News Human Rights For Sex Offenders

[Philippa]

I always found that a little crazy as well.

Rapists and murderers judging "rock spiders", as if they are any better. What's that about?

 

[freakofnurture]

It's about strength and power, I guess. If you 'only' attack children, you don't display much of that.

 

[Hashi]

FoN, I didn't feel attacked by what you wrote. I agree with a lot of it, and it's good to hear a viewpoint like yours. I haven't felt attacked or offended by what anyone's said here, and I hope other people don't feel I have attacked or offended them

I don't think I'm expressing myself at all well in this thread. I hope I clarified what I think in my last post and I think it's best for me to leave it without tangling myself up any more.

The only thing I'll say finally is that prison systems can be very different in different countries. In the UK rapists are sex offenders, and all vulnerable prisoners (for any reason, including being convicted of a sexual offence) in general are given quite a high amount of protection - in fact, it's the protection itself that can add the additional restrictions that are complained of, along with measures to protect the public. I'm sorry if not making that clear has caused any confusion.

 

[Philippa]

It's about strength and power, I guess. If you 'only' attack children, you don't display much of that.

:(

 

[Meadowsweet]

Not high enough, in my opinion.

That's ok, we have different opinions.

I haven't read the letter concerned, so this next question isn't rhetorical: How do you know that the prisoners writing the letter didn't feel remorse?

When I am filled with shame and guilt, thinking abuse I've experienced is all my fault, I feel deserving of nothing good. Sometimes I feel I should be hurt because I'm useless etc. I can't relate to feeling guilt/remorse at the time as arguing that I deserve additional support based on my human rights.

Also, how is enduring verbal abuse a sign of taking responsibility? They aren't forced to answer to the accusations and questions of good citizens, they are yelled at by people who think they're pathetic for raping (male) children instead of grown women (like real men do).

This question doesn't relate to the points I was putting across.

 

[maddog]

I work in law enforcement, specifically in the area of sex and child abuse crimes, and so the issue of sex offender treatment and attitudes by law enforcement, the courts system and the community at large is an always contentious one for us.

I make no secret of the fact that I, and most of my colleagues, find it difficult to harbour any sympathy, or indeed any empathy, for the plight of sex offenders. Sometimes their undoubted rough and dangerous treatment in the prison system feels like poetic justice. Add to this the fact that we as police are obliged to intervene to protect them in the community if they are harassed or targeted upon release, a function which requires a heavy drain on resources which cannot thus be spent investigating crime and attempting to protect further victims, and the tide of bitterness runs deep.

When you repeatedly see courts returning "not guilty" verdicts in cases in which child sex offences (which are notoriously difficult to prosecute) have almost certainly been committed, it is hard to swallow. It is hardest to swallow when you've supported the child victim through the horror, degradation and brutality of the justice system, which is widely accepted to be every bit as traumatic as the abuse itself in a different way, and at the end of it all the abuser walks free. Trying to explain that to a child isn't something you easily forget. I know that some of us have been there as victims, perhaps as witnesses or family members or supporters, and perhaps in other roles.

And so it's easy to support any policy or process that seems to condemn the offenders to greater harm or punishment, as moral payback for everything they have taken and which can't otherwise be repaid.

Recently, my state introduced child sex offence laws which are unprecedentedly harsh, in effect requiring that anyone convicted of more than one serious child sex offence will receive a mandatory life sentence with a minimum 20-year non-parole period.

Most of us cheered and felt at least slightly vindicated... until, on closer thought, it became obvious that the price to be paid for this regime will be considerably fewer "guilty" please early on in the court process, and the resulting much greater frequency with which child victims will be compelled to testify in court.

I raise this example merely to demonstrate that sometimes, the relationship between the rights and liberties of abusers and their victims is more complicated and intertwined than it first appears, and it can be hard to steady the wildly swinging moral compass on any of these issues.

That said, I am reminded of a question posed to a colleague of mine by a journalist during one of the recent debates about the treatment of sex offenders in the community. For reasons unknown, she asked him if he personally would prefer to be accused/convicted of murder or a child sexual offence. Without missing a beat, he replied that he'd have murder any day, complete with its (at that time) much longer mandatory prison sentence, because unlike sex crimes, murder was, in some instances, justified.

 

[jimmy-joe]

Human rights for sex offenders... NO. What happened to the victim's rights? You violate someone like that, you forfeit your own rights. IMO, death penalty, especially for child abuse.

