Actually I can tell you that in my short time on the SDMB it has made a real impact. My girlfriend and I are now in the process of becoming involved with the homeless due to the very first thread I started on this board. We are writing a grant on behalf of homeless men and in the mean time have located a local halfway house in need of voluteers so that we can further asess the problem in our area. I try not to take the SDMB too seriously but I can tell you that it does have a real impact on this guy.
Thank you for calling me ignorant. I already said that it was irrational. On the other hand, as said Ford, I’m for a little Old Testament style eye for an eye - pedophile’s affect people’s lives for their lifetime.
I don’t care if it’s Leonardo Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa. All of soceity becomes a little more afraid, a little more suspicious, a little less open when this happens to someone’s, even a stranger’s, child. I read and hear the story of the California girl taken from her bedroom, and I fear for my own children. Rational? Statistically speaking, the chances of mine being abducted are ridiculously small. Doesn’t help in the least.
There is a huge difference between pedophilia and consensual sex. As I stated, a 17 and 16 year old together consensually should not be treated as child sex offenders. And to stop this TJ/SH barely illegal stuff- my wrath is directed at pedophiles targeting children and young teens. While I don’t approve of adults chasing after older teens, statutory laws assume an magical age where every teen can give consent and adults are expected to obey the laws. I feel the need to protect a 16 year old still coming to terms with his/her sexuality and not at a point to make a truly informed decision about sex (especially given that an older partner is in a position to be far more ‘persuasive’ than a contemporary) outweighs the desire of a more mature 16 year old able to make informed consent. And I would expect TJ to fully obey any and all laws; if he didn’t (be it statutory rape or murder) and we lost his services due to prison time, so be it.
yes, I believe there is damage done. But again, there are differences.
I, too, cry for the family in CA. And all of the ones I’ve personally known and known of here in my home state.
I also cry for my son’s former teacher, who had a student make a claim against him. The only evidence was her statements (which kept on changing, adding additional occurances etc.), and a letter he’d written to her in response to one she’d written him (the letter was something like 'gee, hope you’re having fun this summer, I’m coaching my son’s little league games and hope to see you at school next year).
And for the young man I know who was molested by his own dad and uncle for years, and no one did anything. Then, as a 17 year old, he had contact with a younger kid (15 at the time), and he went to prison for 3 years. (reference above posts for how he was treated inside). (yes, his uncle and dad are finally in prison).
And, for the firefighters who had to risk their lives putting out the fire at a house - which was burned to the ground on the rumor that a molester was going to live there.
So, I’m thinking that, even tho the subject elicits a number of strong emotions, perhaps we should look at it all more dispassionately.
After 9/11 many people refused to fly, because they were scared. I understand fear. But fear is not a basis upon which to live our entire lives. A rational risk assesment is in order. (which is why I noted the risk of some one w/in the 'intimate family/friends group vs. strangers).
I fear for the children of people who are so afraid of this, that they refuse to allow their children to participate in things outside the home, or who instill such fear of ‘strangers’ in their kids that they instead make their child more susceptible to being molested by a close family member/friend.
That’s good to hear. I had a more national view as I answered. We can debate policy; we can have our opinions changed and reflected in our votes, but statistically, the SDMB community is unlikely to affect public policy.
I’ll agree with the unreasoning bit. While it is a fear I have that any of my neighbors or even family members might be a child molestor or other type of pedophile (is there a difference?), if you put someone in my neighborhood who has a 1-in-5 chance of being one, D_Odds does not accept those odds. I can use the rational mind right now to say to myself that my current odds are miniscule; it doesn’t fully take away the emotional fear, but it allows me to go about my day without having a X-10 remote camera on my children all day and all night. But if you tell me there is a 1-in-5 chance the guy down the block will commit these crimes again; no way do I accept that. That is not an irrational fear. My family’s freedom is at stake; do I lock up my kids and have them escorted everyplace they go? Do I move? Why should I be forced to flee - I’m not the criminal and I did nothing wrong? Is that a chance you want to take with your family?
