I would ask; 'upon what grounds do you call them evil?'

Child molesters are simply selfish individuals acting on their urges at the expense of others.  This more closely resembles amoral hedonism than anything approaching objective 'immorality' or 'evil'.  There are many selfish people, acting on many urges, at the expense of many different kinds of others. 

Why is child molestation worse than all of the perfectly legal harm people choose to put upon others for the sake of pleasuring themselves?

In the cases where these people are not violating the social contract, why are you up in arms about this?

 

 

As to the purpose of prison; the intention is reform and rehabilitation, not necessarily punishment.

 

By wanting to cause them more pain, all you're doing is acting out selfish sadistic urges- for your pleasure- at the expense of others.  I'm not going to say that's evil or not, but I'd ask you what the difference is.

I would argue that in the time between the sentencing and the execution, the mortal terror itself represents substantial punishment, which is liable to be greater than significant pain experienced in a lifetime in a resort prison (as in such an extended situation, there are times of lows as well as highs).

I don't agree that prison is more cruel than execution- at least the prisons in the U.S.- now, there are some prisons which might be, and I think we can identify these by the rates of suicide (which would show us that death was the favorable option in those cases).

One could construct a prison situation that would be a more severe punishment than hanging- such as a supervised work camp (with suicide watch) with nearly freezing cold quarters for sleep, and daily water-boarding in lieu of showers.

 

 

This is true.  Recidivism after execution of capital punishment is 0%.  (Except for, according to Christians, that Jesus f*cker who had to come back and keep on blaspheming. )

 

 

Right... in particular with a crime like child molestation, which largely derives from strong sexual drives, it seems very peculiar to aim to punish these people when the problem itself can often be mitigated chemically some 95% of the time.  *Most* pedophiles have psychological and sexual disorders, and don't really want to be pedophiles.

 

 

Weak will and inability to control oneself is a genuine character flaw if ever there was one, but it is one *most* people possess, and so not one that should be criticized by those with equally weak wills (a human condition-- anybody who is obese and doesn't want to be, smokes and would like to quit, etc.).

The failures of pedophiles at seeking help prior to the expression of those desires is also understandable in the context of our society condemning anybody with those desires as "evil" rather than admitting they could be good people aside and accepting that it is a problem they can choose to correct like any disease.  That inherent condemnation forces the potential pedophiles to rationalize the desires instead of seeking help, and instead form communities of "child lovers" where they convince each other it's O.K., and that, as such, they aren't bad people.

 

These people are human.  They have human problems, human weaknesses, and are vulnerable to the very human tendency to rationalize when confronted with an unacceptable proposition (social condemnation of their natures as inherently evil).  This problem is a social problem, and these people are likely no different from the OP from any more objective moral framework- he probably just happens to be on the 'right' side of a very arbitrary legal framework with regards to his particular selfish whims and indulgences where the pedophiles fall on the 'wrong' side.

 

I won't defend the action of pedophilia- I find it quite terrible- but at the same time I can't suffer the hypocrisy of others who so adamantly condemn the people suffering from it while doing no better themselves with regards to their own vices.

 

As for RCC pedophile priests, I think I have the overall solution:
Blind one - and let all the others pray for his healing.
If he recovers his eyes, he is innocent and we have to apologise!

 

some strange shit. What causes it? Is there a physiological/neurological imbalance going on? And the number of priests involved is a bit odd, too.

I went to boarding school and our greatest competitor, St Stanilaus College, has recently been outed as riddled with molesting priests.

We used to mock them for having no shower curtains or dunny doors when we played footer against them as kids.

When the news of the molestings hit we figured out why.

 

It's complicated.  Part of it may have to do with sexual selection in humans- namely, infantilization.  There could be biological components there; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia#Biological_associations

Part of it probably has to do with psychological problems which I'm not really qualified to expound upon, and which have a shaky foundation with regards to the understanding of them anyway.

Chemically nuking the sex drive and providing therapy is almost a sure fix, though.

That is, in your implication, the RCC should adopt a total-safety measure: castrate ALL its priests, no exceptions accepted.

Might be a legal problem. I just heard the age of consent in the Vatican is 12. No joke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJtZSL0hxyE

I honestly would feel more anger toward a child torturer or killer.

If the 'molesting' involved force, that would be the worst aspect for me.

Otherwise, I am not really sure what the likely long-term affect on the child would be, it would I think be highly dependent on all sorts of psychological factors.

I would need to see a lot of data on what had been the effects on a number of victims, especially in cases where there was no evidence of force involved.

There is an aspect of playing off the respect a child may automatically have toward an adult, and a feeling they must obey, which definitely does make me uncomfortable.

I can understand the common reactions to the idea, even if I don't share it.

It is the extreme reaction of people like Julio because it involves sex which bugs me.