 

[freakofnurture]

I just meant that it's a real conflict for me

You communicated that point well. I just completely failed to acknowledge it and I'm sorry for that :/

This question doesn't relate to the points I was putting across.

Okay, I think I mixed two seperate points you were making together. Let me reply to them again, this time separately, and see if that adresses them more adequately.

But the fact remains that sex offenders have to take some responsibility for what they have done before they can ever be rehabilitated.

It is the first and hardest goal in the therapy of sex offenders (which makes up the largest part of their rehabilitation program) that they realise and accept the fact that they did something horrible and that they alone (and not the child, not the p*rents, not society) are responsible for those horrible things they did, and that they will also be responsible for every single thing they do in the future.

So this demand of yours is met, at least in theory. It is very hard to assess if the therapeutic progress of a sex offender is genuine or if they are just saying the right words so they can go back to where the kids are. Most are lying and still dangerous when they get out of prison - and that is never acceptable.

Only some forms of pedophilia can be cured and comorbidity with sadism or psychopathy makes for an absolutely hopeless case that ought to stay in prison for the rest of his life. Most forms of simple pedophilia also can't be contained after they have entered the last stages of their progression - in which the pedophile starts to actually harm children - and therefore should stay in prison indefinitely.

If an illness is close to incurable and also unmanageable in its later stages we have to put our resources into prevention. And it is in fact possible to successfully adress the illness in its early stages - at a time when the pedophile is still our ally because he's still apalled and distressed by his own thoughts and impulses and hasn't yet lost himself to the downward spiral of rationalisations and shifting of blame that will eventually enable him to actually abuse children.

There is actually quite a lot that we can do to halt and even partially revert the progression of the illness: We can help pedophiles to understand their illness and to manage it by learning how to cope with or completely prevent urges, how to monitor and control thought processes, how to deal with the fact that they will likely never be 'normal' and healthy, how to build a life that is safe etc. Most importantly they have to learn how to actively avoid children and how to disclose to friends with kids that it's not safe to bring the little ones, and we have to give interim jobs and re-training to pedophiles whose first career gives them acces to children.

For this kind of prevention to take place, though, we have to create a social climate where it is possible for a person who hasn't yet done anything to hurt a child but realises that they are continuously sexually attracted to kids to go to a specialised therapist ASAP without having to fear that they will lose everything for that.

We can't protect our children effectively if we put such an incredibly high price on seeking help for the symptoms of pedophilia. That does not mean that society is in any way responsible for the behaviour of the individual pedophiles and of course there is no question that every person who already has approached a child in any sexualised manner has to be tried and adequately sentenced in addition to being placed in a therapy program.

We aren't responsible but we have to be part of the solution to this terrible problem by making it as easy as possible to seek help and support for pedophiles who haven't yet acted on their impulses in any harmful way.

People who rape other adults are a different story that I haven't done as much research on. My feeling is that it's much more multi-factorial than pedophilia and that some aspects of society's look on gender contribute to the acutal causation of these patterns of thought and behaviour.

Where is the guilt or remorse when they are writing the letter to demand their rights?

Maybe the individual inmates behind the letter didn't write it while in a remorseful minset. That neither invalidates their request, nor does it annihilate their human rights or their right to demand that these rights be respected.

IMO, death penalty, especially for child abuse.

Pedophilia is a mental illness. Do you really advocate killing mentally ill people who have lost control over their thoughts and actions?

Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% that each and every dangerous person has to be taken out of society and into prison. But no one has any right whatsoever to hurt another person, let alone kill them, no matter what that person has done and no matter what feelings of hate and disgust they inspire in you.

If hate and disgust were legitimate reasons to kill someone, hate crimes were legal.

 

[Sasha]

I hardly think that not getting gym time as a lack of human rights. They are being fed, kept safe, and given shelter. It is not the prison systems responsibility to pamper them or five them entertainment.

 

[jimmy-joe]

If I can control my sadism/other bad shit, I expect most people who put forth the effort will be able to. Because I'm not particularly special lol.

That being said, when you violate the sanctity of another person's safety, you are forfeiting your own. If these creeps want to give in to the urges then they are going into "animal" mode, which makes them fair game also. If they forsake such things and get help, then they've passed out of "animal" status, removing them from the game list.

But while a person is torturing/perverting/and killing, they forfeit their own life. And if they really felt that bad about it, and really couldn't control it, as opposed to realizing that all these "rights" and rules are constructs of humans and so feeling that the world is a giant game preserve, then they would probably thank someone for killing them to free them from the pain.