If D_Odds ran the world (be afraid, be very afraid), forced sex crimes of any type would be equivalent to murder; pedophiles would face capital charges. Enablers (purveyors of child porn) would be up on conspiracy charges. As before, I’m not going to get into current legal definitions of pedophilia here, nor try to figure when a person is old and mature enough to be able to consent to sex. The latter, like many age-based laws, is often based more in politics than any other solid reasoning (else, every state would have the exact same laws). We all know there is no magic that occurs at midnight after 17 years and 364 days of life. If a child was easily manipulated by people seeking to exploit him before, but protected by the law, the chiming of the clock does not mature her. It just protects the exploiter.
Like any debate, there are never any easy answers. On this one, if I’m to err, it will be on the side that removes these people from soceity forever, be it death or imprisonment.
I cannot take credit for what I have not done. Your fear, which you have addressed with such supports as “curing them is often impossible” and “recidivism rate among adults preying on children is extremely high” is ignorant. Your apparent inability to distinguish between a characterization of your position and a characterization of yourself is perhaps further evidence that your emotions on this issue hamper your ability to reason clearly.
Sometimes. Sometimes victims of molestation manage to become healthy adults. Sometimes, they become molesters themselves. I fail to see how anal rape is in any way going to improve that situation. The prospect of molesters suffering extreme degredation and pain might be somehow comforting to you, but I cannot see any reason to believe that it will increase the security of your family.
Do you think that the friend or family member who is statistically most likely to molest your child is performing a risk analysis beforehand in which several years of incarceration, intense social stigma, destruction of family bonds, etc. are not enough to disuade–yet the thought of physical abuse in prison will suddenly tip the scales? Vengeance is a primal urge. On a deep emotional level it makes us feel better to inflict violence upon things which frighten us. It is–at least momentarily–an escape from insecurity. It is–at least momentarily–a way to feel powerful and secure. That does not make it just.
Again, the same can be said of any crime. Would you now like to extend your argument to encompass all criminals? The statement you made was: Rationally speaking, pedophiles are a huge net negative on soceity; they take away more from the individual and from their effect on soceity more than they ever give. So, would you like to provide some rational support for that statement, or would you prefer to keep this in the realm of what you feel?
That isn’t a point under dispute. You made the claim that no pedophile [though I believe molester is what you meant] could have a net positive effect upon society. I find that statement to be rationally unsupportable, and I offered a hypothetical counterexample. We have strong reason to believe that Jefferson engaged in sexual relationships under contexts of extreme power imbalance. As a hypothetical, if we extend that to the idea that Jefferson may have engaged in sex with a woman who lacked the emotional ability (as she already lacked the legal ability) to form consent would that overwhelm any positive effect that Jefferson had upon society?
There is a difference. In simple terms: a pedophile feels the desire, a molester acts upon it.
Statistically speaking, there is a greater chance that a black male in the United States will be sent to a state or federal prison in his lifetime than that your 1-in-5 molester will be be convicted of another sexual offense within ten years. What actions does D_Odds feel are appropriate given those odds?
It all depends upon what actions you take in response to your fear. Few fears are irrational in and of themselves. As to what you accept: you have every right to move out of any neighborhood whose inhabitants make you uncomfortable. You do not have every right to prevent people who make you uncomfortable from moving into your neighborhood.
That sounds very much like an “easy answer” to me. It comes straight from the limbic system and speaks to primal urges. I expect better out of a civilized society. “Kill them all” is not a criminal code for which I have any respect.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” --Attributed to (Benjamin) Disraeli in Mark Twain Autobiography (1924) vol. 1, p. 246
Here the recidivism rate is 42%, but still lower than non-sexual offenders. Then it lists some Policy Implications, many of which I generally disagree with, because I want ‘the easy way’ out.
Unless the specialized treatment can be proven to significantly reduce recidivism, I don’t know how you can justify a cost/benefit allowance versus other programs to help less violent criminals merge back into soceity. Priorities must be set.
So the 99.9999% of the population who are not child molesters need to take a risk that the 0.0001% is cured? Unacceptable.
Again, cost/benefit. I’d rather see the limited money for treatment go to rehabilitation for non-violent drug offenders and job training programs for other non-violent offenders.
