h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Kelli, the Wolvercote clinic was an outpatient facility, but most of the men who attended were residential on the site, becuase they were referred there from all over the country. In the 6 years that the clinic was open there was not a single attack, nor hint of an offence committed by one of the patients against a local resident.

When the clinic couldn't be reprovisioned and had to close, the people who were treated there went back to their own communities for treatment there. Treatment that was not as good as was provided in Epsom. Yes, the authorities know where these people live, by dint of the sex offenders register. But that is not a lot of use in preventing future attacks, all it does is give the filth a list of addresses to check if something does happen.

Also we need to address the types of offenders that were treated. The nasty man lurking in the bushes who leaps out and attacks does exist, but they are a minority, they are in jail and they're going to stay there. Most sexual abuse of children comes in situations where there is a position of trust that's being abuse, it happens mostly in families. It is, in inverted commas, low level stuff; not headline grabbing news. It was these sorts of men who were being treated.

It is wrong to assume that everyone of these men because they have committed a sexual offence against a child is another Robert Black, and should be cast into the outer darkness for ever and ever.

Well, there is the final word on it, I guess...

Actually, Princess, if you had read the postings by everyone here, you would know that some of us have experienced first-hand sexual abuse and some have seen the effect on loved ones. Everyone here vertainly takes the issue seriously. In a civilized society, however, we have the right to discuss even difficult subjects openly.

I am sorry if you find this subject troubling. Others here do, as well. However, unless we discuss these issues, how can we possibly learn?

I have, too keep my feeling's on this closed as there's a baby that's involved in what happend to i and she dosn't live with me but in canada with some relative's of mine she be 16 soon and everyday is a struggle to come, to terms with who she look's like and when the day arrives she going to ask me who her father is, and i'm dreading that day.

althought i understand you all it's very upsetting talking about what happend as to me i live with this everyday my life it won't go away. and it won't vanish but with my family's support i got through most of it even, though my father sent me away to live in canada due to what he called my scandal on the family name

I know, it is difficult.

In our case, it was my grandniece and we all feel guilty that there were things we missed or said because we didn't know. In our case, the parents knew something was wrong but the Children's Aid worker refused to believe that anything was happening andblamed all the signs (bedwetting and acting out) as signs of bad parentling. When confronted with te evidence, she did as much backpeddaling as was possible and stood in the way of the parents getting any information from either the threapist or from the Crown as the case dragged its way through the courts. In fact, it was the Defense attorney who actually was the most supportive of the family in the courtroom.

In my case, I live with particular memory....

One Sunday, I picked the kids up to go to Sunday Service (where both of them always immensely enjoyed being). Before we got two blocks, I realized that I couldn't take my grandniece with us. She stank of pee. I took her back and my niece decided that she had to stay home. She had nothing clean to dress her in.

She stood on the front stoop and cried in humiliation.... I cried all the way to church.

I didn't know until later that she was wetting herself both as a punishment for what she saw as being "her fault" and as a way of keeping him away from her.

I further humiliated and punished her by leaving her at home... not allowing her to do the one thing she really, really enjoyed.

At least now, she is happily living far away from her abuser.

(Her grandfather, my former brother-in-law, by the way.)

He got 9-months house arrest (with the ability to go to work every day, to attend family gatherings where there were children, and broke the conditions of his sentence by being alone in a public place but the police never bothered calling my niece back when she reported this fact). She got move half way across the country away from all the people she loved and a life sentence of memories.

Do I hate him? Yes...
Do I think we got justice for my grad-niece? No....
Do I think he should be executed for his crime? No.

"arrgh" that was, realy upsetting, to hear about your grandniece.

How is she cope now? must of been like a nightmare for her same as for me,

I didn't get to see him punished as he took the cowards way out and hung himself,

I'm worried when my girl starts asking questions why she live's in canada and why do i live in UK and questions over her father,

I have known two predatory paedophiles, both Catholic priests, one liked little girls and his offenses consisted of touching them inappropriately. The other liked little boys, and had them perform sex acts on him. The one who liked little girls was successfully prosecuted privately by one of the families involved - the other fled the country when the police came round. Currently his brother is trying to persuade the police he's dead.

