> Pedophilia frightens people because of the recidivism rate
Does the recidivism rate matter as much as the number of pedophiles? Even if every real pedophile committed the crime 3 times, that's the same as having 3x as many first time offenders. The rate and the number of pedophiles is far more important.
Unless we buy into the idea that pedophiles are lurking around every corner, the recidivsm rate should't scare us.
Pedophiles are lurking around every corner. Check out a sex offender registry and look at a map. Those are just the ones that got caught. They're like cockroaches that we as a society tolerate because there are so damn many of them and there are enough sympathetic people in power to allow this atrocity to continue.
If we as a culture were to truly value and care for children, this wouldn't be a problem because we'd stamp the fuckers out of existence. But we are a sick society, unfortunately.
The sick one here is you. Seriously, overall I see self-righteous, black&white thinking violent maniacs like you as a much bigger danger to my children than pedophiles.
> Pedophiles are lurking around every corner. Check out a sex offender registry and look at a map. Those are just the ones that got caught.
I have looked at the sex offender registry. I'm not too frightened by the "sex offenders (L1)" that were peeing in the woods near a kids' soccer game, mooned some girls, or were convicted of statutory "rape."
> They're like cockroaches that we as a society tolerate because there are so damn many of them and there are enough sympathetic people in power to allow this atrocity to continue.
251 registered, and how many unregistered? That, to me, qualifies as "around every corner" - not some rare boogie man, but I'll leave semantics alone.
I have volunteered helping the victims of these people. When you have heard the desperation of a woman crying at 3:00AM calling to talk to a stranger on a hotline because of the horror show her life has become, you tend to take a dim view of the perpetrators. Every single call, and they are numerous, sticks in your head forever. All because some subhuman wanted to get his rocks off and didn't care who he hurt.
We live in a society where you can get an order of magnitude more prison time for distributing weed than for raping children. If that's not a sympathetic public, I don't know what is.
> 251 registered, and how many unregistered? That, to me, qualifies as "around every corner" - not some rare boogie man, but I'll leave semantics alone.
Zero? Without the numbers, i might as well also create a fiction that supports my argument. 251 in a city of millions.
> We live in a society where you can get an order of magnitude more prison time for distributing weed than for raping children. If that's not a sympathetic public, I don't know what is.
That is a ridiculous conclusion. If anything the public supported the massive prison time for distributing weed because of politicians being "tough" on crime -- not the other way around. The public is completely irrational when it comes to "saving the children." Why do you think urinating in public (a non-sexual act in most cases) is a L1 sex offense?
I saw a referee of a children's soccer game run into the woods at halftime to go to the urinate. According to the current laws, he should have been arrested, locked up, required to register as a sex offender, and prohibited from being any where near kids. Those laws are sympathetic?
> Every single call, and they are numerous, sticks in your head forever. All because some subhuman wanted to get his rocks off and didn't care who he hurt.
That's awful, but I don't think this means the public is soft on perpetrators.
That's very different than people thinking being upset that getting spammed CP into your inbox makes you an instant felon. Or that a 16 year old girl becomes a sex offender the second she sexted a nude photo of herself to her 16 year old boyfriend. Or if he forwards it to a group of school friends that they are all instantly felons.
I don't really disagree. I don't think public urination is anything other than poor behavior at worst. I don't think prosecuting teenagers for making out is the slightest bit sensible. The ritual of rugby players running around the field bare ass naked after they score their first try is nothing but funny, even if a kid happens to see it. And especially funny if a puritanical adult happens to see it. Separating out things that are not abusive from things that are is a different problem than dealing with people who we know are abusive.
The number of people doing truly horrible things to children is not small in that you have to organize groups of people just to deal with the wake of psychological destruction they leave behind, and we are disturbingly soft on those perpetrators if you ask me. That we have convicted violent child rapists out there to register in the first place is a problem.
I happen to think part the reason for that is that we don't truly care that much about kids and they have no voice to protect themselves. There are those who say "it's not that big a deal" - respected people who are in positions of authority- cops, judges, attorneys. It is a big deal, though.
The problem I see with your approach is that we risk contributing to the problem. As the story posted above of Jody Plauche shows, and it's far from rare, knowing the event will generate an extreme reaction can contribute to the child not reporting it and/or feeling even worse about what happened to them.
Now, by extreme reaction I mean the "stamp the fuckers out of existence". Personally, I'm in favor of life in prison for convicted violent child rapists. But I don't think it should be treated as a punishment or revenge (including for the problems I mentioned above), but because we simply can't allow that to happen again.
I was being a tad hyperbolic, which I suppose makes your point. I don't care if we kill them off literally or not, so long as they are confined to life away from the rest of us. I have thought about your point, and I think it has some merit. On the other hand, perhaps we need to ratchet up the reaction a bit as I could also see harm being done by downplaying what is at its core a vicious crime. What is the cost of a victim watching a perpetrator of a horrible crime walking free with a slap on the wrist?
I certainly don't advocate teaching children to fear strangers or filling them with thoughts of horrible boogeymen sex offenders. But once in hand, and convicted, the punishment should prevent further abuses by the offender.
Does the recidivism rate matter as much as the number of pedophiles? Even if every real pedophile committed the crime 3 times, that's the same as having 3x as many first time offenders. The rate and the number of pedophiles is far more important.
Unless we buy into the idea that pedophiles are lurking around every corner, the recidivsm rate should't scare us.