Well this makes me really want to invite one into my home, my neighborhood. I should not have to move to lower my risk that a **known[\b] child offender is near my children. I do have the right to do everything legally within my power to prevent these scum from entering my neighborhood; and failing that, I would make their stay a living hell in any way possible. Be it 20%, 40% or even 1%, you’ve just taken an irrational fear and quantified it - and all of these numbers are way too high.
I will fight to the very end that my tax dollars be deployed elsewhere. I truly and firmly believe that I will get more value for the dollar elsewhere.
I’d like to pick and choose a few other comments to reply to:
Are you taking into account all the victims? The guilt-ridden parents who could not protect their children. The fear put into the whole neighborhood? Statistically speaking, capturing a molester in the neighborhood greatly lowers the chances of there being another in the neighborhood. Now try telling that to all the scared parents and getting them to believe it.
In a fair and just soceity, Jefferson should then have been imprisoned. Try talking to some women who’ve never been attacked of the fear that they live in daily because of men who force themselves on random or known women. I don’t think these women should have that fear; I feel these are “one strike and you’re out” crimes. Yes, I know there are improper convictions, and I’ve no easy, sound bite answer for those. But for every improper conviction, there are 10? 50? 100? proper convictions. IMO, these predators should not be given the chance to hunt ever again.
Lastly, Spiritus you are throwing statistics at an emotional issue. I far more afraid of the child molester than I am of the car thief or burglar. I’m far more protective of my children than I am of myself. If you tell me the person working next to me has a 1 in 5 chance of stealing from me, I’m far more accepting of those odds than the 1 in 5 chance that my neighbor will molest children again.
A ‘civilized’ soceity should act in the best interests of soceity. I’m speaking my mind of what I think are in our best interests. These are not ‘civilized’ people; the risks are too high, the costs to ameliorate those risks are too high, and the benefits associated with the costs are not concrete enough. A ‘civilized’ soceity needs to protect itself from ‘uncivilized’ elements.
wring, “And, you selected the sub group of molesters more likely to reoffend (and more importantly) less likely to exist” I chose the sub group that went with my point, as suspicious as I am with stats I was not willing to choose a sub group that had a higher percentage but was outside the scope of my argument.
Looking over what I said, I realize that I came out a bit strong and without a clear definition of what kind of person I would treat so OT style. I was not referring to 17-18 year switch, nor was I even referring to a teacher that grabs a student, as despicable as that is, what I was referring to was the extreme example of a girl raped by a family friend or stranger, in really extreme situations the victim is murdered as well.
I was also not advocating state-approved anal rape, nor any other form of state violence. I am opposed to capital punishment. I was saying that if someone would do that to a member of my family, I would kill that person, if at all possible. It is purely a personal decision, and not one I would expect anyone else to adhere to, or even respect.
That number, of course, refers to both sexual and violent non-sexual crime. You have consistently represented your position as based upon a particular fear of sexual predation upon minors. It would perhaps be best if you then sought statistics which related directly to such cases.
You have the wrong cost/benefit in mind. The question, if you wish to reduce it to purely financial terms, is whether it is more cost efficient to treat an offender and have him not re-offend when released from prison or whether to incarcerate him for life.
I find it hard to imagine that a treatment program could cost more than life imprisonment, but if you can find numbers to support that idea I will certainly look at them.
Frankly, if you are so afraid of recidivism among molesters, and you know that molesters get released from prisons, then it baffles me that you would oppose treatment programs that can reduce the statistical incidence of repeated molestation. It seems as if your thirst for vengeance is actually more powerful than your fear, since fear should impel you to minimize the risks.
Unacceptable? Inescapable. We do not live in a world free of child moleters. We have no means, at present, of creating a world without child moolesters unless we make it a world without people. I have no idea what you think refusing to “accept” reality is going to accomplish. I would find it unacceptable to kill every person who molests a child, since we have strong statistical evidence both that many molesters were themselves victims of molestation and that many molesters can avoid repeat offenses with proper treatment and supervision. I think it is barbaric to use unreasoning fear as a justification for executing human beings.
You disagree.
Again, you ignore the actual costs of your proposed solution. The question isn’t “treat molesters or treat junkies”. It is “release molesters untreated or treat them or support them for life or execute them”. The options are listed in order of increased financial cost. Now, are you sure that you want to take the position that economic factors should drive this decision?