 

Good point. However, sexual violation of a minor is worse than murder, some say. Some victims would have preferred death... we hear. To me, the way those molesters are punished is not good justice. I want serious deterrent.

Yes, I believe that to be true.
Rehabilitation is a big word with little meaning if any.

I agree, though I don't deny that sex with children, even consentual, makes me very uncomfortable. But this is of course because "consentual" is not black and white. Many adult women have what can only be descriped as "consentual" sex with their husband, in that they willfully agree to have sex with him, but are only doing so because they feel it is their duty, as a wife. They can do this for cultural reasons, or simply because they have low self-asteem and are very doubtful of their own conclusions about what they deserve or don't deserve. This is sad and painful, but true. Some prostitutes find themselves in that situation as well. Technically they are having "consentual" sex, but that doesn't mean they like it very much.

Thankfully, of course, both wives and prostitutes CAN like having sex, but not all of them do, all the time.

In the case of children, they may well agree to have sex, but only because they don't know what it entails, and/or because they are scared of the grown-up, and deferentual to their authority.

Remember, though, that not all pedofiles penetrate children with their penis; I pressume most children would not "agree" to that, but might well suffer it in silence, because they wouldn't know how to object. I think any prepubescent child that suffers anal or vaginal sex at the hands of a pedofile will suffer great psychological damage, not to mention physical, so in those cases the "force" that you and I would object to, is pretty clearly a great part of it.

But with milder forms of sexual interaction, I think the long term damage to a childs psyche can vary greatly, and that does not mean I condone it for a moment, but it does mean that the severity of the offence becomes much less clear-cut.

Sure, being freaked out about it, feeling ashamed about it, and just generally screwing with their heads is sure to affect them, but so does school-yard bullying, spanking, and of course Sunday school threats of hell.

And the individual child, as well as offender, in question will make every situation unique in terms of the negative impact.

...as you clearly agree with here.

As it does me.

But there are millions of other situations in the world where similarly uncomfortable situations occur. Such as women trapped in love-less marriages because of cultural or religious restrictions, or just her own insecurities. The only reason we react so viscirally when it is a child that is involved is because we all have a powerful inate need to protect children, who we consider ill-equiped to fend for themselves, wereas we are more naturally inclined to respect the autonomy of an adult, even though, if we think about it, some adults sometimes need protection too.

But really, there are so many situations outside of sex, that one ought to be equally outraged about. What about child soldiers for example? With them, the "aspect of playing off the respect a child may automatically have toward an adult, and a feeling they must obey", surely plays a huge part as well, and those children surely suffer immensely.

I think I do share it actually. At least the visceral, emotional response. But I suspect you do too really. You sound like you do. It is how we temper that emotional response that is important, which is also what you seem to be saying with this statement:

There is nothing wrong with being outraged, if Julio only recognizes that the fact that sex is involved shouldn't IN AND OF ITSELF be a course for MORE outrage.

In so far as the sexual aspect causes various psychological trauma that IS bad, but there are other ways to exploit children that DOESN'T involve sex, but were the trauma is ALSO primarily psychological.

If you fuck up a childs psychological health in the realm of sexuality, that is serious, since sexuality is an important part of any persons psyche, and that child, in adulthood, will have been damaged, which is of course not cool.

But if you play mindgames with a child in other aspects of the psyche than sexuality, is that really any less severe?

If you emotionally starve a child by never giving them any emotional interaction then, depending in how much you do it, they could arguably become even more psychologically damaged in adulthood.

I mean, while I empathize greatly with adults who have been sexually exploited in childhood, it is undeniable that many of them have suffered only minor, if any, psychological setbacks. It all depends on their particular situation.

There are also many people that have been physically abused in childhood, and there are many of them who carry that with them into adulthood as well, and suffer that phycological trauma throughout their lives.

 

I suppose what I'm saying is: I don't condone sexual abuse of children! But I don't condone NON-sexual abuse of children either! And nor do I condone abuse of adults, sexual and non-sexual alike.

So all I ask is that any given situation is judged on the particulars of that situation. it is allright to be emotional about all types of abuse, but one must always temper those emotions with rationality. If society at large is better of without deamonizing pedofiles, then emotions cannot be allowed to overrule a broader compassion for humanity. We want our societies to reflect our broader compassion for humanity don't we?

 

On a related note, I've been studying ancient Greek this past year, and it is interesting to note that the Ancient Greeks had more or less institutionalized pedophilia. In so many of the texts we translated, there were constant passing referances to adult men and young boys in sexual relationships. Exactly how young these boys were, is not clear, but they may well have been prepubescent. The word most commonly used in the references I read was: παιδίον (Paidion) which means a young child. (Interestingly, it can also mean a slave, which is itself interesting: that there was no linguistic distinction between children and slaves, but that is a different matter).