I know I feel that way, lol and I haven't even given in to them.

 

[unvrsplysfvrts]

If mental illness is defined as a state of mind in which a person causes distress and/or harm to themselves and/or others, then all sex offenders are sick. And they are, in fact, mentally ill; they have problems with impulse control, severely warped reasoning, problems with empathy and a thick shell of rationalisations around their bad decisions.

We, as a society, do have the right and also the duty to protect ourselves from dangerous people. So we have to put sex offenders in jail and keep them there as long as necessary.

But we don't have the right to punish them. First of all because their illness limits their ability to control their own thoughts, emotions and behaviours and thereby takes a lot of responsibility away from them.

I think all of us here can agree that we're mentally impaired, to whatever degree. I agree that these people are sick, perhaps in a much more serious way. However, I think making excuses for them to get special treatment, or to not be punished for their actions is making excuses.

I'm not in therapy, rehab, or jail because I use impulse control (to the best of my ability; I'm not perfect either.) People who abuse children, no matter if it's physical, sexual, emotional, etc make the conscious decision to act upon their impulses-knowing that it is wrong. Society is full of anti-pedophilia messages. Along with other messages of anti-abuse. We are all taught in every facet of our lives-school, work, billboards, commercials, etc- that these things are wrong. Even if the person doesn't feel that way themselves, they know this.

So setting aside my own sexual and physical abuse as a child (I feel my next statement is as unbaised as I can possibly make it) I do feel they should not only be punished, but that no one should make excuses of mental disability to keep them from having to bear the repercussions of their actions.

I don't mean we should stand idly by while people beat them up. They have a right to food, bathroom, safe place to sleep, etc. I'm not saying throw them out to the wolves on an island and let them fend for themselves. That would be returning cruelty and abuse with cruelty and abuse-not productive. But I feel that these people should absolutely be punished. Murder and rape can be justified by mental illness, too. Temporary or not. So can theft (kleptomania,) arson (pyromania,) and almost every other crime.

If this is the case, why do pedophiles deserve the special treatment and the other prisoners don't? Especially when almost none of them show or offer any kind of remorse.

In my opinion, if I make the decision to do something wrong, I should suffer the consequences. Why are they any different?

 

[unvrsplysfvrts]

It's even in the general public's interest if the prisons are kept as peaceful as possible. Every fight injury and every hospitalisation of prisoners is paid for with tax money. I recon that the half hour of additional guard time needed to supervise a second round of prison sports is a lot less expensive.

*EDIT: Sex offenders are at special risk of being injured; you as an ordinary thief or manager would only have the ordinary risk that comes with being in prison. High risk populations get extra care - evening out the inequalities - in all other situations. Why not in the prison system?

Medical treatment, along with dental treatment, in prisons is actually done mostly by students. Most prisons have infirmary wings that are used unless it's a life/death situation. Being able to study and work on an actual person is going to be more beneficial to medical education than any observance of a live person or hands-on with a cadaver ever will be.

This practice is beneficial to not only the students involved, but their future patients. Often, the prisons themselves employ a doctor and a few nurses for "just in case" whether they are needed or not. So unless someone needs vital surgery-and thus costly anesthetics or equipment-the medical costs aren't really going to change.

I think they should have the right to not exercise, but I don't think they should get special treatment. If they want, they can do push ups and pull ups in their cells. Even sit ups! If they aren't in solitary, they can do resistance training with their bunkmate; most cells have at least enough walking room to do yoga and they can use a blanket as a yoga mat.

They want to use mental illness as an excuse for special treatment instead of adapting. If they want to be safe while exercising, they should be able to opt out of the yard-not get a special wing (which WILL cost a lot of tax dollars to build) or to split up the amount of guards for a schedule change.

Which brings me to my next point.

There are only so many guards in a prison. They are heavily outnumbered. When you have X number of inmates and only 1/5 or less that number of guards, it's important to heavily regulate who is where and when. This is a tedious system.

When you have a number of guards supervising this special group with their special requests, there are less guards to supervise and keep the peace between the more violent offenders. This makes the prisons less safe, which results in the compromise of safety of the free people. Prison breaks may not be a common occurrence, but they happen. I, personally, am not okay with the idea of thousands of violent criminals being on the loose because there weren't enough guards to keep them from revolting just because one group wants to be coddled.