I’m just saying, sometimes they do it wrong.
This is a serious offense that merits more than a warning and a chance to “re-think” things.
Your attitude here is very ironic. You’ve posted about how damaging it was to you when you got bullied and teachers and school administrators ignored it. But here you’re saying a teacher who tries to hook up with a kid should be let off with a warning.
And we should have to wait to find out? Why is that?
Well, yes - he “tried” once (as far as we know, but as far as the cops did as well). I was bullied for realz, for 10 odd years. Most of kids were warned not to, and still did without further repercussions, which is what I’m still a bit raw about when I think back about it. See the difference ? In my case there were lots of actual “crimes”, in his there’s only the wish for one.
Because the crime is “having sex with a minor”. Not “wanting to have sex with a minor”. If lusting after minors is a crime, there’s a looooot of work to be done about the porn industry 
(sure, the actresses are all over 18 - they take great pains to look younger though).
And when “attempt” is concerned, you need a significant step towards that goal which did not happen until the cops intervened.
Is it wrong for a teacher to come on a former student ? Yup (note however that it’s a former student from a former school, so he’s not using a position of authority. Doesn’t make it right, but maybe less wrong). But there’s also a difference between coming on to a student over the 'net and raping her at gunpoint or something.
Think about it this way : a man is in a bar, knocking shots and ranting about his unfaithful wife. At some point, he says out loud “I really want to kill her”. Next to him is a cop. What should his first course of action be ?
a) “You do, don’t you ? You could you know. Easily. Doesn’t she deserve it ? Just sayin’”, then follow him home and arrest him for attempted murder when he takes a knife to his wife, condemning him to live the rest of his life as an ex-con or
b) Warn the guy that it’s not a good idea, try to calm him down, ask him if he’s thought it through, think about your children man, point him to a shrink etc… ?
I guess. I’m just think you’re really reaching here. Considering he knew the girl was underage, that he said things that were inappropriate enough to make her contact her parents/the police, that he was saying sexual things to her at all for that matter, and that he eventually did arrange to meet her (knowing full well this was no fantasy of a 22 year old in pigtails but an actual girl he had taught) and that he brought along condoms/ropes…I’m really not seeing where he got manipulated into anything. Even if the police had used the IM handle to say, “I’ve changed my mind, take me now, you’re so sexy, etc.” he’d still have committed a crime. If an underage student comes on to a teacher, it’s still their duty to not comply.
If “Doesn’t she deserve it?” enough provocation for someone to commit a crime (which he already apparently wanted to do), then yes, why shouldn’t he be condemned to life as a criminal?
…but warning the teacher is worth a shot, because hey, he might decide that he doesn’t actually want to have sex with the kid. Worth a shot, right? Even though adults are more mature than kids by definition and have greater impulse control?
Yes. You’re ignoring the similarity, however: allowing either one to happen is wrong.
He was not arrested for wanting to have sex with a minor. He was arrested for trying to have sex with a minor. I’m not sure why people keep ignoring this distinction. The whole point is that these people show themselves to be potential dangers by trying to make their fantasies happen.
You’re shunting this into a debate about the teacher potentially abusing his authority, which is more an ethical issue than a legal one. But that’s a side issue. The subject at hand involves an adult trying to hook up with a minor.
Because the cop’s job is not to provoke, but to defuse. Not entice crime but prevent it. Not to push people toeing the abyss over the edge, but lead them away from it. And because people make mistakes and bad calls, and should be given at least one shot at redemption before bringing the hammer down.
Yes, warning the teacher *is *worth a shot. You don’t know, and I don’t know whether it will change things or not. That’s my point. There’s also a difference between warning A “next time, you’ll go to jail, your name will be mud and your life forever fucked” which you know to be true and warning B “don’t do it or you’ll… you’ll be in big big trouble mister !” which you know to be complete bullshit.
You seem to believe these people are irredeemable monsters who will never change, never learn and have the molesting gene down to their very bones. I believe they are human beings who can and sometimes will. And I also believe jails are for those who did fuck up, not who might fuck up. If you want to put in a cell everyone who’s likely to commit a felony at some point in their lifetime or even in the next 5 years, you’re gonna need a prison the size of Europe, and there’ll be a shortage of bunks. I’ll save you a spot in my aisle (trauma kid with poor anger control and deep seated issues with authority, guilty as charged)
Leniency is up to the judge or jury, when they’ve seen all the facts. The crime of attempt exists. It’s criminal, in and of itself, simply to attempt to commit a crime. Until you internalize that fact, these discussions will continue to waft past you.
You’re a fine one to talk about bullshit. I remember an old Steve Martin routine, where he suggested that a great way to get rich would be to rob a bank, then, if you’re caught, simply explain to the judge that your forgot armed robbery was illegal.
ANYONE, especially teachers, already know it’s a very big no-no to try to diddle their students. The idea that this poor, impulsive teacher just needs a widdle reminder that it’s a no-no is absurd on its face.
