NEWS: Blogs: Now for Child Molesters Too!

Uh, ok. And my point was that such an all-ecompassing definition of mental illness is completely useless, serving no purpose bar perhaps illustrating the universal issues and troubles we all go through. If the majority of society can be described as mentally ill, the term loses its meaning.

I won't pretend to know what goes through the mind of people who rape babies. But I'd be pretty willing to describe them as mentally ill. Illness is an aberration... and raping babies is pretty fucking aberrative behaviour. Whether they can be cured or not, I'm not sure.

(I do, however, condemn the killing of anybody as a form of punishment).

Does the American prison system make any serious attempt at rehabilitation?

Can a felon volunteer to stay in prison at the end of his sentence?

Would you turn yourself in to the cops? With a sex-offender jacket?

And, like it or not, this is a SOCIETAL issue/problem. No amount of well-intentioned posturing or quick fixes will get to the root of this...or make it go away. This is ingrained deeply within our culture...it's something we'd rather not confront until it explodes in our faces.

And I marvel at how wholly unconcerned people often are until we have tragedies that bring things like this into light.

People like this in the world is what makes me hate humanity. I have no ability to understand how or why someone could hurt people like that. I've seen it first hand myself and it's disgusting. How could a molester not be humiliated? How could a murderer not be so overcome with guilt that they commit suicide? Personally, if i just hurt someones feelings i feel incredibly guilty. How does someone do that?
And it's only slightly comforting to know that this one guy isn't going to be a problem anymore. I mean it's pretty much 100% that he's getting maximum after all of this publicity. But at the same time it's depressing because there are so many other people out there who are just like him, and who will never get caught. I did a presentation about abuse when i was in 9th grade so who knows how accurate this is now, but at the time it was estimated that 19 out of every 20 sexual abusers walked free. That shit makes me want to vomit.

The question wasn't "what recidivism rates should we accept." Several people on this and other threads seem to think that there isn't a single person who's engaged in the molestation of children and subsequently been able to contain their urges to molest children, and that that perception is justification for killing the lot of them. I posted the link simply to point out the error in that perception.

The study examines many issues involved in the idea of "recidivism." I'd go into them, but you'd be better off just reading it.

big shitter! ha!

yes, if you are going to start talking in statistics, you have to know what you're talking about (even if those statistics are imaginary). and you weren't simply stating an opinion, you were pretending to talk in fact.

and as for this:

hmm, i don't recall mentioning any fucking pill. don't be retarded.

[Edited on Jul 06, 2005 by Huck]

Yes, it is dificult to say. However, the 40% figure is just one number from one aspect of one study that the other poster is using to try to back up a weak argument. As you saw, some of the studies found a recidivism rate in the low teens or even single-digits and, as the study states, the parameters for determining recidivism are key issues and the higher percentages are typically found in studies that will consider a sex offender recidivist if they get arrested for shoplifting but never molest anyone again.

The point of bringing all that up is that yes, it is hard to say how many repeat but it is possible to say that some do not. Several posters have stated that these people are monsters who need to be put down, I'm just trying to show that that isn't the case, that some people have gotten "better."

I guess I have a different perspective on this issue because of my work. You mentioned in an earlier post that society is in denial of the scope of the problem; well, I deal with this problem every day. I have a strong grasp on how horrible it is and why people react so strongly to it, and I understand the insidious secret nature of it all. I know that if society stopped looking for treatment and started simply killing rapists and child molesters that the problem would become much, much, much worse and the reporting rate would probably drop from the current roughly 1/3 to under 1/10.

On top of all this, I wonder how many of you understand how many children are sex offenders of one sort or another. In my 4 short years in a medium-size facility in the tiniest little state I've seen hundreds of kids - many unadjudicated - who've comitted sex offences. Seriously, I've known 8-year-olds who are highly sophisticated sexual predators. There's no way in hell that society is going to give an 8-y/o the chair or drop him on an island with a few thousand adult s/o's, is there?

So we kinda need to keep working on developing effective treatments for the multiple types of sex offenders unless we want to build death camps for second graders.

*ching ching*

If I ever see an episode like that I'm going to be thinking of you.
edit: Not because you are a child molester but because you brought it up.
Yeah i hope that makes sense

[Edited on Jul 07, 2005 by StarCandy]

I wasn't talking about 2nd graders. I'm just curious what you think would work, since you are against putting people accused of raping/murdering children on an island, which I think is a great idea.

I don't have much personal experience. I did work at an elementary school for 10 years, and in those 10 years there were 2 children who were actual sexual preditors. Those 2 boys would seek out younger boys and do exactly what was done to them BY ADULT MALES. They were copying what some fucked up adult taught them. I understand the adult was once a child too..but in most cases it's probably too late for them and they need to be put away before they TEACH more kids their behavior and DAMAGE more kids. An active pedophile who keeps getting caught committing crimes he "can't help" is damaging more and more kids. Why wouldn't we want to keep these people in jail, away from kids?

I am not trying to fight with you..I am just wondering what you think would work.

I know you weren’t, and that’s part of the problem. Sex offenders come in all shapes and sizes. If we’re going to discard them from society we better look at who it is we’re throwing out.

I don’t claim to have all the answers either. There are multiple treatments being tried for multiple types of offenders, some have had more efficacy than others but it’s a relatively new field so it could very easily be decades before anyone can start to say they have a handle on it. I know it’s small comfort for us now but there isn’t going to be a quick fix. Work on your relationships with your kids, know their friends and their friends’ families, build up their egos, teach them to make good decisions about sex and hope for the best.

Just because we want to doesn’t mean we should.

Just because some of these people (blogger included) have been released from prison doesn’t mean they should’ve been, either. Some people benefit from treatment, others don’t and I have no problem with keeping those who are likely to re-offend indefinitely. I also don’t have any problem with keeping people on parole indefinitely and requiring continuous treatment and tracking as a condition of such.

I can totally understand not giving a shit about the scum who do this, so let’s look at another aspect as well. Research indicates that “only 32 percent (one out of three) of sexual assaults against persons 12 or older are reported to law enforcement...(No current studies indicate the rate of reporting for child sexual assault, although it is generally assumed that these assaults are equally underreported.)” and “Incest victims who have experienced criminal justice involvement are particularly reluctant to report new incest crimes because of the disruption caused to their family.” When we put those two ideas together it seems like you better offer some sort of potential for reunification or else next to nothing will get reported and these people will have even more freedom to molest children which begets children who molest other children yadda yadda yadda.

I know, and it’s all good. This is a very emotional topic and I appreciate your questions and your comments as well as your tone.