly high re-offending rate. Chemical castration might have a place, because releasing them based on how they behave in prison isn't working.

The urge may not be able to be purged from the person, but the behavior can be controlled by the person.

The problem is that we do not want to spend the money to do what it takes to bring about that change.

There is no such thing as behavior that cannot be controlled.

Problem is, for this to work the offender has to cooperate with taking the drugs.

I don't think I made any claim to the contrary.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by suggesting that lack of money is the problem. Money for what?

I'm reminded of the old joke: "How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but only if the light bulb wants to change." Whether or not a sexual offender is going to change is ultimately up to them, not the medical profession or the criminal justice system.

As you pointed out above, the medical treatments only work if the offender actually wants to get better.

No, what you said is that they can't be rehabilitated. Which - to me at least - seemed to imply that their behavior was uncontrolable.

Money for the things that must be done to affect rehabilitation. I don't have time for a treatise here, but offenders should be housed together in an environment that is completely devoted to changing the perceptions and impluses that lay at the base of these behaviors.

No one "wants" change. Most of us must be seduced into change and it is a long process. But it can be done. It just takes time and money.

None of this is meant to deny, however, that there are some predators who are simply so twisted that change is out of the question. For them lifelong incarceration is the only option.

I know others have said this, but I just don't think this is the case at all.
Kids often revolt against what they are brought up to believe. There is as much to say that those who are brought up in abusive environments end up campaigning against abuse as there is to say that they become abusers.
There is a growing and worrying tendancy to view perpetrators as some kind of victims. They are not.
The problem with crimminal justice is that too often it is focused on either revenge (the death penalty etc) or rehibilitation ('reprograming' offenders while more often than not, victims are given rudimentary councilling and that's it)
My view is that crimminal justice should be based around prevention.
The only humane way to prevent reoffense and disuade potential offenders is to extend sentences. There's enough tax money being wasted on pointless things for that.
Depending on your view of whether offenders are damaged or not, these sentences could be carried out either in prisons or mental institutions- or perhaps special centres created for this purpose. I don't think it matters- victims matter: sadly this point is often missed.

It may be possible, over time, for an offender's view (or 'condition', if that's what you believe) to change through 're-education'.
Keeping them in prison rather than killing them allows for this possibility.
Yes, this person will still be behind bars, but they are alive.
There are lots of positive things that can be done with a life in prison. There are no positive things that can be done with a life that ended years ago on the chair.
Plus, obviously its totally barbaric to kill people for crimes- I often forget this still happens in so called 'developed' countries.
But it is probably unlikely that offender's preferences and behaviours will change whilst in prison serving life sentences. Does it matter?
They are in prison serving life sentences- they are no danger to innocent kids anymore.

Did anyone catch the 'mindshock' program on UK TV the other day?
This was quite disturbing what with the American bloke who had a brain tumour and developed an interest in child porn, molesting his step daughter before the tumour was removed and the desire to act in that way dissapeared.
Personally I didn't believe the guy- his case was far too black and white and neither psychology or medicine work that way, but in any case it's not the first time recently I've heard arguments which seem to be intended to excuse individuals of rape or child molestation.
Its almost as if its becomming un-PC to say that such people are sickos who need to be locked up for the good of society. Am I being anti-liberal here?
I don't think so.
Prisons are designed to lock people in. Tax money is being wasted elsewhere.
I don't really see what questions a civilised government would have on those facts.

I wasn't trying to suggest that their behavior is uncontrollable, just that sexuality can't be "re-wired".

Fair enough.

This is more or less what was on my mind when I made my original post. If the offender wants to control his behavior, then some form of rehabilitation is possible. But if the offender is a sociopath, rehabilitation isn't possible, because they were never "habilitated" in the first place, and don't want to be.

Problem is, in the US, we have a Consitution that says that you have to commit a crime to go to jail. The idea of incarceration beyond the sentence imposed at conviction, without the commission of a new crime and based on "predictions" of potential to re-offend, are outside of our consitutional structure.

As I mentioned above, I think special centers for this type of offender might go a long way toward preventing reoffending in a good majority of the cases

I agree with this general sentiment - with the exception that I noted above. That is proper sentencing must be done the first time. There should be no second bite at the apple with out a new offense.

Well, actually tumors - in particular tumors in or around the temporal lobes - can change behavior precisely in the way suggested. I did not see the show, but it is a clear and demonstrable phenomenon.

I don't think it is unliberal to say that prisons are for people who commit crimes.

I am a little confused by this comment. Even if the large majority of abused do not go on to become abusers, it does not alter the percentage of pedophiles who were themselves victims of abuse.

Still, most of the estimates I have seen generally estimate the percentage to be somewhere in the range of 30-40%, not a majority. I don't really want to do an all out search for pedophile demographics, though, so feel free to discard my comment.

I'm talking about preventing reoffence. If the sentence is longer in the first place, a greater level of prevention is achieved. If senentces are longer in the first place, there is more risk associated with the crime, therefore making it a less attractive proposition.
I'm not saying harsh sentences prevent crime- they don't, but they show the crime is deemed to be serious. At present, serious crimes do not seem to be taken very seriously.
I agree with what you say about tumours- the other case in that show had suffered a temporal lobe injury which heightened his sexual appitite in strange ways, but he seemed believable, the other did not. I suppose these things can easily be hijacked to excuse behaviours if it is also true that it is possible they genuinely cause them.

Yes- granted.
It is equally rational to argue that victims of abuse are likely to become abusers than to argue the contrary, and I would imagine statistics would emerge pretty much equal.
I think the original objection I had was that somebody had suggested that ensuring people grew up in safe environments would go some way to negating paedophiliac behaviours, which of course we will both agree is only half of the picture.

I'm all about forced exile for convicted paedophiles. Ship them off to an Island somewhere with no children anywhere nearby for ten thousand miles.

I am an advocate of the death penalty and those kind of people are the reason why I am

Bugger.
Frank just spoiled the end of this season of 'Lost'.
No wonder they took Walt.
"He's a very special boy"- classic grooming-speak.
They landed on an island full of paedos.

Paedo?