Weird, I know a pedophile

[rcs619]

I wonder if pedos can help being attracted to kids. Kind of like how gays don't choose to be gay, pedos don't choose to be aroused by kids. And then we send them to jail and they get stabbed to death for something they can't help lol

I honestly think a lot of sexual attractions are that way. Like, look at the huge multitude of weird, oddly specific fetishes you see, everything from attraction to specific body parts, to very exact scenarios or circumstances. I think the best hypothesis I've heard about pedophilia is that, certain parts of their brains are just wired wrong. There's an instinctual human thing to want to protect children, and in the pedophile brain, that protective instinct gets crossed up with the sexual one. That kind of mix-up in the brain does make a kind of sense, and could explain a lot of other fetishes and sexual attractions. Just, the sexual part of your brain gets linked up to other parts it's not necessarily supposed to.

It's just such a tough issue because if you bring up "Hey, these people may have a legitimate mental disorder, and maybe that makes it our obligation to try and proactively treat it," there are some people who will immediately accuse you of wanted to coddle and protect pedophiles. Sexually abusing a child is a terrible, terrible thing, and the people who actually do it *should* be punished to the full extent of the law, but like... if someone hasn't actually hurt anyone, and they realize they have a problem and want help, there should be an avenue for them to get help. Not only do you help that person, but you also potentially prevent a child from getting molested down the line in the process.

It's just really tough. Anything involving the brain is, because in all honestly, we still know very little about how the heck our brain actually works.

 

[Azure23]

I volunteer for a community justice forum and I'm studying criminology to likely become a probation officer in the future, so let's clear some things up.

According to the DSM-V, pedophilia is a paraphilia ("recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors that involve children, nonhuman subjects, or other non-consenting adults, or the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one's partner.") with a sustained sexual orientation toward children, generally aged 13 or younger. That's the psychological definition.

Secondly, sex offenders rarely recidivate. Very low risk, and community witch hunts (legal or otherwise) do more harm than good, it stigmatizes people to the point where they can't get help or lead normal lives. Also, you can be a pedophile without offending, just look back the quote from the DSM where it say "fantasies".

Furthermore, jails aren't the best place for sex offenders, particularly child molesters. In the social hierarchy of prison inmates, convicts who have committed crimes against children, especially sexual abuse are at the bottom. Sentencing is not a adequate deterrent. Rehabilitation would be a better fit.

And like a few other posters have mentioned, criminals are heterogeneous, and not all that different from you or I.

I think your use of the term "sex offender" in relation to recidivism is overly broad. That term contains many crimes under it's umbrella (public urination in some states, indecent exposure, pedophilia/hebephilia, statutory rape, various types of sexual assault) and should not be applied in general terms to a specific issue like recidivism. Also all the statistics I've seen regarding rapists have indicated that the rates of recidivism are quite high. If you've got some compelling statistics on that issue (and it sounds like you might, given your area of study) I'd love to see them, if only for my peace of mind.

Also I very much agree with your point in regards to non-offending pedophiles. While there are some resources available, the fact that we as a society demonize pedophiles/he epilepsy to the same extent as convicted child molesters is a real issue. As for violent sex offenders? I guess it's a topic I can't really be reasonable about, I don't really think rehabilitation is an option for people who lack the basic empathy necessary to not rape someone.

 

[Foolery]

I think your use of the term "sex offender" in relation to recidivism is overly broad. That term contains many crimes under it's umbrella (public urination in some states, indecent exposure, pedophilia/hebephilia, statutory rape, various types of sexual assault) and should not be applied in general terms to a specific issue like recidivism. Also all the statistics I've seen regarding rapists have indicated that the rates of recidivism are quite high. If you've got some compelling statistics on that issue (and it sounds like you might, given your area of study) I'd love to see them, if only for my peace of mind.

Also I very much agree with your point in regards to non-offending pedophiles. While there are some resources available, the fact that we as a society demonize pedophiles/he epilepsy to the same extent as convicted child molesters is a real issue. As for violent sex offenders? I guess it's a topic I can't really be reasonable about, I don't really think rehabilitation is an option for people who lack the basic empathy necessary to not rape someone.

