Joining in on the wank

[teyla]

Well. I don't like getting all worked up about stuff like this, because it's usually just not worth all the effort and broken keys on the keyboard. But this...

You probably all know about LJ deleting comms and personal journals. If not, check out ::this:: post on beandelphiki's journal - a good summary on what's going on.

Well. What I want to rant about are these so-called Warriors For Innocence. Because... WTF?

Take a look at their site

Paedophils and child abusers are sick people. NOT MONSTERS! With the right circumstances, anybody could have been a child abuser. I have some basic knowledge in this area, because I've always been very interested in the psychology behind pathologic serial killers, rapists and child abusers and have read a couple of books and thought about it quite a lot.

Child abusers have usually been victims themselves. This is not an excuse or a reason to let them get on with it, but calling them monsters and turning them into something that is not human is NOT the way to go about this business. Dealing with issues like this, the absolute most important thing is to stay objective and not judge the person that has committed the child abuse. Either, the person is sick and wants help - in this case, it's society's duty to provide this help to the best of their abilities - or the person is sick and doesn't want help - in this case, society's duty consists of making sure the person in question will never be in a position where they can hurt children.

Demonizing them is the most blind, idiotic and hypocritical thing a person can do. Because - what about the kids the glorious Warriors for Innocence couldn't save? The ones that were abused as young children and grow up to become child abusers themselves? At which point do they cross the border from being the poor little innocent kiddie that needs to be saved to the terrible, unspeakable, abominable monster that needs to be eliminated from society?

Comments

[neery.livejournal.com]

Paedophils and child abusers are sick people. NOT MONSTERS!

We'll have to agree to disagree here. Pedophiles who can't help their attraction to children but never, ever act on it and make sure to stay the fuck away from children have my sympathy, but the moment they act on it, I have absolutely no pity for them anymore - they are monsters.

Personally, I think everyone who rapes a child should be killed. I'm usually against the death penalty, but in this case, I think it's by far the best option. That's one of the few crimes where I really think anyone who commits it doesn't deserve a second chance.

I don't care if they "can't help themselves because they're sick" or any apologist bullshit like that; people who can't hurt themselves from preying on the weakest members of our society in such a horrifying way need to be removed from any chance of ever doing it again, the same way we'd put down a rabid, child-eating pit bull; and I'd feel much more pity for the dog.

As far as I know, we can't "cure" pedophilia; the chances of child-rapists who have been released going after children again are horrifyingly high. The best we can do is teach pedophiles to never, ever cross the line, and I think you should get exactly one chance not to do that; the risk is way, way too high, and the damage they can do far too horrible, to give them a second chance.

If a pedophile realizes in time that he's sick and wants help, I'm all for him getting that help, and not being punished for his courage to get help before he does something horrifying. But if he's already raped a child, someone fucking kill that monster. Why on earth should I feel bad for them? Why should I be willing to risk another innocent kid so some fucking disgusting monster doesn't have to be killed or locked up forever? If you rape a child, you lose my sympathy, you lose any consideration I might have for you as a member of the human race.

At which point do they cross the border from being the poor little innocent kiddie that needs to be saved to the terrible, unspeakable, abominable monster that needs to be eliminated from society?

Easy - they cross that line the second they rape a child themselves. There are plenty of survivors of childhood abuse who never turn into abusers themselves. It can be done; and I have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for the ones who can't do it.

With the right circumstances, anybody could have been a child abuser.

I don't believe so, but since I'm pretty sure it's not been proved either way, like I'll said, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Even if it was true, it wouldn't change anything for me. Maybe under the right circumstances, I could have been a child rapist; I hope someone in that parallel universe made damn sure I'd never hurt a second child.

[teyla]

I think I was a bit unclear in my post. I see your point, and I can't say I completely disagree. However, my problem with the WFI was the whole demonizing thing.

What I meant with the statement about "sick people, not monsters" was this: when confronted with a child rapist, the most dangerous thing you can do is forget that they are human beings. Because when you reduce them to "monsters", you simplify the issue. Monsters are scary, but monsters are also something that doesn't exist in the real world. Child rapists totally do. They're more common than most people think.

I guess my whole point was this: no matter whether you think that child rapists should be killed, or whether you think they should be institutionalzed or whatever you think, you TOTALLY MUST NOT get emotional about it. A child rapist is usually too far gone to be saved, I agree. So I won't argue against your opinion on what should be done about them. However, going and calling them monsters and glorifying oneself as the great, just Warrior for Innocence is the wrongest, dumbest thing one can do if one really wants to find a just, acceptable way to deal with child rapists.

I think it's just that I can't deal with it when people forget that they're made of exactly the same material as any child rapist, serial killer, Hitler, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein or George Bush. Nobody can claim to be a better person than anybody else. They can try to be, but as soon as they glorify their successes they had with these tries, they defy those successes. I can't deal with it when people forget that it could just as easily have been them in the place of the child rapist who is being hunted down and killed. I'm not saying it's wrong to hunt down child rapists. I'm just saying it's wrong to think that one is "ridding the world of evil" by doing so.

[neery.livejournal.com]

(Oh, I forgot to say - I deliberately didn't use the term "child abuse", because it's too ambiguous - it also includes people who beat their kids, or starve them, and that's a different can of worms. I wasn't sure in what sense you were using it.)

[housepiglet.livejournal.com]

I agree with you.

I don't feel that anything is achieved by using emotive language like "monster", and I do feel that approaching the problem on a purely emotional level is unhelpful, primarily because it won't achieve a solution.

From time to time when particularly unpleasant child abuse cases have been publicised over here I've seen television footage of crowds gathering behind police vans as suspects are delivered to courts. The one that particularly sticks in my mind is the case of Jamie Bulger: a small boy who was murdered by two other small boys (aged, as far as I remember, about 9 and 10). Crowds of people gathered behind the court to bay for their blood. I've no doubt that if the crowd had been allowed to get hold of the boys concerned they'd have ripped them limb from limb. I found it quite terrifying: medieval, atavistic and entirely unproductive. It seems to me to demonstrate just how very thin the veneer of civilisation actually is.

It seems to me that the most important thing is to secure the protection of the potential victims, and for that reason my own view is that paedophiles need to be locked away until there's no possiblity that they might attack a child. In fact, it's probably impossible ever to be sure that that moment has been reached, and in that case my view is that the incarceration needs to be permanent. It should be about protection, though: not demonisation.

I find this whole subject very interesting, as a reflection of the way in which the human 'pack' mentality works. I've been fascinated and horrified for many years by the way in which society (at least in the UK) insists upon treating people whose mental illness has caused them to commit crime in precisely the same way as it would treat them had they not been mentally ill. I find it particularly interesting because in English law there are actually 2 elements to a crime: the actus reus (the act itself) and the mens rea (the intention). It seems, though, that in the case of mentally ill people committing certain types of crime society is willing to bend the 'rules' in order to pander to the desire of society for revenge.

People whose mental illness makes them a danger to other people need to be locked away securely, in my view, but the purpose of that should be protection rather than revenge.