I am prepared to accept that those who like looking at pictures could probably be persuaded that the 'thrill' they get is wrong. I don't think those who force themselves on children, or who force children to do things to them, can be cured. Now that's just a personal opinion - I'm not a psychiatrist - but I also don't think a treatment rate less than 100% is tolerable.

Lets just string 'em up and save themselves and society a whole lot of breast beating.

Mckay
I agree with you there string them up and let them suffer the same as they made us victim's suffer.

There should be a nationwide poll on the death penalty, with the following *two* questions.

1. Do you think there should be a death penalty for serious crimes?

2. Given that in a society where the death penalty exists, it is inevitable that innocent people will be executed, do you, personally, volunteer to be one of the first innocent people executed, the day the law comes into force?

It would be made clear that anyone answering "No" to question 2 won't get their vote counted, since they're obviously not prepared to put their money where their mouth is.



The short answer to the question posed is "Of course not, you f**king cretin.", followed by strapping the questioner to a chair, pinning their eyelids open and making them watch an hour long documentary about Stefan Kisko.

Google that name...

SoRB

Oh gee - that old chestnut - because of course sooooo many executions took place in this country and soooo many of them turn out to be innocent afterwards.

What you're saying is that the life of an innocent victim, is worth more than the life of an accidently convicted innocent. I'll agree that for an innocent to die is always wrong, no matter what the circumstances.

Now lets look at the figures here - people murdered in a year versus people executed in a year.

Its not that difficult. You just don't want your lilywhite hands stained. If I set a convicted killer free and he chooses to kill again that's not your fault, but if we hang an innocent person then all of society is guilty because of our barbaric practises.

Noggin and I watched a film last night called The Woodsman, about a sex offender let out on controlled probation after 12 years in prison. Excellent performance by Kevin Bacon, but the story seemed rather sentimental and unbelievable.

For some reason, the *only* apartment this guy could find was directly across from a schoolyard. While watching the kids from his apartment window he notices someone else on the street watching the kids too and trying to make contact with them (gee, guess what happens?). Then he meets a woman at work who not only understands him but who had been sexually abused by her three brothers and they start a relationship.

When it is discovered at work that he is a sex offender the usual 'going to beat the sh*t outta you, you scumbag' encounter happens and the boss shows up telling everyone that if they have a problem with Kevin Bacon working there they can pick up their pay packet and leave.

Then when Kevin starts following little girls again (age 10-12) and befriends one in a park, it turns out that she is also being sexually abused by her father, which of course melts the cold heart of the paedophile and he doesn't end up making her 'sit on his lap'.

On his way home from this encounter (gee, what timing!) he sees the other paedophile letting a young boy out of his car and promptly beats the sh*t out of him.

The problem both Noggin and I had with this film were the several million-in-one chances all happening to this one guy.

So okay. If *all* sex offenders ended up finding caring and loving girlfriends, understanding bosses, understanding brother-in-law (married to the sister he had abused), and then also had a chance to become a 'hero' by beating up another sex offender . . . well, maybe there *would* actually be a higher success rate for these people not re-offending.

The idea put forth in this film - the 'paedophile with a heart of gold' - kind of stuck in my craw.


az

Princess*of*Hearts* - regarding #80

I started the thread. I've not taken a view on whether or not these crimes deserve the death penalty. My purpose was to start a debate and to that aim, as Mudhooks pointed out, this has been a success and people with many wide and varied views and experiences have contributed - the aim for us all to better understand the issues some of whcih are painful, I agree, but definately worth discussing.

If you disagreed with my tone in the original posting let me try and make clear I wasn't persuaded by John Gibson's argument that the brazenness of crimes of sexual abuse should ought to determine the application of the death penalty, nor his conflation of an argument about the death penalty and, of all thing, The Taliban. ()

You are right I have no idea about the tauma of those who are abused - that's why I asked the question. If you thought I was perhaps being flippant about the issue of child abuse, I wasn't and I hope you understand that.

Clive.

<> (Princess)

I share those same gut feelings, Princess. I've been there too. But, as I said in post 5, my main problem with the death sentence is that the law sometimes gets it wrong and executes an innocent person. Which is something I cannot agree with.

