Actually, it is true. Your cite, even the bolded part, does not refute the claim that convicted pedophiles have one of the lowest recidivism rates of any class of criminals. It would refute the claim that “convicted pedophiles are less likely the other criminals to molest children”.
In other words, pedophiles are less likely to reoffend then other criminals, but if they do reoffend, it’s more likely to be a sex offense then, say, bank robbery.
That’s an interesting interpretation of “dangerous.” I would vastly prefer to live next to a pedophile than a gang member or someone convicted of armed robbery. Violent people likely to reoffend put an entire community at risk. Pedophiles put children at risk. There are practical ways to help keep pedophiles away from children. It is the “frightening prospect for parents” mentality that has crippled any hope of a practical solution. Generally, people closest to the victims are not the people I would select to give a balanced perspective on what should be done. Their pain and fears should be given due respect, but the solutions they offer should be taken with a healthy degree of skepticism. I do not want a government of fear.
I don’t think I’d want to take that line of thought to its logical conclusion. Certainly our method of declaring someone able to reintegrate into society has some culpability in the matter. But that is not even necessarily where the reform can best be applied. History has never borne out the premise that “if only we punish them enough, it will be ok.”
Exactly.
I’ve discussed the problem of sex offenders in other threads and have been told bluntly that, because i don’t have children, i can’t possibly understand the problem and my opinion is irrelevant. This is a completely ridiculous position, but it’s one that quite a few people seem comfortable taking when this issue comes up.
If someone close to me was the victim of a sex crime like rape or whatever, i’d probably want to kill the offender myself. But that would make me precisely the wrong person to be deciding what punishment was appropriate for that crime.
For those interested, the US Dept. of Justice runs a Center for Sex Offender Managment whose stated goal is “to enhance public safety by preventing further victimization through improving the management of adult and juvenile sex offenders who are in the community.” (*from http://www.csom.org/index.html)
This following link is to a study regarding recidivism of sex offenders (*child molesters as well as non-pedophile offenders) that states that 30% of child molesters will reoffend after 10 years from their previous crime. That statistic rises to 52% after 25 years.
http://www.csom.org/pubs/recidsexof.html
These are ugly statistics, to be certain. Witch hunts are equally ugly, no question. Still, recidivism is an issue for sex offenders and anyone who avoids a convicted child molester can hardly be blamed for it.
I believe in rehabilitation, but something so deeply rooted as sexual attraction to children oftentimes cannot be changed regardless of the good intentions of the offender.
Not if you put in in the context of other criminal offenders, who reoffend at a rate of 68% in the first three years.
I dunno. I can certainly see the “ick” factor here, which is tough to argue with when the subject is where you will have dinner, but if it’s purely an ethical question, I think it might be wrong to boycot if the proprietor has served his time and is living lawfully. Many pedophiles do make a real effort to change and integrate, and I’m sure it’s not hard to argue that harmful ostracision makes it difficult to avoid recidivism. I’ve heard and read many such assertions made by various medical and legal experts who deal with sex offenders. Some people counter that the pedophile deserves no compassion and can never be trusted, but those views may be self-fulfilling. The real statistics on such matters seem hopelessly tainted by politics one way or the other. I don’t know who to trust entirely on those matters.
So what do we know? The proprietor was punished for his crimes. He’s on a sex-offender list, is likely receiving mandatory psychotherapy, and possibly pharmacotherapy, to combat his urges. Whatever the real rate of recidivism is, it’s almost certainly not more than double the usually-quoted figures, which means the odds the offender in question has not, and will not, reoffend are still quite a bit better than even. If ethics are about more than an actuarial-table approach to calculated risk, it’s hard to see the justification in denying a person the opportunity to be a productive citizen with some basic rights. I don’t see how it helps anyone to make such a person incapable having that chance if they are in the community lawfully. How can unending retribution not make matters worse for all concerned?