Public urination isn't a sex offence here in Canada. As for recidivism, it is relatively low, assuming the individual has been convicted once, 14.0 percent for non-sexual violent recidivism, 13.7 percent for sexual recidivism, 25 percent for any violent recidivism (sexual, non-sexual violent, or non-violent recidivism), and 36.9 for any recidivism. This from a 6 year follow period study following convicted sex offenders, which includes pedophilia. Granted, there's likely some loss data due to people not reporting out of fear, shame, etc. These numbers are from a study back in 2004, but as far as I know, not much has changed in Canada.

Rehabilitation is a alright option, but you have to apply it to rapist typologies. Young men, competitively disadvantaged men, and psychopaths. Psychopathy is a huge issue in and of itself, whether it's treatable, most say no, you can't. Young men, it's a bit easier, as most age out of criminal behaviour. Competitively disadvantaged typically is in reference to men with cognitive impairments (i.e. a bit slow, if we're not being politically correct) and they're a bit of special case. But those typologies are just in reference to men sexual assaulting women, pedophilia is it's own classification. There is cognitive-aversion therapy for pedophilia.

I don't disagree, empathy is a very hard thing to teach, especially if it isn't done at a young age. There is a theory that states pedophilia is in part caused by adults who have a more congruent mental fit with children, that is they see themselves similar to, but somehow have a disinhibition that allows them to molest. It gets complicated, with the amount of theories that have been put forth as explanations. I'm no expert, but this is just some of the information I have on hand. I wish I had more info on that 2004 study, seems a bit incomplete, looking over it again.

 

[Kanova]

I wonder if pedos can help being attracted to kids. Kind of like how gays don't choose to be gay, pedos don't choose to be aroused by kids. And then we send them to jail and they get stabbed to death for something they can't help lol

They can't. They didn't choose to be this way, they never wanted it.

And by the way, pedophilia has an much higher estimated incident rate than you would think. It is a statistical near certainty that you know pedophiles. You work with them, you talk to them regularly. You are probably friends with them and think they are good people. And that is because they are good people who would never, ever act on their attraction because they know it is wrong. They have a problem and they deal with it. What we hear about are the very few times they fail to deal with it. And, to be frank, their failures are largely on our shoulders.

Here is the thing. There is no one more despised than a pedophile in our society. Even murders are not considered so low as a pedophile, even a pedophile that has never acted on it. Because of this there is no support structure for people dealing with this problem. There has not been significant research into how we can help. Very little effort has been made towards actually solving the problem and the public at large does not want to solve the problem. They would rather focus all their energy on despising and hating the freak that committed the crime. We completely fail to provide pedophiles with the tools they need to deal with their problem and publicly ostracize them if they ever do ask for help.

The fact of the matter is that our society cares more about hating the perceived monster than actually preventing the abuse.

Exactly. The second someone finds out a guy is a pedo, everyone goes all out to fuck him up instead of anything else. We have people here giving crack heads clean needles to "help" them. Giving druggies free stuff to continue doing hard drugs and basically killing themselves. We help those kinds of people, but not people that have an attraction to kids.

And yes, it isn't like if someone likes kids they are going to go out and kidnap and rape some child or whatever. The worst thing 99% of them would do is just go find some CP online or something. I just feel like our resources could be used better than that. Prevention and actual help would be a better course of action, but that will most likely never happen because as of right now, having attraction towards kids is the most vile thing any human can do.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I think your use of the term "sex offender" in relation to recidivism is overly broad. That term contains many crimes under it's umbrella (public urination in some states, indecent exposure, pedophilia/hebephilia, statutory rape, various types of sexual assault) and should not be applied in general terms to a specific issue like recidivism. Also all the statistics I've seen regarding rapists have indicated that the rates of recidivism are quite high. If you've got some compelling statistics on that issue (and it sounds like you might, given your area of study) I'd love to see them, if only for my peace of mind.

