Y’know, there’s a reason the U.S. won’t allow Amnesty International to inspect our prisons.
Bless me, Father, for I have … shiv!
I do not believe that I’m distorting. FOr example, your OP does in fact say “Wonder how the Catholic Church will react to this”. And my answering link, is in fact, a legitimate answer to that. While you didn’t put in a disclaimer of time etc, neither did you ask specifically for JPII, other levels of heirarchy. As I’ve stated, I don’t believe that you’ll get any further comment from them.
as for the rest. The “Should” which got you so riled - sorry if it wasn’t clear, I believed (and still do) that you implied that the church, in order to remain internally consistent, ‘should’, take that stance. You seem to believe that they will indeed do so. Based on their track record for deciet on the subject in the past, etc.
however, I suggest to you that based on their current public policy and based on the facts that you and I agree about (ie horrific loss of funds, not just loss of membership and donations, but huge, enormous, large, multiple pay outs for lawsuits and settlements; loss of membership, horrific PR etc.) that they will see returning to their prior practice of hiding and avoiding responsability as the absolute worst possible action to take from a survival stance (if not moral), and not do what you suggest that they will.
BTW. what you call ‘clarifying’, I see more as taking sharp left/right turns in your argument. It’s really quite frustrating, because I believe that we (essentially) agree on much of this (that the Church took an actively deceptive role for many, many years, and only came out with this policy after having absolutely no other alternative, kicking and screaming the entire way, that it’s a horrific act, that molesters should be punished etc etc etc). where we disagree is on two fronts:
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that you’re putting forth an argument that is linear in nature, going smoothly from point to point (you jumped around quite a bit from past victims to future victims, from the Church taking no responsability to the victims being dissatisfied with the settlements - that last bit, by the way doesn’t have much to do with the rest of it).
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that the Catholic Church, given the huge fiasco and fall out from their prior policies coming to light, will think ‘gosh, let’s try it again’, especially with the same subject, knowing that their actions wrt errant priests is going to be heavily scrutinzed in the future. I see no reason to believe that will happen, assuming that the Catholic Church wishes to continue to exist. (and given their stance on suicide, I would doubt that they’d knowingly commit organizational suicide -
).
anyhow, I’m off for the night, so if I don’t immediately respond, that’s why.
Regarding the “cure” rate for pedophiles:
Human sexualilty is remarkably difficult to change. While individuals might be persuaded to give up sexual behavior, their orientation/preference/what have you seems to be inherent or innate.
It is also known that pedophilia has a relatively high revidicism rate.
Thus, it is widely considered “incurable”. (I would challenge the idea that any such condition can be cured, since they’re not diseases in the first place. That metaphor has been misused far too long.)
Just to make Gobear happy, I’m going to type out my pro forma commentary on the topic.
Remember, folks, this man is dead. He will no longer hurt another being, but that really is no reason to be uncouth about it, to wish him pain and suffering in the hereafter, or to heap curses on his head. He’s going where he’s going, and it’s not going to hurt him any, all it does is sound rude.
Be a better person than this, folks. Keep your brain engaged, and your temper under control, and you can make a difference in the world.
Kay?
It means “opposite the editorial page.” Most papers have their own staff-written editorial page. Opposite this page are columns from guest columnists and syndicated writers.
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20030824/D7T41K780.html?PG=home&SEC=news
I had no idea that a person being held in protective custody would be allowed any contact at all with other inmates. Doesn’t that seem to defeat the purpose of protective custody?
Cite.
See, that’s the same thing that CS did. “it’s known”. And I’m asking for you to demonstrate that it is, with data.
(disclaimer - what I am specifically looking for from you is proof that C/M have a higher rate for recividism than other prisoners. I will ask that the data exclude recidivism for things other than new instances of molestation. For you and others to successfully claim that the molester will molest again, that there is no effective treatment so taht they won’t molest again, you will need to show that if they do go back to prison etc, it’s for molestation type offenses and not for say, writing a bad check or shoplifting.)
Tucker ole chap, you do insinuate, lead on and dodge and mislead.
You and a some others around here are MATERS of the cry, “My comma was there, I spelled it that way, I only used this word.”
Does not change what you are doing or are implying with tone and pace, points that you fight and points you ignore in your quest to be the supreme weasel.
Wring is being calm and polite and you are jumping and yelling. It is obvious you are hammering an agenda and were NOT just making an open ended comment without time limit.
ASIDE: I love the anti-death penalty folks who cheer the death by murder in prison of ANYONE. That it happens again and again just shows that we as a society approve and condone murder because the stopping of this is the easiest type of murder to control. We do not want to so we let it continue.
mankind… Bawahahahaha
Okay, one misconception we need to clear up now: Geoghan was not in the regular prison population.
How Joseph L. Druce was able to strangle him is a matter that probably will be reported on.
I don’t understand what all the hoopla’s about, guys – some felons are killed in prison, most aren’t. Overall, they probably have a better chance of NOT being killed than we all do as we commute to work each day.
An interesting discussion It’s not difficult to find references for this sort of stuff. For crying out loud, why don’t you actually look for some evidence for or against the position yourself?
I wonder if Geoghan ended his sentence with a proposition.
