How Should We Deal with Sex Offenders?

I hear this all the time: "Child molesters can't be cured." It's repeated so often that it's almost taken as gospel these days. But is it really true?

Who said so? Why did they say it? I may be an online journalist now, but I spent 25 years as a traditional reporter/editor, and old habits die hard. In this case, that's a good thing. I want attribution and I want to know why people are repeating things without knowing where they originated. What's their agenda? Everybody has one, no matter how much they may aspire to "objectivity" or protest they're "fair and balanced."

These are questions I start to ask myself whenever is see something repeated so pervasively that - to use web jargon - it goes viral. So I started asking, and here's what I found out.

There's actually no consensus about whether people who have committed sex crimes are, in fact, lost causes. A study by the American Psychiatric Association done in 1999 came to the conclusion that "although treatment does not eliminate sexual crime, research supports the view that treatment can decrease sex offense and protect potential victims."

So the most effective way to deal with sex offenders may not be to simply lock 'em up and throw away the key. The problem is not nearly that simple.

I've written more on the issue at: http://www.theprovocation.net/2011/09/putting-rage-against-pedophiles-before.html

What do you think?

 

One strike, get treatment. Strike two, imprison for the rest of their life.

Locking them up and throwing away the key guarantees that they will not reoffend. (Throwing away the key means life without parole).

 

Revisit the island penal colony solution.... let them work out their incurable perversions on each other or the native wildlife.

 

Case by case, depending on the offense and the success of therapy.
I think they should have long probation periods under gradually decreasing watch.

I also think they should be offered the option of chemical castration and medication in exchange for lesser sentences. No one should be invluntarily neutered, but I think doing so could help at least some of these people integrate into society without being harmful.
Others need to be kept locked away for life.

 

I think it should be case by case as well, with some guidelines. Anyone who does anything with someone under 12 should go to prison for a long time, and rehab. Anyone doing something with someone 13-14 should be given a reasonable prison sentence, and forced to do some extensive rehab. 16-17 year olds are not children, and are capable of consent, so anyone sleeping with that age group should not be considered a sex offender. It's not really a problem anyway, seeing as how 16 or 17 is the age of consent through most of the country, but there are some states where it's 18. Some 15 year olds are intelligent and mature enough to consent, but a lot aren't, so I think that should be illegal as well, but only with rehab.

Basically, I think sex offenders should be broken down into tiers. There is a big difference between a 25 year old sleeping with a willing 17 year old(in a state where it's illegal) and an 18+ year old adult sleeping with an 11 year old.

 

It has to be simpler than that.

Most offenders are too stupid to understand complex laws.

 

String 'um up by the nads.
That's not really rational,but my gut reaction.

 

Aren't they born that way? Shouldn't we consider genetic treatment?

 

Shock treatment?

 

If I had to guess, it's because there's nothing "wrong" with them. Some people like piano's, some people like cats, some people like older women, and some people like little kids. We don't say the other people are "diseased" but we say a child pedophile is diseased because his particular quirk is sex with little children. He's not sick, he's just unfortunate his fetish is intolerable. You probably can't cure him because you can't really cure a persons desire for something.

 

naw.... they wouldnt remember that..

 

wtf??

Please cite evidence of a fixable genetic connection to pedophilia.

 

hes too evil to ever have access to any child again.

Locl em..up.....melt the key

 

Save money, I go for public hanging nationally televised so that the rest of the sick bastards can figure out that there really is zero tolerance for their behavior and get treatment before they offend the first time.

 

Most adults would have a hard time remembering and applying the age of consent laws for sexual behavior in many US states.

In my state of WA, 16 is the age of consent. BUT:

 

Rapists and molesters should get the death penalty. However, that does not include statutory rape if the sex was consensual. I'm going to go ahead and say we should give the death penalty to anybody who traffics in people for the sex trade as well, even if they themselves aren't committing rape.

I think for the rest we can use the existing laws to deal with them, although I retain the right to add more (*)(*)(*)(*)birds to the death penalty list if there's something I missed that should be on there.

 

I go back and forth on this issue. I do not support mandatory sentences for them generally unless they are repeat offenders. I also see disparity between offenses reported locally that don't quite sit well with me like a rapist might get 14 years but a guy who downloaded child porn gets 25 years. To me a person who violently assaults someone is more of a danger than a guy who masturbates to pictures on his computer. Then there are the employer propositions employee and they don't get charged, but sued, but a prostitute propositions someone and they get arrested. I cannot find within myself a bright-line rule on dealing with even one broad type of offense, let alone of multitude of them.

 

There should not be a one size fits all solution.


We have to take into accounts that not all "sex offenders" are child rapists.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of people serving time in prison because they had sex with a girlfriend or boyfriend (in the vast majority of cases, boyfriend) who happened to be underage. One case I remember hearing about had an 18 year old setenced to 15 years for sleeping with his 17 year old girlfriend. And when he gets out, he will be on the sex offenders list, with no asterisk to say he did not rape a child. He will be banned from being within a certain distance of schools, and all others things done to keep pedophiles away from schools. He will be treated like a child rapist despite never having touched a child.

 

Problem with that is that it basically gives rapists a reason to kill their victims. Hard to catch a rapist of there is no witnesses, and they are careful to not leave evidence, especially if they have no priors.

 

Purpose is to cleanse out the gene pool.

 

If they are repeat offenders, the answer is simple.........remove their genitals. If someone repeatedly molests kids they lost their rights to have them.

 

I couldn't argue with that. Certainly wouldn't want my child to become a victim...

 

Of course we should. Dropping them off in the middle of the ocean on a rubber raft would be treatment enough.

 

I would argue for committing a REAL REAL REAL late term abortion.