Should? Well, you don’t have to. There are other steps you can take to reduce your risks, but moving away is always an option for you.
You do have the legal right, obviously, to use any legal means to discourage a molester from moving in. Whether you have the ethical right depends entirely upon what legal actions you take.
Failing that, you would make yourself a criminal and should be prosecuted as should any other criminal who commits the same offenses. Making another person’s life a living hell is not your prerogative.
Yes, but your belief (so far as I can tell by what you have presented thus far) is based upon seriously flawed models of comparison. It, like the fear and hatred that you embrace, is unreasoned.
So you both want to embrace irrational fear and then argue that the costs of your fear should be laid upon someone else? I find such reasoning uncompelling.
Yes, molestation has costs which extend beyond the direct victim(s). So do all crimes. You were arguing for effects that “last a lifetime”. It seemed reasonable to thus address the people who are most directly and powerfully affected: the victims.
For whatever reason, you seem unwilling or unable to address this hypothetical in the terms it was raised to question. Perhaps it is the fault of my example. I have no interest in whether Jefferson should have been imprisoned. I was interested only in your (still) unsubstantiated claim that no [molester] could produce a net societal benefit. Since it seems I am the only one in this exchange who is interested in that point, I will drop the matter without modifying my conviction that you have absolutely no rational basis for your statement.
It is an emotional issue because you refuse to consider it in anything but emotional terms. “Because I’m afraid,” isn’t a particularly good reason for setting social policy. It is a particularly poor reason to provide as support in a debate. Statistics entered this thread only because the specific fears hat you and others have mentioned are inaccurate reflections of reality. Fear is a natural emotion. Unreasoning fear is a poor emotion upon which to base decisions. Unreasoning fear based upon inaccurate assessments of reality is ignorance.
We fight ignorance here.
This debate is getting rather circular, and while I readily admit I, for the sake of brevity, try to boil some issues down to simple terms, I want to address one that you did, Spiritus:
Without running around looking up statistics, I think it is fairly safe to assume the child molester, with or without the addition of other sexual predators, is a small minority of the prison population. I may be wrong, of course, but I believe burglars and drug offenders (violent and non-) make up a larger proportion of the general prison population. If these assumptions are correct, you appear to advocate diverting rehabilitation program money (which any way you cut it up is not enough) away from a larger population with a higher recidivism rate to a smaller population. Unless you can conclusively prove that the smaller population will be able to reintegrate into soceity at a much higher rate than the larger population, the costs for the constant arrests, trials, and progressively longer lockups of the larger population should factor into the argument. Real-world job training and job placement can help any inmate expecting to get out, and does not have to be specialized for a minority of offenders. Child molesters need specialized treatment from much more highly trained professionals.
Yes, currently I know they will get out. My argument is that they should not get out. There are different depths to the level that people break the public trust. In my view, child molesters and many other sexual predators have broken this trust to the same level as murderers. They belong out of circulation for very, very long (as in lifelong) periods of time. And while I do not advocate anal rape nor group beatings to any group, I find it especially hard to shed a tear for these monsters, and you’ll not find me advocating better treatment for them (note, I’m not saying the whole prison population in the last piece; if they benefit from prison reforms that protect all inmates, so be it). Lastly, if they (molesters/predators) decide they wish to check out on their own, I’ll be the first to hand them the rope.
Sorry for that lastly, let me add that you can legally harass someone. There are many petty laws that no one really cares about until they wish to harass people (stuff like when you can put out trash cans, how clean you need to keep your house, etc.) Police have a bit of discretion on how to handle complaints of these types; I don’t think it a stretch to say that a convicted molester will find himself at the harshest end of the legal scale where a law-abiding citizen might just be told how to comply. Is it fair? Not really. But life isn’t fair, and what a molester does to people’s children isn’t fair.
D-Odds for the past 20+ years, I’ve worked w/ex offenders on reentry issues, specifically employment and traing (for the past 11 of those).