He lost his rights when he sexually assaulted the child! He should have his nuts , and hands cut off for what he done. He must be a Catholic. They love to molest children. They are vile and discusting. Catholic religion should be abolished. Any one who diagrees, just read your history. THEY ARE NASTY, AND EVIL!!
[Moderator Hat ON]
splif, do NOT rant like this in this forum.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
The whole boycott email thing reminds me of the Red Scare.
People mess up, get over it! I don’t condone what he did, but considering that my father is a convicted child molester, I can say that some people DO rehabilitate. From the most non-biased standpoint I can make, I’d have to say that my father is one of the kindest, most moral, and GOOD persons I’ve ever known.
So a pedophile owns a restaurant, who cares? A person should not be judged for their ENTIRE LIVES for one or two mistakes they made many years ago. If they did something wrong, and recieved punishment, and they stopped doing it, forgive them.
In my opinion, complete alienation from society for your entire life > raped as a 16 year old. The former would have constant, lasting, and daily reprocussions in ones intra- and interpersonal lives. The latter however is more intrapersonal. Usually, rape victims don’t go around telling people, and most people could care less anyway.
To quote Ghandi (iirc) “If we all believe in eye for an eye, the world would be blind.”
Exactly. If he has served his sentence, he deserves to get on with things.
It’s not like he opened a children’s playgroup and personally works there.
Sorry I don’t understand this. The issue of “a living of ones choice” is about what jobs/professions are available. You couldn’t find an IT job, so you took an admin one.
This guy found or chose a restaurant job. Why doesn’t he have a right to do that? ie: what is so intrinsically terrible as restaurateuring as a job for a (convicted and punished) paedophile, as opposed to any other profession? Does it bring him into increased contact with children than other jobs would? Did he meet his previous abuse victims through his workplace?
Here’s what’s bothering me about this man’s choosing to own his own business, rather than taking a job working in a restaurant. Please keep in mind that it’s colored by my own experience, therefore it may not be entirely logical.
As a rule, someone who owns his own business is perceived as being more respectable or having a higher social standing than someone who works for someone else, especially if the business is successful. People, even parent’s sometimes are reluctant to believe a child who accuses such a person of inappropriate behaviour. Even if they do believe the child, they may not want to take action because of the person’s social standing. I don’t know whether my father believed me or not; I do know he didn’t take action because he didn’t want to create a stir. I also read that in cases where children were abused by priests, parents were reluctant to take action because the offenders were priests and they didn’t want to believe men of God could do such things. Yes, I realize that’s not right. I also realize we live in an imperfect world.
This man has chosen to own his own business. Part of me wonders if that’s to provide himself with an extra buffer against accusations. When I was talking about this thread with the gentleman in my life, he agreed with me that he wouldn’t be comfortable taking his nieces there. While I don’t know what he was thinking, this is the sort of scenario I could envision taking place. A child excuses herself to go to the bathroom. While on the way there, the congenial owner of the restaurant offers to give her a special tour. She agrees. He’s a nice man; she’s curious; he’s not a stranger – her parents greeted him when they came in. You can gather what ensues. When she tells her parents what happened, whether it’s that night or a few days later because it takes her a while to sort things out, her parents don’t believe her. Maybe they don’t know the guy’s history or maybe they think he really has reformed; it doesn’t matter why. Alternately, they do believe her, but they don’t want to take action because they don’t want to be the ones who got the guy in trouble. Accusations of child molestation make the news around here, and people aren’t inclined to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. The parents may think there’s a possibility their daughter’s lying or blew a simple hug out of proportion. If so, they’ll have ruined a man’s life and reputation for nothing. (Yes, I do see the parallel with the e-mail which triggered this thread.)
This is all smoke in the wind. I don’t know what sort of restaurant the man owns or how likely it is to attract kids, although even kids may be taken to a fancy restaurant as a special treat. I also know there are some issues on which my own issues make it difficult for me to see things clearly and this is one of them. On the other hand, I don’t go to Cracker Barrels or Chick-Fil-As because of their corporate policies as reported on the news and this message board. I wouldn’t forward the e-mail or call for an all-out boycott, but, with hundreds of other restaurants in town, I’d decide to eat elsewhere and, as I said, I wouldn’t encourage my brother to take his children there.