Your link is only the statement issued at the moment. Your link does not show what else the Church will do in the future. You seem to think that a simple statement is all I was asking for, or the only thing possible given the word “response.” It is not.
**
The word you’re looking for is “probable” not “should.”
**
I said that it’s possible that they might adopt a “circle the wagon” mentality or they might continue to expose bad priests. It is too soon to tell. And lots of big organizations “commit suicide.” K-Mart comes to mind.
**
I asked for a cite showing where I contradicted myself, and you failed to provide any. You made the mistake of interpreting my statements in a very narrow fashion. **
Actually, the last bit does have much to do with the rest of it. Think about it. If the victims aren’t happy (which it’s possible that they never can be happy), it’s quite likely that they’ll take an active stance against the Church in a number of matters. This will tie up Church resources in trying to counteract the bad PR that the victims will generate. Given that the Church has had so many problems handling it’s bad PR in the past, and doesn’t seem to be making great strides in improving it, then it’s possible that this could signifcantly erode the Church in this country. (I seriously doubt it’ll mean the end of the CC in our lifetimes, however.)
**
See my above comment about K-Mart. (If you doubt my word about them committing organization suicide, ask Guin about working for them. She, like myself, is an ex-K-Mart employee.)
GunsNSpot, show me where I weaseled. I’d also like to know how you’re able to read my mind and know that I wasn’t making an open ended comment (especially since I thought I was).
TVAA, both those sources you cite indicate that while the recidivism rate is high, it is not 100%.
In fact, they suggest that over one half of pedophiles who are treated don’t reoffend.
Granted, better treatments and more studies are needed to find out what works best for the most people, but it’s hard to write off half the population as incorrigible when in fact it appears a significant number can and do change.
QtM, MD
Erickson, W., Luxenberg, M., Walbek, N., & Seely, R. (1987) Frequency of MMPI two-point code types among sex offenders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 566-570.
MacConaghy D. (1998) Paedophilia: A review of the evidence. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 32, 252-265.
Hanson, K. (2002) Recidivism and age: Follow-up data from 4,673 sexual offenders. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 17, 1046-1062.
Cohen, L. & Galynker, I. (2002) Clinical features of paedophilia and implications for treatment. Journal of Psychiatric Practice, 8, 276-289.
You can’t say that ALL of them reoffend, or that ALL of them are untreatable, but it’s not a very optimistic picture either.
I can’t find the cite for this, but there was a study that gave paedophiles anti-androgen hormones which seriously reduced their sex-drive. So, basically, the most effective “cure” seems to be a sort of castration.
It can be a tad tougher to find on the internet, Wring, given the Catholic issues and whatnot. As I recall from reading books on the subject, no treatment program has yet proved effective to any acceptable degree, and most of those released repeat offend.
It should be noted also, that your request for a peer reviewed cite will aggravate things as well. There are hundreds of thousands of sites dedicated to stopping child molestation who will present cited statistics. So, in order to provide an internet cite you would have to wade through thousands of sites to get it.
I’ll try to dig out some of those books tomorrow for you, though. Although, if you wish to speed the process, you may try to find a program which has had any large degree of success.
I would also disagree that this has been widely studied. Most studies are not properly focused for the results you need, and some are still in debate as to the quality of the research itself. Many have questioned the use of studies that term all adolescent-adult and child-adult relationships as child molestation. According to the APA, cited here, most offenders are less likely to re-offend if they complete their treatment program. There’s no mention of the numbers, and it can be hard to identify repeat offenders regardless. This can be cleared up by the APA’s Jeffrey Haugaard, Ph.D., founder of the APA Division 37 Section on Child Maltreatment .here :
What I have studied, however, indicates that most child molesters will repeat offend, but this is irrespective of treatment, indicated by the same:
If in this case we consider the “drive to have sex with children” being dampened to mean “cured”, and that “often” can mean in a majority of cases.
The cure itself would be suspect as well. For example, is fantasizing and masturbating while fantasizing about children acceptable? Or are we looking for a cessation of the desire to have sex with children entirely, or for the most part at least? Are we trying simply to avoid active sexual encounters with children? What would you consider to be a cured individual?
A perfectly valid point. However, one must also take into consideration those who reoffend and are not caught, those who become too afraid to reoffend (which is not quite the same as being cured) and those who shift focus from child-molesting to child-porn.
But yes, ALL of them do not reoffend. No two ways around that fact.
Although it’s obvious at this point that I have missed the second page with my previous post, I’d reiterate here that a “cured” may still maintain the desire to have sex with children after treatment or incarceration, thereby not being “cured” so much as “prevented”.
Putting them in a jail cell does the same thing, without “curing” them.
While my heart doesn’t exactly bleed for the child molesting slimebag, I am against using rape and murder by prisoners as extra-judicial forms of punishment.
Sounds like Geoghan’s “protective” custody wasn’t all that protective. I think an investigation of the prison staff charged with providing protective custody here is in order. They knew the guy was at risk. They definitely dropped the ball here. I’m not saying the staff actually did anything wrong – might have been some flaw in the system – but a system that fails so badly should be challenged, and so should the people who administer it.