The most difficult to place in employment are the child molesters (and embezzlers). hands down. So, it would indeed make sense from that stand point, to earmark more assistance to molesters.
but that’s not all. YOu see, generally speaking, folks get much, much more upset (witness this thread) if their child is molested, than if their house is broken into. So, even tho’ there’s more property crimes folks locked up, the level of concern for recidivism is much greater for the molester population.
as another aside to those who want to demonize the known molester in their neighborhood - (and I understand completely the fear of one’s child being harmed )
- You know that Mr. Jones over there is some one to be careful of for your child.
- if you spend all of your time focused on Mr. Jones, making sure that he doesn’t harm your child, ‘making his life a living hell’ a few things are likely to happen:
A. You’re opening yourself up for criminal charges.
B. You’re teaching your child an interesting lesson in how to behave towards others.
C. By focusing your attention on the one known factor, you may be leaving the back door open (methophorically) to another, unidentified molester.
It is far more sane to me, to teach your child how best to not be a victim. Then, you won’t have to worry if it’s the neighbor you know has a history, the delivery driver you don’t know that may have a history, or your child’s tutor who doesn’t have a history yet.
In general, I think that there are far more crimes than the current capital crimes that DESERVE the death penalty. Child rape, producing kiddie porn amongst them. Child molestation, or simply being a pedophile are not among them, in my opinion.
however from a practical perspective, do I really want to execute all the kiddie porners, and grand larceners, spouse abusers, and anyone else who truly deserves death? nawwwww, we shouldnt execute anyone, no one on this earth has the right to take away a life.
Kiddie porners certainly deserve to be abused in prison. But extracurricular punishment shouldnt be tolerated, for the same reason i am anti death penalty: even if you are judged guilty, there is no way to tell if you are REALLY guilty. I think we all can recall examples of falsely convicted molesters and murderers. Do they deserve that treatment?
That said, even tho i know it happens seldom, the whole idea of predators breaking and entering scares me, and not for the reason you might think of. A few months ago, I was attacked with a pellet gun from a car while running (causing a minor wound.) I chased the car for several blocks, and in my mind i was fully keeping up with it, and certainly would have seeked retribution had I caught up.
I fear the loss of control of what would happen if I ever caught someone trying to break into my little sisters room. I USED to think that a generic episode of catching a crime in the act and stopping it would be cathartic, but it scares me of what is possible when I am enraged.
Would it? Or would we be spending more on a minority when, with the same dollars, we can help a greater number of people? While I imagine job training can be done across the board, taking steps to address the problems of a child molester takes money, probably a lot. Can you work with these people in groups? Is the population in a single jail large enough to divert money from drug rehab programs? Basically, can you help, say, 10 junkies or 10 burglars at the same cost of 1 molester? It’s not a straight it costs x dollars to rehab and y dollars to incarcerate. What is the opportunity cost on those 10 dollars, and what is the overall effectiveness of the different programs?
I’ll resemble that remark.
True, from a strictly rational standpoint, but human nature generally doesn’t work that way. As I said, if you catch one in your neighborhood, given the small chance overall, the odds of another decrease. Yet the fact that it happened in one’s own ‘back yard’ increases the fear of all involved. To one’s eye, every neighbor becomes suspect; Mr. Wilson next door is no longer a friendly neighbor, but now a potential pervert that you need to keep away from your Dennis, despite the half-century history of good, wholesome relations.
No doubt. Still, I’m going to side with the ‘not in my neighborhood’ crowd.
Embezzler’s harder to place than other convicts. Learn something new every day.
D_Odds
I am confused by what you are trying to demonstrate with your economic argument. On the one hand, you wish to argue that we should spend rehabilitation dollars on other prisoners to get greatest effect. Then you argue that fear of recidivism among molesters justifies your desire to keep them in prison indefinitely, which will cost more money than treating them.
Can you not see the contradiction? It seems you want to look at the two pieces as separate issues, even though your justification for the one decision entirely undermines the solution you propose in the second. You would rather spend a lot of money incarcerating molesters than a little money treating them. Okay, fine. Then stop trying to use economic arguments to justify withholding treatment. It isn’t like the money to pay for incarceration materializes from some magical spring while the money for treatment is in an eternally stagnant pool. All the money comes from the same place.
“We can’t afford to treat them so we should keep them in jail forever,” simply makes no economic sense. It’s like saying, “I can’t afford bus fare so I’m going to buy a car.”