Also I very much agree with your point in regards to non-offending pedophiles. While there are some resources available, the fact that we as a society demonize pedophiles/he epilepsy to the same extent as convicted child molesters is a real issue. As for violent sex offenders? I guess it's a topic I can't really be reasonable about, I don't really think rehabilitation is an option for people who lack the basic empathy necessary to not rape someone.

Public urination isn't a sex offence here in Canada. As for recidivism, it is relatively low, assuming the individual has been convicted once, 14.0 percent for non-sexual violent recidivism, 13.7 percent for sexual recidivism, 25 percent for any violent recidivism (sexual, non-sexual violent, or non-violent recidivism), and 36.9 for any recidivism. This from a 6 year follow period study following convicted sex offenders, which includes pedophilia. Granted, there's likely some loss data due to people not reporting out of fear, shame, etc. These numbers are from a study back in 2004, but as far as I know, not much has changed in Canada.

Rehabilitation is a alright option, but you have to apply it to rapist typologies. Young men, competitively disadvantaged men, and psychopaths. Psychopathy is a huge issue in and of itself, whether it's treatable, most say no, you can't. Young men, it's a bit easier, as most age out of criminal behaviour. Competitively disadvantaged typically is in reference to men with cognitive impairments (i.e. a bit slow, if we're not being politically correct) and they're a bit of special case. But those typologies are just in reference to men sexual assaulting women, pedophilia is it's own classification. There is cognitive-aversion therapy for pedophilia.

I don't disagree, empathy is a very hard thing to teach, especially if it isn't done at a young age. There is a theory that states pedophilia is in part caused by adults who have a more congruent mental fit with children, that is they see themselves similar to, but somehow have a disinhibition that allows them to molest. It gets complicated, with the amount of theories that have been put forth as explanations. I'm no expert, but this is just some of the information I have on hand. I wish I had more info on that 2004 study, seems a bit incomplete, looking over it again.

Now I'm not very familiar with the Canadian criminal justice system, but I assume that sex offenders in Canada are largely treated the same way that they are in the US. They have to register as sex offenders, they're put on sex offender watch lists, when they are unable to get jobs anywhere that children frequent, etc. Am I correct in assuming that?

In that case the way that sex offenders are treated by the criminal justice system and by society after their release may have something to do with the low recidivism rate. After all, most crimes are not premeditated, they are committed because an opportunity presents itself. If you reduce the opportunities that a child molester or pedophile has to be in contact with children then that would reduce their ability to recidivate and therefore recidivism rates are lowered. So to say that community witchhunts do more harm than good may be putting the cart before the horse to to speak. The fact that the sex offenders are registered and have to let everyone in the neighborhood know of their prior offenses could be a major factor in why their recidivism rates are lower, because people know how they are an know to be weary around them.

Then again, what do I know? I have a BS in criminal justice from an American University and work as a criminal research specialist in the US, so I really don't know how Canadians handle their sex offenders.

 

[Foolery]

I think your use of the term "sex offender" in relation to recidivism is overly broad. That term contains many crimes under it's umbrella (public urination in some states, indecent exposure, pedophilia/hebephilia, statutory rape, various types of sexual assault) and should not be applied in general terms to a specific issue like recidivism. Also all the statistics I've seen regarding rapists have indicated that the rates of recidivism are quite high. If you've got some compelling statistics on that issue (and it sounds like you might, given your area of study) I'd love to see them, if only for my peace of mind.

Also I very much agree with your point in regards to non-offending pedophiles. While there are some resources available, the fact that we as a society demonize pedophiles/he epilepsy to the same extent as convicted child molesters is a real issue. As for violent sex offenders? I guess it's a topic I can't really be reasonable about, I don't really think rehabilitation is an option for people who lack the basic empathy necessary to not rape someone.

Public urination isn't a sex offence here in Canada. As for recidivism, it is relatively low, assuming the individual has been convicted once, 14.0 percent for non-sexual violent recidivism, 13.7 percent for sexual recidivism, 25 percent for any violent recidivism (sexual, non-sexual violent, or non-violent recidivism), and 36.9 for any recidivism. This from a 6 year follow period study following convicted sex offenders, which includes pedophilia. Granted, there's likely some loss data due to people not reporting out of fear, shame, etc. These numbers are from a study back in 2004, but as far as I know, not much has changed in Canada.

