I am really surprised of the above numbers. I would have thought that the number (46,000) priests in the US to be much lower. It is a dying business, like being a nun.
As for Geoghan being strangled. The guy who did this ( Druce) I am betting, probably was molested as a child and probably took more than, shall we say, a great offense, to a Priest/father figure being a molester. Strangulation is a ‘personal’ form of murder, then again, no impersonal weapons ( guns, knives,A-Bomb) were available ) and I’m guessing this attacker just snapped and decided to kill Geoghan to possibly end the misery of all those boys who were molested by him, because, well, Druce, could never extract revenge on his own molester and since he is doing life it wasn’t much of a big deal.
Then again, maybe the archdiocese needed to have the ex-priest shut up for good because he was about to spill the beans on something BIG. The conspiracy nut inside of me instantly thought of that. Feh.
I’m struck by the comments of a number his victims on the local news, all of whom when interviewed regretted this murder. They didn’t want Geoghan dead, they wanted him to confront what he did and explain his actions to them, and help further with the investigations into other cases. That makes them, to me, closer to the teachings of their religion than the priest.
According to reports, Geoghan was murdered because he was gay. That adds a mildly interesting twist. They guy who killed him was a neo-nazi and was in prison for killing a gay man he claimed was making advances towards him. He also sent fake anthrax to lawyers with Jewish-sounding names. So we can stop guessing that he killed Geoghan because of the righteous prison justice where molesters are at the bottom of the pecking order. He was killed because his murderer was homophobic.
So to those who originally thought his death is a good thing, was his murder an outrage because it was a hate crime? Or is it justice because he deserved to die?
Personally, I agree with those who think he should have had a good long time to reflect and perhaps narc on other priests he knew were molesting kids. I just thought this was an interesting turn in the case.
I know what is normally “considered proof around here”. I just didn’t know what YOUR statement “no op ed” meant. Since both “OP” and “ED” are initials that stand for many things:
Original posts
Operations
Opinion
Education,
Editorial
A horse.
? Just letting you know… didn’t exactly blow my skirt up or anything.
CS - I’m in the process of constructing a large, cited answer for much of what went on here. the reference to the typo was made 'cause:
generally speaking, unless the typo/misspelling is really humorous in nature, or makes the point of the post obscure, I generally tend to ignore them. I know that it really bugs folks in general, but since I tend to type faster than I can spell, can’t see worth shit most of the time, and sometimes (today for example), due to other issues, may have a 'bandaid ’ or two around fingers so that typing can be um, interesting, I do in fact make lots of those types of things. Don’t intend them. I’ve been known to even misspell the name of a poster to whom I’m responding.
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 **
[/QUOTE]
Thanks QtM and everyone else who stepped up to the place with cites.
I’d actually gotten a return of 600 different websites back on Webferret, but wanted to make sure that “no op ed” meant what I was thinking it did, before posting "cites’ that would be refused. But we ended up closing up shop and taking off for the “big town” right after, so I didn’t have a chance to come back in and comply with wring’s request.
I won’t repeat the same postings that others seem to have already found, such as the Mercks. But my research also showed a recidivsim rate of from about 42% to one site that had 90%
All that means is that they ddin’t get caught. Unless of course the men in the studies were being followed and filimed 24/7, I don’t find the fact that they don’t reoffend to be equivelant to “can and do change”.
I don’t believe for a minute that any of them were “cured”. Did some of them learn how to control it? That’s what the studies show. That they were “treated” meaning medicated, and/or shown ways to control themselves.
So what? The underlying deviance is still there. I haven’t seen any studies that show that science, or medicine can, beyond the shadow of a doubt, “cure” any of these men.
I’d still pay good money to see a child molester turned loose into the general popluation and left to his own “protection”.
Ok, didn’t get back until today, but a recap of issues:
claims were made that child molesters ‘can’t be treated’ /’treatment doesn’t work’
that child molesters ‘always’ re-offend
and that their recidivism rates were ‘higher’ than those for other crimes.