These kinds of relationships were referenced quite trivially, and clearly not something that caused offence among civilized Greeks. But I can't help but think that while this has surely caused alot of sexual disfunction among the Greeks, is it really any worse than all the other cultures around at that time, in terms of their attitudes to sex? Even if they didn't have institutionalized HOMOsexual pedophilia, HETEROsexual pedophilia seemed par for the course in those days. I mean girls married off at 9 years old anyone? And then there's slavery and war and crazy superstitions. Life back then was fucked up in so many other ways than just this particular aspect.

And the very fact that the Greeks took this practice for granted and that noone had any objections to it, must have meant that the violated boys must have felt very different about their situation, than a modern child would. There certainly was no reason to feel ashamed, as their young lovers were a source of pride for well-respected learned men in Athens. I'm not saying the boys weren't being violated in some sense, but they may well have felt proud themselves that some powerful, well-respected man was madly in love with them.

It still gives me the willies, though, to think about it, but I know better than to let my emotional revulsion overshaddow everything else about Greek Culture.

 My problem with hanging anyone is effectively determining guilt. I can't imagine any system that can perfectly guarantee a completely innocent person is not put to death. Therefore, I am against the death penalty in general.

 

As for punishment I have no problem with locking up the really sick twisted bastards and throwing away the key. I do have a problem with the trend to add sexual offenders to public lists and place restrictions on where they can live. If a person is so dangerous and so likely to offend again that they cannot live withing a mile of a school they should still be in prison. Sexual offenders can drive or take a bus just like anyone else. The outcome of such laws is that some minor sexual offenders and/or people who are completely innocent have their whole lives screwed over while the true sick twisted bastards continue doing what they were doing.   

Wanting to punish crimes against children is very natural and understandable. It is the most basic evolution in our species history to want to protect the young.

However, we cannot become a society, ON ANY ACCUSATION, that reacts to the accusation and not the evidence. It is wrong to convict someone on the emotional reaction to a charge. All solid convictions, ON ANY CHARGE, should be based on evidence, and evidence alone.

Unfortunately it can be very easy for a parent to get their kid to lie about someone they merely suspect, or flat out don't like. There was a couple running a day care center who were thrown in jail and spent almost 10 years in prison because of mass hysteria and all because the parents wanted to rid the world of evil.

Even in cases of adults such as sexual harassment it can amount to "he said, she said". I warn everyone not to allow a natural reaction to a horrible act to cloud their judgment. This can be a dangerous attitude for society to take, long term, and can affect the jury pools and law enforcement and lawmakers, ON ALL ACCUSATIONS of the accused.

I had an entire private school angry at me, I was attending at the time. We were having a field day, a play day. A motorist was passing the playground and THOUGHT someone had thrown a rock at his car. I had seen what had actually happened. The rock was kicked up by his front tire. But because I was the only one to step forward and say what happened, I got falsely accused of throwing it. Because I wouldn't confess to throwing the rock, they ended the field day and the entire school was angry at me.

For a 12 year old, which I was at the time, that was very traumatizing. My point is, until, and unless, and hopefully never, anyone here gets falsely accused of something they didn't do, I would warn against blanket statements as to how someone should be punished.

It is easy to say, "I'd beat the shit out of them". It is hard to repair someones reputation and say "I'm sorry" if you falsely accuse someone.

It is natural to want to punish these sickos, no doubt. But it is also easy to ruin someone's life with "he said she said".

And some of the biggest court battles are fought largely on witness testimony.

And punishment is not by any means always the most appropriate action, especially if it goes to capital punishment. We do NOT have to punish the criminal.

We should be about deterrence, if possible, and minimizing harm. Also 'cure'/rehabilitation, if realistically possible.

Which is exactly why it is way overdue to abandon the emphasis on punishment, which has been the theme for pretty much all those centuries! It hasn't refined it at all in most of the world.

And it is way overdue to abandon hard black and white, right and wrong, moralistic thinking, and recognize the many factors that contribute to people engaging in anti-social activities, and the need for a more thoughtful, less emotional approach.

 

Tell me, will someone likely steal my wallet if I leave it on a table/counter/whatever for 5 minutes in a Saudi Arabian restaurant?

Probably less likely than in our society, but my comments were directed at civilized societies.

And the issues of the effectiveness of extreme punishments are more problematic for crimes involving strong urges such as sex.

Yup hang em. It's better than getting everyone else to pay there way through life so we can pretend to rehabilitate them. Tbh I wold rather have them dead than pay for them while they watch tv. Have them pay for them selves through work/money and then I may change my answer. It's not unreasonable to expect people to work for a meal and a roof over there head. What is ridiculous is that everyone else is expected to pay for there mistakes.

 

please list me some of the cases you are referring to?

 

Well, if forced into a medical procedure, I would not call that “treatment”.