Bad analogy. We can’t afford to treat everyone, so we need to deploy available resources where they will have the greatest benefit.
(numbers for illustrative purposes of an economic model only)
Your prison holds 20 junkies and 2 (child) molesters. You have $1000 for treatment. This would allow you to treat either both molesters of all the junkies or some combination of the two.
Do I can treat 2 molesters, and expect a 50% success rate? (1 ‘cure’)
Or do I treat 20 junkies and expect a 20% success rate? (4 ‘cures’)
Or do I treat 10 junkies and 1 molester? (2.5 cures)
What are the costs associated with the uncured released (including, but not limited to, police resources, lawyers, judges, and incarceration for repeat offenders) versus simply extending incarceration. I hope that the parole follow-up on molesters is much higher than a non-violent drug offender or a burglar.
That’s just a strict economical aspect, ignoring the emotional soceital impacts, but IMO a convicted molester who remolests (is that a word?) has a greater impact on a greater population than a burglar who goes back to stealing or an embezzler who embezzles again. For better or for worse, soceity (as a whole) has become nearly numb to armed, violent crooks, but has a strong reaction when children are the victims of kidnappings or sexual attacks.
The analogy is fine–you just insist on looking at only the first consequence of your economic decisions. If you were arguing that releasing untreated molesters into the population was our best policy given limited resources, then your economic argument would be consistent.
You aren’t. It isn’t.
So long as your “answer” to untreated molesters is to keep them in jail you need to consider that factor in your economic evalluations. I find it interesting, BTW, that you go on to present a hypothetical evaluation of the costs of releasing untreated molesters vs. teh costs of keeping them incarcerated (without any attempt at finding actual numbers, neturall) while carefully ignoring the costs of releasing treated molesters.
For that matter, you also ignore relevant elements in your “treatment” analysis, even elements which you yourself mention in the very same post. “a convicted molester who remolests (is that a word?) has a greater impact on a greater population than a burglar who goes back to stealing or an embezzler who embezzles again.” I agree, so why would you ignore that factor in treating all “cures” as if they ere of equal benefit to society? Perhaps because it weakens your case to deny treatment to molesters, in accordance with your hatred.
I will repeat this for the final time: the two issues you attempt to analyze are not isolated. You can pretend that “who should we treat” and “what are the costs of dealing with untrewated molesters” are independent and unrelated issues, but it is just that: pretending. The resulting economic “analysis” is useless as a guide to real world costs & benefits. You seem unwilling or unable to consider even the most obvious eonomic relationships between the two sides of your model.
I find this frustrating but unsurprising. Fear and hatred are not condusive to a cogent analysis of the issues.
Two possible answers to the pedophile problem: the “right” way and the “Clockwork Orange” way.
The “right” way: Arm your children with air horns, mace, even a knife or two, and encourage them to use them on anyone who molests them. Encourage suspicion among family members and close acquaintances; the odds are staggeringly more likey that they will be molested by one of them. At any rate, encouraging children not to be silent victims will certainly decrease repeat offences.
The “Clockwork Orange” way: as long as we are condoning abuse towards molestors, why not institutionalize it? Why not expose molestors to more images of kiddy porn while they are being abused, and see if they make the connection?
One last note: How the hell are people supposed to age-check the people in whatever brand of porn they prefer? One seinor girl in my high school is 4’6", and has smaller breasts than me. Granted, sitting in front of a computer and eating has given me depressingly large breasts, but even so, I’m betting that this pictures of this girl, while legal from an age standpoint, would still be classified as kiddie-porn.
Y’Know, D_Odds, your repeated assertions that you are not speaking from a rational frame of mind, while commendable in their honesty, somewhat negate the efficacy of your argument.
IMHO, this is the equivalent of
[ul]
[li]I’m an idiot, and I think that …[/li][li]I have no education, and my opinion is…[/li][li]Being illiterate, my thoughts on the book are that…[/li][li]I’ve never watched baseball in my life, and think the Yankees …[/li][li]As someone who relies on rumors for my information …[/li][/ul]
I would perhaps be less likely to say this if you arguments themselve were not making it clear that you are not thinking rationally.