Rehabilitation is a alright option, but you have to apply it to rapist typologies. Young men, competitively disadvantaged men, and psychopaths. Psychopathy is a huge issue in and of itself, whether it's treatable, most say no, you can't. Young men, it's a bit easier, as most age out of criminal behaviour. Competitively disadvantaged typically is in reference to men with cognitive impairments (i.e. a bit slow, if we're not being politically correct) and they're a bit of special case. But those typologies are just in reference to men sexual assaulting women, pedophilia is it's own classification. There is cognitive-aversion therapy for pedophilia.

I don't disagree, empathy is a very hard thing to teach, especially if it isn't done at a young age. There is a theory that states pedophilia is in part caused by adults who have a more congruent mental fit with children, that is they see themselves similar to, but somehow have a disinhibition that allows them to molest. It gets complicated, with the amount of theories that have been put forth as explanations. I'm no expert, but this is just some of the information I have on hand. I wish I had more info on that 2004 study, seems a bit incomplete, looking over it again.

Now I'm not very familiar with the Canadian criminal justice system, but I assume that sex offenders in Canada are largely treated the same way that they are in the US. They have to register as sex offenders, they're put on sex offender watch lists, when they are unable to get jobs anywhere that children frequent, etc. Am I correct in assuming that?

In that case the way that sex offenders are treated by the criminal justice system and by society after their release may have something to do with the low recidivism rate. After all, most crimes are not premeditated, they are committed because an opportunity presents itself. If you reduce the opportunities that a child molester or pedophile has to be in contact with children then that would reduce their ability to recidivate and therefore recidivism rates are lowered. So to say that community witchhunts do more harm than good may be putting the cart before the horse to to speak. The fact that the sex offenders are registered and have to let everyone in the neighborhood know of their prior offenses could be a major factor in why their recidivism rates are lower, because people know how they are an know to be weary around them.

Then again, what do I know? I have a BS in criminal justice from an American University and work as a criminal research specialist in the US, so I really don't know how Canadians handle their sex offenders.

Boy, this has turned into quite the discussion, as far as I know, sex offences would simply be covered in a basic criminal record check which is required by law here, for positions working at a school, with the police obviously, SCPCA, Canadian Blood Services, anything like that really. Canada does currently have a sex offender registry but the names and personal information of those on the list are not public. And it's partly an issue of not really having 'privacy' defined in our charter of rights and freedoms, in fact, privacy isn't mentioned anywhere, but it's just how our legal system has chosen to handle it.

 

[SadisticFire]

Because it was a sexuality. That's why. No one has to wear their sexuality on their back, no one has to trumpet it around. You only know about once you start digging into their life(Assuming they AREN'T trumpeting it). So in every other aspect, they are a normal person, even their decision making. It's weird. We(as in the US) have gotten to the point that there are thought crimes, not even ones that some people can control.
You got the unlucky roll of the genetic dice that changes your sexuality, even if you can keep it in your pants? Sucks to be you, get ready to get shanked. The weird part is, even in situations where no one is harmed and the victim is trying to find an outlet, (E.G. Drawing, writings, the general schmut) things still go wrong. I personally rather some one jerk it to some hentai artist's drawing of a loli, rather than supporting a coach dragging their football students into the locker room and video taping/selling it.

 

[Abbyka]

NEVER let your kids near him. Heck, I'd be leery about even allowing my kid to be friends with his because he could easily still come around when I'm not looking, simply because they're friends.

 

[Kristoffer]

Sounds like he was an ephebophile?

Which isn't all that bad.

You're allowed to have sex with 16 year olds plenty of places.

 

[Tiger King]

Back home there was a lady that lived a couple doors down from my house. She rented out her rooms frequently to people. One day she walked past her lodgers room and it was open. Inside she saw something that caught her eye. A pulp magazine that contained images of children.

I dunno the details and don't want to know, but the police were waiting for that guy when he came home.
The strangest thing is, we have these stereotypes in our head but the guy was 21!