I asked for proof of these claims, what I’ve seen reposted is that;
recidivism rates for ‘sex offenders’ is high.
acknowledgement that ‘always’ and ‘all’ statements were likely to be untrue.
still some resistance to the idea that treatment has any appreciable/measurable effect on recidivism rates.
statement re: since molesters select children as their object, and sexual identity (ie who one is attracted to) is often believed to be hardwired into folk’s brains, therefore any treatment to alter a person’s sexual preferences would have to fail etc.
First of all, we all need to be certain we’re talking about the same things:
The category “Sex offender” includes:
A. A person who physically forces an adult to engage in sexual contact w/o consent.
B. A person who engages in sexual contact w/another adult who it is presumed has lesser capacity for consent (ie is under the influence of drugs/alcohol, has significant mental retardation, is in a subservient position to the other person wherein their ability to consent may be compromised, such as in a patient/doctor or therapist position, student/teacher, prisoner/guard).
C. A person who engages in sexual contact w/ a minor. Depending on the jurisdiction, this may or may not include people who are within a few years age of the victim. In some places, there may be some legal difference between those who are pre-pubescent and those who aren’t.
D. A person who exposes their genitalia in public.
So, the data linked by a poster relative to ‘recidivism rates’ for the category ‘sex offender’, would include a significant number of categories other than child molester, and so is not significant here.
If we discuss simply the category of those who are convicted of sexual contact w/someone who is a minor and too young to give consent, again, there’s are some that have differences for example: some one who is close to the same age of the victim, a contemporary of theirs, but the laws of consent make their actions an illegal act.
this category of persons, I would suggest, should not be treated in the same manner as others, however, there are jurisdictions that consider them the same as any other convicted sex offender.
now, on to the term “cure”. I would agree that some one’s sexual identity isn’t generally speaking something that one can ‘cure’. But – a few things must be pointed out. IN the first place, it is not true that people always will act on their sexual feelings. there are any number of people who are celibate for various reasons. IN addition, many persons who have had sexual contact w/minors have also had sexual contact with adults. Remember that sexual identity isn’t always a ‘only’ situation, there are people who are bi-sexual, who may or may not chose to act on their urges for sexual contact with either gender. So, proclaiming that because some one has had sexual desires for children in the past means that they can’t be ‘cured’ is really begging the point. The issue that should concern us is “will they commit a sexual crime again.”
Now, for data.
according to the US Dept. of Justice, here the over all rate for recidivism after three years is around 70% for the year 1994. For property offenders its more than that, about 75%. For the general category of ‘violent offenders’ (of which sex offenders is a small subset, and child molesters is a smaller subset of that), the overall recidivism rate after 3 years, in 1994 was about 60%.
So, we can see, already, that unless the subset group of child molesters re-offend at a rate over 60%, it would not be true that they ‘re-offend’ more often than other categories of offenders.
here from the Center for Sex Offender Management, a Project of the Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of Justice, we have several other links to important information., including a glossary of terms (that’s a PDF file)
One page, however will serve to provide some overview, Myths/facts Now I will point out one major disclaimer – this notes that the source of data is restricted to convicted molesters and notes that not all sex crime is reported, nor is it all solved. However, in the case of Child Sexual Abuse, the great majority of cases are committed by persons known to the family. (
the words in parentheses note the clinical study used to determine that fact. They also note that currently there has not been any study done that attempts to answer the question “how often are children molested but the crime is not reported”.
One listed “Myth” is that “Most sex offenders re-offend”. Their answer,
note that the source study for the conclusion is listed in the cite. Note, too, that the number of years tracked (5) is more than the DOJ numbers for general re-offending, and since 13% reoffense for sex crimes, and 37% overall rate over the course of 5 years is quite a bit less than the ‘average’ rate of re-offending for the criminal population at large. (though another study found the re offense rate to be 20%, still quite a bit lower). Further studies find substantial differences within the population of child molesters, as well.
