Couldn’t be bothered to read the thread, huh? A bunch of (liberal) posters have already pointed out that molestation is by definition a form of violence, specifically sexual assault.
I suspect that what the OP meant by “nonviolent” child molesters was something like “those who don’t use force or physically hurt their victims.” Which, I’m not sure whether it’s a useful distinction. As plenty of people have already pointed out, even “nonviolent” molestation of this sort does psychological harm that shouldn’t be minimized. On the other hand, molestation that is “violent” seems to add an extra layer of horribleness.
Anyway, I think the OP’s assumption was that not all molesters/instances of molestation are equally heinous or cause equal amounts of harm to their victims. And that those at the low end of the scale are not deserving of life in prison, from a standpoint of letting the severity of the punishment fit the severity of the crime. But that keeping them locked up for the rest of their lives does seem warranted for the sake of preventing further molestation. Hence, the OP’s question/dilemma.
You need to quit lying about what I said.
Oh ffs. He did nothing of the sort.
There.
I interpreted it as a clumsy way of describing the people Dan Savage calls “gold star pedophiles,” people who are inclined to abuse children but refrain from doing so.
You know you can’t accuse other posters of lying. Please don’t do it again.
Warning issued.
Such naivety is why we have a system responsible for so many repeat offenders.
Sexual predators of any sort should be forced to endure long prison sentences. However once they get out and have served their time, whenever that is, they should not be forced on to some kind of registry.
aag3981 claims to have actual professional experience working in the probation field and actual real world experience with offenders.
What are your qualifications, Giraffes Can’t Dance? Why should I believe your stance over that of people who have actual real-world experience?
What’s “naive” about what aag3981 said? S/he appears from the evidence to have been entirely right. Research indicates that in fact, most convicted sex offenders do not offend again. Long-term recidivism is seen in only about one-quarter of them.
Today’s special guest representing “the average member of the general public” believing things that aren’t true because he saw them on TV: Giraffes Can’t Dance. Give him a big hand, folks!!
There might be a definition issue there though. The OP says ‘child molester’ and I’d guess the image most posters have in mind is people having sex with pre-pubescent children. Sex offender in general could include heinous crime against adults, and also more minor stuff like eg. adult couples illegally having consensual sex in public. And even if limited to ‘child’ sex offender could include 22 yr old guy and 16 yr old girl where AOC is 17, etc.
And this is a serious issue not just with offhanded remarks in an internet discussion but real public policies like sex offender registries and mandatory sentences.
Nobody exactly defined ‘child molester’ and you said ‘sex offender’. But let’s assume we could reasonably exactly define ‘child molester’ as somebody acting against a young child very much younger than themselves. Is there a cite for those people have a low recidivism rate?
Note: I’m not proposing expanding capital punishment to sex offenders, or even just child molesters. I don’t think the death penalty is a realistic and workable policy at all, doesn’t really apply to most of the US population even now (except for rare federal executions) and it’s just a matter of time IMO till it disappears in the US.
See the linked cite in my previous post right above yours, which cites a study breaking down different categories of sex offender:
35 percent is higher than the overall average but still considerably less than half. So yes, the statement that most convicted sex offenders don’t offend again appears to be true across the board.
Only one quarter of them, huh. That’s hardly any little kids getting fucked.
:rolleyes: The point I was making is not that one-quarter is the same as “hardly any”, which of course it isn’t, but rather that one-quarter is not the same as “most”. I’m kind of surprised you found that difficult to grasp.
I just feel bad for the kids getting fucked, and the idea that 25 - 35% recidivism seems tolerable.
Who said that 25-35% recidivism is “tolerable?”
Seriously, help me out here. Point me to the post, because I’m not seeing it, and I would love to tear that person or persons a new one in the Pit.
Yes the original statement was ‘most will be fine’, however my own doubt about that, I didn’t respond directly to it, is not based on whether it’s more or less than half. Half would IMO clearly be intolerably high if repeating such a crime, and 35% doesn’t seem low. And a follow up comment by the original poster said sex offenders have the ‘lowest’ recidivism rate. That stat apparently includes committing any other crime, though obviously doesn’t and couldn’t account for the same crime where the person isn’t caught again. That’s a better source than Law and Order SVU, where pedophiles are portrayed as pretty much categorically incurable, but I’m not sure it indicates the approach to child molesters is pretty much OK.
My own sense of the overall situation is that as in many other respects the criminal justice system uses blunt instruments for inefficient results, which could probably be improved upon even in the real world. Sex offender registries (with all kinds of relatively minor offenders) and 1000 ft limits around schools for anyone on them (which a recent WSJ article with map showed makes virtually all of NY off limits) seem dubious to me. But I wouldn’t have a problem just giving longer straight up prison sentences to people who have sex with children. Give shorter sentences to somebody else (not proposing unrealistic further increase in the total prison population). No cruel and unusual punishments, or unofficial sanction of strong inmates victimizing weak ones (which is the reality, not ‘honor among prisoners’).
Ditto. We seem to be dealing with an alarming number of posters here who either can’t read or can’t count, or both.
This whole subtopic spun off of Giraffes Can’t Dance’s ignorant and incorrect contradiction of aag3981’s statement that “most” convicted sex offenders “will be fine”, in the sense that they will not offend again.
Since in fact the data on recidivism rates shows that considerably less than half of convicted sex offenders do offend again, aag3981’s statement was factually correct, and Giraffes Can’t Dance’s ascription of it to “naivety” was wrong.
None of which means that child molestation is in any way okay, or that a 25-35% recidivism rate for sex offenders is “acceptable”, or that we don’t care about children being molested, or any other of the unfounded complaints that this subtopic seems to have provoked.
Sheesh. Usually most GD Dopers can be relied on to be a bit brighter than this. Folks suffering from “Friday brain” after a long week, or what?
Nobody said “tolerable.” What was being put forth was a claim of fact; that “most” sex offenders will not re-offend again. And if that 25-35% statistic is true, then it’s mathematically true; 65-75% is, mathematically, “most.”
Imagine if a doctor says that the survival rate for lung cancer is 70%. In that case, nobody is saying that a 30% death rate from lung cancer is “tolerable.” But such a doctor would be indeed correct in saying that “the majority of lung cancer patients will survive.”