 

OK, I can conceive of a situation where someone has the urge to bone children and for whatever reason that is the only way that the urge will not be acted upon. If that person goes to a doctor and asks for chemical castration as the only way to make sure that he does not bone kids, then we can call that treatment.

 

However, if any medical procedure is not a voluntary thing, then it falls into the category of state sponsored activity. In that case, we are not really talking about people having seen the error of their ways and reforming to become an appropriate member of society.

 

 

OK julio, there is a piece of what you are saying that I am not seeing. Specifically, why do you want to do this?

 

In your first post, you talk about not wanting to pay to keep the criminal in prison for the rest of his life. Later on, you talk about protecting children. Now both goals are not incompatible but your posts do seem to be showing shifting goals.

 

Let's go with not paying to keep the criminal in prison. If that is valid, then why should the state pay to keep anyone in prison? If someone is a rapist of adults, shall it be permissible to use state resources to keep them locked up for ten years? The victims are paying taxes the same as everyone else and by the logic of your first post, this should not be acceptable.

 

On the other hand, if the goal is to simply keep child molesters away from kids, then prison is just about as good as killing them. On the other hand, if we go with the chemical castration idea that Blake is advocating, why should the state have to pay for that? The child victims will grow up to be adults and eventually pay taxes, part of which will be to pay for the drugs that are keeping their children safe from the abuse that they had to deal with because they were the unlucky ones that had to be abused before the child predator was detected and dealt with.

 

No, not really.

 

OK, you destroyed the context by ripping the pull quote that way.

 

If keeping child molesters away from kids is to be the goal, then killing them is an extra move beyond simply locking them up where they can't do that any more.

 

Consider the Catholic church scandal.

 

A priest gets caught boning kids. Due to the doctrine of redemption, he can say that he is sorry and promises never to do it again. Then he can say that it is clearly his calling to minister to young boys so he gets put in a youth ministry in another state. Since all the records are sealed under canon law, nobody knows what the deal is.

 

The bishop who gets the guy is only told that he is being relocated but not why. Then the cycle starts all over again. Many priests have gone through the cycle several times and the only chance of them being detected would be if it all happened under a single archbishop and the matter was actually called to his attention each time. If not, then the priest in question can maintain a career of molestation for decades.

 

On the other hand, if the church would take a stand on the matter, they could say the first time that a priest was caught, gee, we are sorry that you have that in your basic nature. However, we know of a monastery that needs a priest. You can be assigned there.

 

Done that way, no more kids will be getting the holy pole.

 

 Yah, you are, of course welcome bobSpence1. That is basically how we deal with the matter over here.

 

It is more expensive that the alternatives and it fails to meet any of the social goals that advocates claim.

 

As I say, I don't know how I would come down on the mater if I was picked for a jury. However, I would not be willing to rule in favor of the deal unless I was willing to do the deed myself. Setting up a situation where a prison employee acts as the proxy for what I decide is simply placing a level of acceptance between me and the decision that I might make.

 

Does that come off as barbaric? I really hope so because that is the way that I mean it. Being willing to think in something approaching a logical manner about whether someone needs to be killed years later can never be anything other than barbaric. In fact, I really hope that the idea comes off as far more barbaric than a “mob justice” execution could ever hope to be.

 

You should possibly consider yourself to be in a good place because you can't ever be called to serve on a death qualified jury. Such is a luxury which I do not have. I could possibly get a letter next week that basically says that I am dropped in the soup. Then I have to make a moral choice.

 

Wow! I am thinking about this in a way that I have not before. This is not an easy thing.

 

 

There have been many cases in the UK of people convicted of the most serious crimes who were subsequently exonerated. We're not speaking of people simply convicted because of witness evidence either. We're talking of people convicted on forensic evidence. The case of the Birmingham Six is a classic example.  They would certainly have been executed had that option been available to the Judge. They went through various appeals suffering failure after failure.

Eventually it was shown that the forensic evidence was demonstrably false.

Ditto the Guildford Four who had confessions beaten out of them. British law is littered with cases like this. If the police need a conviction they have proven track record in beating confessions out of people, of planting evidence, of employing incompetent and/or corrupt forensics experts.

 

In the cases I cited they presented what seemed an unanswerable case against the defendants. In the case of the Guilford Four the judge when passing sentence even bemoaned the fact that they hadn't been tried for treason - a charge which still carried the death penalty.

 

These people would be dead had the death penalty been available to the courts.

 

Even evidence which appears to be cast-iron can be bad. It may have been in the form of forced confessions, or in the form of forensic data knowingly misinterpreted by an expert.

 

When you sentence a person to death you also make an ultimately positive declaration about the personal probity of every single person involved in the prosecution. I don't know of a single police service that merits such a declaration.

btw, no response to my comment that death for paedophiles might mean that more raped children end up dead?