Now, onto the treatment question. They list, again “Myth” :”Treatment for sex offenders is ineffective” their answer
I will note that it does admit that it is a ‘small’ difference. but it also states that the difference is ‘significant’.
Again, this information was generated as a tool to assist states and municipalities to deal effectively with the problem of sex offenders, through the United States Department of Justice. Note that the data for child molesters specifically, demonstrate that the core argument of them re-offending ‘always’ then down to ‘more often than other categories’ was shown to be wrong, that the studies involved are named, that treatment has a ‘significant’ (if small) effect.
You didn’t ask me, but as I’m one of the a***s who is semi-happy about his death, I’ll tell you my opinion.
Regarding your series of questions that basically boil down to "if we are going to be happy about “revenge, who, among the lawmakers gets to decide; what, how many, where, etc”.
None of us who expressed being glad at his fate said we thought it SHOULD be state sanctioned. We’re saying, in effect “it happened, and we’re glad it happened, he deserved it”. That’s NOT the same thing as saying let’s now set up a state program for it.
Also, personally? I think that what he got WAS deserved (though much less than I, as a former victim of one of these creatures, would have liked to have had happen!!!) and perhaps was not meted out by the state, but by a higher power.
Kind of interesting how it was possible for this to happen while he was in “protected” custody. Maybe there was something else at work here.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Saying we’re glad it happened is NOT saying “and now, let’s set it up on a regular schedule”.
Not sure how many others made this claim, but I retracted my statement of “can’t be treated” (albeit sacrastically) to “can’t be cured”. I’ve never seen any “proof” that a child molester has been cured.
Well, again, not the only one who said this, but I retracted that as well. Though still, I don’t think “not reoffending” has ANY bearing on whether they are actually actively engaged in some form of their “disease” as it were. Nor do I think that their “not reoffending” has ANY bearing on whether or not they will continue to molest.
I think “reoffend” is a bit of a misleading term. Do the studies follow these men around and film them 24/7? Then how to they know they’re not reoffending?? Perhaps they should use “not getting caught” instead.
Well, I definitely didn’t say this, and I didn’t see anyone else say it either. But, as I had to leave, I might have missed it.
Again, I acknowledged that the studies etc cited said that it was unlikely to be true, I do NOT myself believe that any child molesters can be cured.
SOME Resistance? I flat out reject it. Unless these men are being followed and filmed each day/every day, there’s no way to know if the treatment is effective. And even then there’s really no way to tell what may STILL be going on in their sick little black hearts.
I didn’t see anyone say this, but the Merck’s Manual did have a paragraph that was similar, except it said, NOT that the treatment would fail, but that it was thought to be unlikely to cure them.
Not significant ENOUGH. That still leaves a HELL of a lot of room for far too many creeps to enter “treatment” learn how to be sneakier, get out and molest some other helpless little child.
Yeah. Possibly dereliction of those whose responsibility, as the agents of the state, was to protect the prisoners in state care. And let’s not forget that murderer himself being “at work” either.
Monty, you may have to give up. People who say they wish torture on others cannot be reasoned with. However, I don’t honestly know how I would feel if a loved one was the victim of such a crime.
While I will always argue against extra-legal killings or torture (or even legal ones, but that is another issue), I won’t get into arguments with people who have gone through more than I have, and as a result wish torture on someone, but do not actually carry through with it. I will only say that I wish they would not do so.
I do believe you are correct, Nightime (btw, I just now got the joke in your username–“the time is nigh”–good one!) So, these folks are arguing that he deserves this terrible punishment but they don’t want to be involved in him getting it, not even at the remove of the state administering the punishment.
I vaguely recall a case where a man whose relative was the victim of some terrible crime said that he’s against the death penalty so the state shouldn’t execute the criminal, but he still expressed a desire that one of the other prisoners kills that criminal.