As for my comments about choosing what we do, sometimes one’s choices are limited by the job marked and other considerations. My original degree is in Japanese and I’m a trained translator. There are very few jobs in my city for Japanese translators which is one reason why I work with computers. Two years ago, while I did want to remain a programmer, my choice became impractical when, despite my best efforts and believe me, I did work hard at it and I have the qualifications, I could hardly even get an interview. My unemployment was running out and I had rent and other bills to pay. I could and did choose to continue looking for programming jobs, but employers were choosing not to interview me. That’s how I wound up an administrative assistant. I could decide to become a cook. Making a living at it would be extrememly difficult because I have no experience and my cooking is pretty lousy. I can’t demand someone hire me simply because I want a job. If I choose to start my own business, that choice alone won’t do it; I’m going to have to find investors who are willing to choose to invest in me because they think I can make a success of the business. The man in the OP chose to open his own business and found the backers to do so. He could just as easily have chosen a different job in the restaurant business. Instead, he chose this one and the prestige which goes with it. At this point, I’ll break off. My biases are intruding again.
I’m not calling for him to be pilloried. I’m just saying that, if it were up to me, I’d eat elsewhere.
Does any of this make sense? It’s early.
CJ
So are you guys saying I’m morally obligated to support this guys business so he doesn’t fall back to his life of crime?
Or are you saying I should make my purchase decisions on other factors than “he was a slimeball.”
No. I for one am saying that however horrific the crime, for as long as we have legal systems that punish people, when their punishment is over, we cannot go on ostracising them.
We can use common sense. We would prevent an alcoholic drink driver from getting a job driving a school bus when he gets released. We would prevent an ex-paedophile from running a playgroup. We would prevent a wife-beater with ongoing “anger management” issues from working with vulnerable women.
But at some point we have to confront the fact that convicted criminals are going to become part of our society again, until such a time that exile becomes part of the justice system. And if a convicted criminal can become economically productive, he/she is at least paying into society through taxes (consider how much his/her trial and imprisonment will have cost society).
I know it’s hard to compare how we might feel about a simple shoplifter compared to how we feel about a child molester. But they’ve both done the crime, done the time.
An interesting post from our very own Qadcop the Mercotan on attempts to predict recidivism among child molestors.
I bet a lot of the disagreement about recidivism comes from lumping different kinds of child molestors together. Fondling a sixteen year old is bad - fondling a six year old is worse. This guy did both - go figure.
The difficult, because politically incorrect part, seems to be that those who molest boys reoffend at higher rates than those who molest only girls.
What would be the implications of punishing same-sex molestors differently than opposite-sex molestors?
Regards,
Shodan
I think you should do what ever your conscience tells you. However, I don’t think you should organize a campaign to influence your neighbors to boycott his business, which is what was happening in the case cited by the OP.
What if I don’t organize a campaign, but simply let my neighbors know, if they didn’t already, that the owner of Moe’s Tavern was a convicted pedophile and let them follow their own conscience?
Why would you let them know? Do you think it would make them safer, or be helpful to them in any other way? Because lacking those reasons, perhaps you would be acting based on assumptions about their own attitudes that could be accurate, or baseless, depending on the person. Maybe it would be better to be sure what their real stake in knowing might be, first.
Perhaps I believe they have morals similar to mine and would not knowingly choose to help this man be financially successful. Perhaps I believe that the economy works best when we have “perfect information” to make our decisions on, and incomplete information is incomplete. I would want to know, so I assume others would.
Then the problem is with social perceptions, not with the businessowner. Given how many examples of incompetent CEOs or antisocial bosses are out there, there’s no reasonable basis to believe “business owner == better.”
You can do what you feel like; just don’t freak out if other folks don’t share your sentiments.