Treating peadophiles (Brit spelling) in prison is not nearly a proper environment and I cannot see how it can suceed.
Once such an individual with this kind of fixation is in prison, the sources of conflict in behaviour are simply not available, there are no children in prison.
The person concerned will usually become a model inmate, and will rarely be a problem in jail.
You cannot always tell from their behaviour and attitude that they are child molesters as they are very good actors(I usually refrain from looking at criminal records else I might well become biased against them).
They need to be good actors too or they are very likely to be seriously harmed by other inmates.
There are intensive treatment centres in some prisons and they have been reported to be very succesful but the stress and personal cost to staff is high and they often need counselling to help them cope with some of the trauma they encounter when dealing with peadophiles.It would be easier just to lock up the offenders forever in an environmetn where they could not repeat their crimes and would have a lower human cost in treatment.
I would like to add that the link between homosexuality and peadophilia is not proven and it is dishonourable to mention it in this context.It lends the homophobes a shred of credibility that must not be allowed to exist.
Hard decision. First find out exactly what causes a molester to willingly risk becoming one of the most hated members of society in or out of jail just to have sex with a child. Plus, knowing this, what tremendous urge makes a molester not only rape a child, but often kill them to cover up the crime. Serial killers are better understood than major child molesters. Find out why also has there been a sudden increase in actual molestation in the last 20 years by people not blood related to the harmed family.
The lame excuse of Power seems not sufficient. Even rapists are better understood. Also, what makes a chronic child molester resist all forms of treatment short of a frontal lobotomy?
I never said there was any kind of link between the two. What tracer began (I think) and I continued was merely analogy. Homosexuality, the attraction to members of the same sex, used to be looked on as a mental illness, a thing to be cured, the way pedophilia, the attraction to prepubescent persons, is now. (I must point out again I am not talking about behavior here, just the feelings.) Given that the former is no longer (aside from a few holdouts) considered any kind of mental illness, what is the justification for the latter still being regarded as such?
Again, no linking of the two is intended beyond the parallel nature of the societal attitudes toward them.
I, for one, understood what Ptahlis was saying, casdave. There’s a difference between an analogy and a link. (And it’s “paedophilia,” not “peado”.)
I know at least one person who’s described some of their own pedophilic feelings to me. I also know that this person is gentle and ethical and has no intention of attacking any child, simply regarding it as a cross to bear. This is why it’s very important to distinguish between fantasies and tendencies and actions.
Moreover, as someone who had consensual (and wonderful, and eye-opening, and never-regretted) sex with an older person before I turned 18*, I see that a punishment like the one mentioned would leave itself wide open to miscarriages of justice - dreadful punishments for wholly ethical actions.
*It was legal, being in Canada, but wouldn’t be in a lot of US states… not even counting the fact that it was gay…
Casdave: Treatment of child molesters while INSIDE the prison, I believe is a necessity if they’re ever to be released. You don’t want to BEGIN the course of treatment at the point when their available victim pool is greatly enhanced.
And point of fact, children ARE available inside the prison. In the visitor’s rooms. I had an intern at my agency who was a prison guard in the State of MI, his job was to supervise the visitor room. After a horrible incident in the Western part of our state in which a convicted child molester was VIDEOTAPED molesting yet another child in the prison visiting room, he asked his supervisors if they could identify convicted child molesters to him, so he could be especially wary of them. His suggestion was not taken. (the child molester in that case is now serving a mandatory life sentence, and the woman who knowingly arranged this is also serving time. No, no one tried to figure out how/why if they were video taping the incident why didn’t they stop it)
here’s a link, by the way, to the only researched stats I could find re- molesters and recidivism rates:
So the “99.9 %” and "it’s not a question of ‘if’ it’s a question of ‘when’ " statements are not supported by available data.
The question of what to do with molesters is a tough enough issue without clouding it with exagerated and oft repeated erroneous numbers.
In doing that search, I also came across articles about the chemical castration (Depro Prevara) issue. while clinically, in trials in Europe, it seems to greatly reduce the already lower than average recidivism rate, it is interesting to me that the studies done also included mandatory counseling, and all the legislation was geared towards the shot only.
Whilst I agree that treatment needs to be done in prison and, as I said, it is not cost-free for the staff concerned. There needs to be far greater control of the offender when released.
Yes there are children in visits rooms but the circumstances are very artificial and does not replicate real-life conditions an inmate will encounter except in a superficial way.
Inmates do not always know what those around them are incarcerated for but if a child molester is discovered by the rest of the population they will be injured by them.This act must be maintained in the visits room because there are plenty of other inmates who will be having visits at the same time.
This requires the paedophile to keep himself very well guarded in his actions and speech, which to me is not the way to begin to deal with his behaviour.
The sex-offender treatment units are isolated from the general jail population so that the offender can look more openly at themselves.
In vulnerable prisoners units VPU’S, ie protection(usually comprising sex-offenders) where treatment is not available there has been noted a tendency for prisoners to feed each others fantasies such as sharing of case notes, they are entitled by law to have accesss to their own case docs.
Since there are more VP’s than sex-offender programs to treat them and since they spend most of their time in VP units it is not surprising that they reoffend.
Having seen recorded interviews of treated child abuse offenders it would appear that much of the control method that they use when caught in situations unawares is a mixture of fear of the beast within them and a desparation to get away from that situation as fast as possible.
They way they talk is almost like that of an reformed alchoholic when confronted with temptation.
It does make me wonder, at least with some of them, if they can be considered to be addicted to this behaviour.
I’ve given a lot of thought to the “warning” (Megan’s law et al).
In practice, anytime the government gets into the business of providing information, errors are made. So, MI currently has a web site that conservatively is 25% inaccurate. So, some addresses that are listed as having a molester living there don’t and some addresses that aren’t listed DO.
There have been incidents where the home of a molester was burned to prevent the person from moving back there. I understand that by publishing such lists, the government is not advocating criminal action, but it does occur.
I believe that it can build up a false sense of security - “gee there’s no molester living in our neighborhood” . well, (a) refer to #1 above, and (b) even if it was %100 accurate, that only would show no ** convicted ** molester there.
People assume that if they tell their child “see that guy there? he’s a bad guy, don’t go around him”, that is protecting their child. Perhaps they are protecting their child from THAT molester, but they may be setting the child up for another one. Kids do NOT think the same way we do. If you say “That guy is bad”, they can imply “everybody else is ok” . Molesters are very skilled at getting kids to trust them. Rules like “Never go into ANYONE’S house/car unless you ask me FIRST.” and “The ONLY secret you should keep from me is what my present will be - if some one wants you to keep a secret from me, TELL ME IMMEDIATELY!!” do more to keep kids safe.
The molesters I’ve known were often in positions of trust (relatives, friends of the parents, a librarian in the school, boy scout troop leader etc.). So, pointing out the guy down the street would have probably made it easier for the others to convince the child “see, I’m ok, I’m not that guy your parents warned you about”. I remember my son (age 4) after seeing a public service message about “the dope man” assumed that all drug dealers had spiked purple hair.