Strawman. No one is talking about arresting “anyone who is likely to commit a felony.” Stop arguing that point: no one on the other side is advocating it. We’re talking about people who have ACTUALLY COMMITTED A FELONY. ATTEMPT OF A FELONY IS ITSELF A FELONY. Read that to yourself. Learn it. Live it.
If you’re enough of a fucking moron to hit on an underage student, you should not be teaching, period, end of story. Apparently your belief is that an adult teacher can hit on a student as part of an innocent lapse in judgment. That’s very charitable but not does not come within a country mile of reality. The vast majority of adults know you never do something like that. They don’t have to be warned, or given a stern talking to, a chance to reflect on their behavior and realize they hadn’t considered the consequences. When you start dishing out warnings to a teacher who tries to get sex from a former student he knows is underage, of course, you run the risk that he’s somebody who knows it’s wrong, doesn’t care, and will only take the warning to mean he should be more secretive next time.
Some of them are. I’m getting the sense you think school bullying is the worst thing that ever happens to anybody. It isn’t.
If you tell an underage kid you’d like to bang her and make a date to do it, guess what? YOU FUCKED UP!
Since we’re having storytime, Kobal here’s a quick one. I’ve told it on the board once or twice before.
One summer evening when I was about 13, I was reviewing my seventh grade schedule with a friend who was a year older. For one class, I had a teacher with the same name as a star baseball player, so I’ll call him Mr. Canseco. I told my friend I had Mr. Canseco, and he warned me, “Canseco? That guy’s a perv. He hits on the girls all the time. He looks down their shirts and drops things on the floor and tells them to bend over and pick it up and stuff.”
I was a pretty naive kid, so I didn’t believe a teacher would really do something like that. Then I watched it happen all year. Canseco did the dropped pencil thing at least once. He called girls over to his desk and hit on them (it wasn’t flirting, flirting connotes subtlety), and he did the same thing after class. Everybody knew what was going on. This was a man in his 50s, if it matters.
Near the end of the year he did his dirty old man act on a friend of mine. She was tough, so she came back to his class after school to complain and call him on it. I was there with some friends that afternoon, as luck would have it. While she was there, he hit on her some more and asked her to sit on his desk. He wanted a better look at her ass.
She flipped out on him and went to the principals and administrators, and Mr. Canseco was fired at the end of the year. Everybody knew this had been going on for a very long time. But he managed to sue the school district for improper termination and blamed them for his health problems, so in the process of getting fired, he got rich.
Then he started stalking my friend. He followed her around in his car, and he threatened repeatedly to kill her. Eventually she got a restraining order and as far as I know, that was the last of it.
If only the school had given that nice man a warning, maybe it never would’ve happened. :rolleyes:
Oh come on. It doesn’t matter whether you’re acquited or not when it comes to rape (statutory or not). Hell, it doesn’t even matter if the charges against you were made up alpha to omega. The stain is there, the suspicion will never go away.
A felony that maybe. wouldn’t. have. been. attempted. otherwise. And maybe could have been avoided alltogether.
Where the hell did that come from ? I never said anything to that effect. I did say it’ll fuck you up, and it happens to many more kids than rape-by-chatroom. I don’t think either of those affirmations are really up to debate. I didn’t say it’ll fuck you up worse.
I’ll simply say that your view is not one that enjoys wide acceptance in the legislation or law enforcement worlds, and I am very glad of that.
You never said it, but your attitude implies you’re taking one way more seriously than the other. Yes, bullying is way more common than sexual abuse, absolutely zero dispute. But you’re suggesting maybe bullies should get thrown in jail, and maybe cops ought to be stationed in schools, but saying teachers who set up dates for sex with minors ought to get a second chance. It’s totally inconsistent and doesn’t make any sense.
I’m saying first offense (way before the attempt) should get a warning, not entrapment followed by the book thrown at them.
Did you happen to read any of my posts about entrapment or any of the cases? This ain’t entrapment.
That’s your defense, in court?
“Honestly, your honor. We all know that a real girl would never agree to sex with an anonymous person over the internet. I, too, knew that, and I was just going to the meeting place to deliver some pizza, condoms, and beer to whomever met me there.”
You forgot the Viagra! 
Despite the many, many cites provided in this thread of real girls doing just that, it seems Kobal2 is more comfortable repeating claims that have been refuted.
Also, Poland.
ETA :
The girl called the cops. I think I’m safe assuming she wouldn’t have agreed.
Ask the Catholic Church how that works out.
Yeeaaaah I don’t think active protection from the law and a don’t ask don’t tell policy count as a warning. But I’m willing to try it out : “Don’t do it or we’ll stonewall any investigation in the matter, deny everything, move you somewhere else without telling anyone there and forget about it !” No, see ? That doesn’t work. Even if you add “and you’ll have to say 35 Hail Mary” into the mix.
You proposed a warning instead of going to the police, which probably qualifies as “active protection.” The RCC did a lot of other things wrong in addition, but there’s a similarity here.