# What should be Done with Nonviolent Child Molesters?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 5, 2016, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119 "2016-07-05T12:49:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2016, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/21 "2016-07-05T21:05:56Z")
There are management plans that work for those who have a mental health issue, and for those who act out would be mentally disabled, for obviously they cannot function in society. Here in the United States we don’t really have any kind of infrastructure to deal with the disabled in general, so we’re just tossing them in prison.
And there are those who are just criminals … people who won’t respect the law no matter what … we can weld the cell door shut on these.
The difficulty is being able to tell the difference.
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### Author:  [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/22 "2016-07-05T21:11:51Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> Until recent decades, a great many people would have said exactly the same thing about homosexuals.
>
> Just something you might want to think about.
Last I checked, homosexuals didn’t prey on children.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/23 "2016-07-05T21:29:43Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> The whole concept of childhood innocence is a modern invention. Until relatively recently pre-teen children were working on farms, working in coal mines, slaughtering animals for food, seeing animals mate, selling matches on the street, etc.
So . . . fuck them?
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### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/24 "2016-07-05T23:06:42Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> So . . . fuck them?
Only if you own a time machine, apparently.
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### Author:  [@Commodore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commodore)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/25 "2016-07-06T03:58:51Z")
I would just say that they have no right to be in my State, I would kick them out after they did Jail time as there are plenty of other States that will gladly have them, if they come back they get the rope.
It’s not about Nonviolent it’s about how they went about it, playing with Children’s minds as such can be very harmful.
I know of people who were fiddled with from back in my school days and with them kids I thought something was very weird about them, 30 years latter I find out that all of them had been played with.
Boy did it sure messed with there minds and it never goes away.
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### Author:  [@Sampsiceramos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampsiceramos)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/26 "2016-07-06T04:16:35Z")
Although it has a sordid and regrettable history as a tool used to oppress homosexuals and transgender people, I am not entirely opposed to the idea of chemically castrating pedophiles who have proven unable to control their urges. It is not an option I like per se, but in my mind it is at the very least a good candidate as to the least possibly harmful solution.
As far as I see it, pedophiles are fundamentally quite similar to, say, person who suffers from violent psychotic episodes. The episodes/urges in question are not truly the fault of the person, and while they must be curbed with treatment or confinement for the sake of society, the mentally ill person in question is at the very least _less_ morally culpable for their actions than the sound of mind.
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### Author:  [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/27 "2016-07-06T05:30:12Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#):
>
> Last I checked, homosexuals didn’t prey on children.
There’s a phenomenon on this board that I’ve always found baffling – a few people are utterly unaware of what’s going on in the world around them.
You have evidently missed every single one of the literally dozens of news articles about priests, school teachers, babysitters, etc., who were homosexual and preyed upon children.
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### Author:  [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/28 "2016-07-06T05:31:31Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> So what? The whole concept of human rights is essentially a modern invention, and I’m nonetheless a fan.
Total nonsense. The Code of Hammurabi, the Bible, and other ancient works show that human rights were a concern thousands of years ago.
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/29 "2016-07-06T10:48:33Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#):
>
> If a person is attracted to children, but never acts on that impulse, he or she can function in society like the rest of us. Fine. People can live without sex.
Agreed.
However, not all of these people are _exclusively_ attracted to children. If I recall, we had/have a poster on this forum who was attracted to both adults and children, but never acted on his impulses in regards to children rather getting all his sex from consenting adults.
> [@](#):
>
> But what about those who act on their impulses?
They need to be prevented from harming others.
I don’t like the sex offender registries as they currently stand because
1. They give a false sense of security - they only show the pedophiles that have been _caught_, they in no way indicate those that have yet to be caught which could be doing horrible things next door.
2. They are overly broad - people who pissed outside a bar one drunken night are not sexual predators, 15 year olds who sext each other are probably not sexual predators, etc., etc.
3. It would be kinder to institutionalize these people than so ostracize them that they can’t work and wind up camping in fields or woods because they can’t get legal housing - that’s a great way to ensure these people will continue to engage in criminal activities for their own survival.
4. It can lead to vigilante violence on the part of the neighbors by painting a target on these individuals. While I share their revulsion street justice is not something to be condoned in a civil society.