Sure, some people are guilty without a shred of a doubt. But if there is the option of a death sentence, then there is also the temptation to execute people even if there is some doubt. Which was why I proposed *real* life sentences for sex offenders, with no chance of parole. Ever. As far as I'm concerned they forfeited their right to ever live in society again by their actions. And the only thing that could change that would be new evidence coming to light showing the person had been wrongly accused. Which could happen. Which is why I can't agree with the death sentence option.

Even one person wrongly convicted and executed is too much for me. This should never happen. Two wrongs don't ever make a right.


az

To those who are in favour of execution - do you in any way feel that this is letting the offender off lightly, rather than them having to be incarcerated for the rest of their lives, to dwell on why they are imprisoned?

McKay - the choice is not between setting a convicted killer free to kill again, and killing them. I have no problem with locking people away until they die, if they're properly convicted.

But I know *I* don't want to be the first innocent person who gets executed. Presumably YOU don't either. It's not my lilywhite hands you should be concerned with, it's your lilywhite neck.

SoRB

McKay and SorB, I think we are not so far off in agreement.

The problem is that innocent people *do* often get convicted or crimes they never committed. At least locking them away 'forever and ever' gives them the chance of being requitted in the case of new evidence showing their innocence.

If they aren't innocent, then okay, let them rot in prison as far as I'm concerned. Like the total scum that they have shown themselves to be.

az

convicted *of* crimes . . .


az

My experience of prison is limited - I have been a prison vistor once, and several of my childhood friends have been banged up.

Personally I can say its NO place for a claustraphobiac.

In terms of the experience of people I know - One swore he'd never go back, and he is now a successful businessman.

One loved the regimen of it, came out and joined the army - last I heard he some kind of military advisor in the former Soviet states.

One thought he'd met a load of smashing blokes and became a full time criminal - he''s in prison (again) right now.

None of them considered it a particularly harsh environment. Indeed they all said they someone with a bit of intelligence could prosper. I don't consider prison as punishment, for many people its actually an improvement in livestyles, thats one reason so many asylum seekers try to get locked up.

Now if you're advocating a harsher prison, where they actually do something to help society - drug testing springs to mind - they I could accept that.

Hi clive

I understand you what your saying, it's just rather difficult, for those who haven't been a victim of child abuse to understand us,Here gose i'm going to tell you what happend to me.

my father blamed me for being a pretty child he made out it was my whole fault for letting the (man) who family member abuse me in first place and the result i was sent away by my parents to canada due to the scandal and shame i brought to the family name,
the result was i gave birth age 12 to a baby i had to live out in canada with her untill i was 13 well enough to come home uk i left my uncle and auntie to care for her, she know's i'm her mum, both parents told folks at home i was on holiday I went back to live in canada 16 i was came home when in my 20s,

i don't like talking about this as i still have nightmares to this day, and i've been trying to, let go the past it's very hard, my partner has been the saint that saved me with his love i am getting over it bit by bit.

Oh, and another thing, in response to your sarcasm, McKay...

"because of course sooooo many executions took place in this country and soooo many of them turn out to be innocent afterwards."

Yeah... and there are sooooo many executions right now in the USA, and everyone knows that as a result there's practically no serious crime there any more.

Hang on...

If you're discussing the death penalty with a *civilised* person, the best and only argument you need is that it fundamentally doesn't work, in the sense that it does not function as any kind of deterrent. Prison, as McKay himself has actually said himself, for some people demonstrably DOES act as a deterrent (although some people are so distressingly stupid they have to go to prison first before they find out that they don't want to be there).

The regime inside prison is an entirely different debate, and we can have that, certainly, but if we're having that one, we must assume that you've conceded the point that one addresses the problem of criminals by adjusting the conditions in which one keeps them *alive* and what use one makes of them until they die by their own, a fellow prisoner's or nature's hand.



On that point, I'm always baffled by the concept of "suicide watch" in prison. If people in prison want to kill themselves, I think they should be provided with pain-free ways to do so in every cell. It could save the taxpayer a fortune if on every cell door was a button marked "Had enough?", which the inmate could press knowing they'd be instantly, painlessly vapourised. (Of course this makes the large and wrong assumption that most prisoners can read...)

SoRB

<<"thats one reason so many asylum seekers try to get locked up".>>

Where on Earth did this one come from?

Can't imagine it'd help their asylum application for a start.