> [@](#):
>
> Is there a humane solution to this? Internment camps? Pedophiles spending their lives in comfortable camps away from society?
“Internment camps” is a loaded term. While in theory, segregating these people seems like a great idea it also can be easily and greatly abused. While I know there are people who feel pedophiles should be slowly beaten/tortured to death I’d like my society to be more civilized than that.
I’d like to see segregation in the least restrictive environment possible. So, those that can control their urges can live in society. Those that can’t might require long-term/life confinement, but not necessarily in SuperMax prisons. If possible, these people should be allowed to do useful work, but they must be kept from those they might harm.
> [@](#):
>
> If at some future date, pedophilia was discovered to be genetic, would genetic screening and automatic internment be feasible?
I am completely opposed to incarceration _before_ a crime is committed. Who the hell thinks that’s a good idea?
As I said, if the person can control their urges they can live free. If they can’t, they get locked up. The chief benefit of early identification, as I see it, is early counseling to help the person deal with their unacceptable urges and find means to cope with them without harming people.
> [@Sampsiceramos](#):
>
> Although it has a sordid and regrettable history as a tool used to oppress homosexuals and transgender people, I am not entirely opposed to the idea of chemically castrating pedophiles who have proven unable to control their urges. It is not an option I like per se, but in my mind it is at the very least a good candidate as to the least possibly harmful solution.
Chemical castration is not a reliable means to prevent sex crimes in human beings. There are records going back to Ancient Greece of men completely lacking testicles who were, nonetheless, still capable of erection and penetration. Even if it renders a man’s penis useless for sex there are means of sexually violating people involving fingers, inanimate objects, and so forth.
Now, if someone who is a pedophile _requests_ castration on their own initiative to help reduce their sexual urges then I’m OK with that, but again, it’s not a cure-all.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/30 "2016-07-06T11:30:10Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> There’s a phenomenon on this board that I’ve always found baffling – a few people are utterly unaware of what’s going on in the world around them.
>
> You have evidently missed every single one of the literally dozens of news articles about priests, school teachers, babysitters, etc., who were homosexual and preyed upon children.
Child molesters and homosexuals are not the same thing.
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/31 "2016-07-06T11:35:13Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> There’s a phenomenon on this board that I’ve always found baffling – a few people are utterly unaware of what’s going on in the world around them.
>
> You have evidently missed every single one of the literally dozens of news articles about priests, school teachers, babysitters, etc., who were homosexual and preyed upon children.
Then they’d be homosexual _child molesters_. Or heterosexual child molesters. Or white child molesters. Or French child molesters.
Now one would argue that heterosexuals and homosexuals who molest children are doing it in a gender-blind fashion. The attraction is the prepubescent quality of the child, so the label homosexual or heterosexual doesn’t really apply.
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### Author:  [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/32 "2016-07-06T16:02:09Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> Cite?
Try reading about this for yourself. Try [google.com](http://google.com)
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/33 "2016-07-06T16:06:26Z")
> [@Me\_Billy](#):
>
> Try reading about this for yourself. Try [google.com](http://google.com)
Try actually giving a cite for your claim.
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### Author:  [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/34 "2016-07-06T16:09:33Z")
Homosexuals are attracted to men the same as women are. Are all women child molesters?
THINK about it! (Homosexuals are attracted to fully developed men - hair, fully grown equipment, etc. Or a “hunk” as women would say.)
**Pedophiles** are attracted to children. BIG difference. Look up the words.
And so far as genetics, some sex offenders have what is called “conduct disorder” or “anti-social personality disorder”. That can be genetic. This is basically an inability to follow the rules of society.
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### Author:  [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/35 "2016-07-06T16:11:28Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Try actually giving a cite for your claim.
Hint: There is a thing called “confidentiality” and people who work with these people are not free to talk about specific cases. Sorry, try google.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/36 "2016-07-06T16:14:32Z")
> [@Me\_Billy](#):
>
> Hint: There is a thing called “confidentiality” and people who work with these people are not free to talk about specific cases. Sorry, try google.
You have no cite. Got it.
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/37 "2016-07-06T16:26:20Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> Total nonsense. The Code of Hammurabi, the Bible, and other ancient works show that human rights were a concern thousands of years ago.
That has nothing at all to do with your non sequitur about the (relatively recently embraced) rights of children.
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### Author:  [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/38 "2016-07-06T16:43:22Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> Disclaimer: I’m not a neurologist, sexologist, penologist, or psychologist, although I was once a social worker.
>
> * * *
>
> The way in which pedophiles differ from other people _is not that they are sexually attracted to children_ but rather that they _remain_ sexually attracted to children long after they are no longer children themselves, and that they do not tend to experience sexual attraction to appropriate adult people but instead are mostly _exclusively_ attracted to children.
>
> The injury done to children by child molesters _is not that children are exposed to sex_ but that they are subjected to _coercive_ sexual experiences, which tends to ruin a person’s ability to select and enjoy healthy positive sexual experiences. What makes it coercive is the inherent power imbalance between an adult and a child. Even without force or threat of force or pain, the greater ability of the adult to plan and manipulate and misrepresent things makes consent invalid. But the damage done is not done because sexual behavior is inherently damaging to children, but because of the unequal power involved.
>
> I have been a child, but I have not, of course, been all children. I know for sure that some children have distinctively sexual feelings and sexual interests, whether they act on them or not; I tend to assume this to be true of most children but I don’t know that, and I do hear many people describing their awareness of sexuality and sexual feelings as only beginning at puberty, so there may be a range of difference there. I can tell you that the sexual feelings of children tend (at least for some of us) to be towards other children — our peers at that time.
>
> A child molester _may_ be a person who had not-unhealthy sexual feelings towards other children when a child, who somehow got “frozen” rather than continuing to be attracted to people roughly the same age as time goes by. Something traumatic may have taken place to create that “freezing”, or the complexities of adult sexuality may have proven unnavigable for some reason, leaving memories of childhood sexual feelings as recollections of some “better” form of it. I don’t know. But I am leery of assuming, with no evidence, that it must be caused by a biological predisposition or propensity. There’s a trendy pseudoscientific inclination to attribute all differences in sexual expression to genes and biology. I say “pseudoscientific” because many of the people making those arguments are not making them on the basis of evidence but instead on the basis of having decided that it is politically desirable for it to be true. (And that in turn is based on the annoying and nauseating notion that in order for a non-mainstream attraction of any sort to be OK it has to be something that the people manifesting it have “no choice” about).
>
> Another distinct possibility is that child molesters are people who find the power imbalance itself to be erotic. We live in the world that eroticizes power imbalance. Depictions of mainstream heterosexuality are rife with portrayals of seduction, sexual predation, sexual conquest, sexual dominance, and sexual possessiveness and objectification. If someone finds that a compelling erotic motif but does not experience actual adult opportunities as opportunities to have that kind of power over another as part of sex, children may represent an alternative where that power imbalance may indeed be found. (As I said before, that’s exactly what makes it wrong and impermissible).
I think that this has the ring of truth. Myself 73 next birthday was out with some young friends who were commenting on some teenage girls my attitude was yes very pretty but where is the mother, yes I do tend to look at woman between 30-50 now (only look never touch because my wife and three daughters would kill me ).
I believe that there is a connection between genetics and paedophilia I do not think that it is an illness that can be cured. I do not believe that all paedophiles are dangerous the same as all men are not rapists, some paedophiles could remain inactive for the whole of their lives and never be discovered, these people can continue to live their live unknown. Active paedophiles who are sexual predators upon children are a permanent threat and can only be sentenced to whole of life with no parol
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### Author:  [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/39 "2016-07-06T18:58:05Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> There’s a phenomenon on this board that I’ve always found baffling – a few people are utterly unaware of what’s going on in the world around them.
>
> You have evidently missed every single one of the literally dozens of news articles about priests, school teachers, babysitters, etc., who were homosexual and preyed upon children.
You remain unaware of the fact that homophobes consistently - and falsely - equate homosexuality and pedophilia as a way to demonize them. There are homosexual pedophiles, the same way that there are heterosexual pedophiles. To claim that all homosexuals are automatically and inherently pedophiles is an astonishingly bigoted idea that has been discredited for decades.
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### Author:  [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2016, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-with-nonviolent-child-molesters/759119/40 "2016-07-06T22:12:10Z")
So here’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask:
Since everyone agrees that pedophilia is an abhorrent crime, why isn’t child molestation punished by life without parole?
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