Death Penalty for Child Molesters?

[Semper_Fi_1]

Sexual offenders, from what I’ve read in The Skeptical Inquirer (a magazine you might want to avoid since one of the things it does is discredit the supernatural), are no more likely to reoffend than burglars (I forget if the rate for burglars was higher or not). According to wikipedia, the recidivism rate, contrary to popular opinion, is relatively low:

Sex offenders have a relatively low recidivism rate in the first years after prison release. The results of studies seem to vary. On average, studies appear to indicate that sex offenders have between a 3 and 13% chance of committing a new sex offense. One source specifies the rate for new sex crimes is 13.7%, the rate for child molestation is 12.7%, the rate for child molestation within families is 8.4%, and the rate for rape 18.9%. [2] Canadian studies have shown approximately a 13.4% rate of recidivism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Offender#Recidivism_rates

I don’t think restrictions should be placed on where sex offenders live. In Florida, some sex offenders have been forced to live under a bridge due to there not being any other place to go for housing:

cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/05/bridge.sex.offenders/index.html

I do support severe penalties for those who abuse children, especially for repeat offenses. My general philosophy is that the penalty for a crime (any kind of crime) should be increased when the incidence of that crime is intolerably high – increased until it is at a more ‘tolerable’ level or until there are diminishing returns (i.e. when increasing it anymore doesn’t make any or much difference)

I don’t support the death penalty for anyone. The idea of a country or a state killing its own citizens runs contrary to my idea of what society should be. We should give sinners an opportunity to redeem their lives. The death penalty is also unmerciful towards loved ones.

They should be forced to live in prison, not under a bridge where no one can find them.

 

[Montie_Claunch]

Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense.

So what would be the right punishment? A year with a Sodomite?

Sorry, Couldn’t help myself. But, seriously. What would be the best thing do with such a person?

ed: Just lock them up? I don’t know anything about the psy. of a molester so I don’t know if there is like anyway to rehab. the person. So what could and should be done?

 

[jack_hawkins]

Oh my…that is horrible!!!

I can’t judge the Eucharist part…BUT…why is this person allowed to live near children? They have a right to live a life…just not near children. That’s why they should be locked up forever…because once they get around children (and it’s inevitable…I mean…grocery store…mall, etc…) they will act out again (typically) As I said…they are not rehabilitative.

I find it unacceptable the attitude of people to what are sinners when all is said and done - some of what is said is just demonisation and not Christian IMO
and no, it is not true that no rehabilitation is possible
churches in Canada were involved in a programme that reduced re-offending by an amazing amount (I read this in a book by secular social scientists) but what it involved was not being judgmental unlike nearly everyone on this thread
I think we need to realise how much the thinking of the world infects us sometimes, and search the scriptures for the words of Jesus

 

[Nordar]

Something to consider. There can be unintended consequences in upping the penalty for a given crime. If, for example, we were to make the penalty for petit theft mandatory life in prison, you can bet the person committing the theft will be willing to commit what society would consider more heinous crimes in order to avoid getting caught. I can see where a child molester might murder every child that he victimizes if the penalty for getting caught is death. He has nothing to lose by committing an even worse crime.

I want to be clear that I’m not giving any opinion about what I consider the appropriate penalty for the actions of a child molester.

Here’s something to consider, it is a known fact that most child sexual killers are repeat child sex offenders who have done prison time. They have killed their victims so as not to be identified, to avoid going back to prison. Most who have done prison time will eventually kill, they need to be sent away for life on their first offense. Our children need to be protected.

 

[Nordar]

I find it unacceptable the attitude of people to what are sinners when all is said and done - some of what is said is just demonisation and not Christian IMO
and no, it is not true that no rehabilitation is possible
churches in Canada were involved in a programme that reduced re-offending by an amazing amount (I read this in a book by secular social scientists) but what it involved was not being judgmental unlike nearly everyone on this thread
I think we need to realise how much the thinking of the world infects us sometimes, and search the scriptures for the words of Jesus

I find it unnacceptable that Our children are being raped and killed by repeat offenders who CANNOT be rehabilitated. I don’t care what any Church in Canada says, or any book by Secular Social Scientists… It is not a matter of being judgemental it is a matter of looking at the truth and of our children that are being abused and killed by these men… These men are a danger to our children and need to be put away, I see nothing against scripture in that our chuldren need to be protected That is what Jesus would want us to do we are supposed to protect Our children. Your argument is Lame.

 

[rayne100]

Here’s an idea: what if sexual offenders who finished there sentence were forced to live out their existence in a monestary under strict observence? Trying to escape would result in an instant life sentence. They would be held accountable by other men and have a better chance of being redeemed. I know there are probably loopholes there, but what do you think?

I have a clarification question. Are we talking about sex offenders that have actually molested children or those that were found in possession of child pornography?

 

[jack_hawkins]

I find it unnacceptable that Our children are being raped and killed by repeat offenders who CANNOT be rehabilitated. I don’t care what any Church in Canada says, or any book by Secular Social Scientists… It is not a matter of being judgemental it is a matter of looking at the truth and of our children that are being abused and killed by these men… These men are a danger to our children and need to be put away, I see nothing against scripture in that our chuldren need to be protected That is what Jesus would want us to do we are supposed to protect Our children. Your argument is Lame.

no, my argument is based on evidence - yours is based on emotion, hysteria and vengeance
your attitude is incompatible with the forgiveness of Christianity

 

[Michael_Howard]

I have a clarification question. Are we talking about sex offenders that have actually molested children or those that were found in possession of child pornography?

I’m not completely sure really, but the problem is not getting better it’s getting worse. It’s so bad that they are having to build seperate prisons for sex offenders just to house them all. These folks are not being rehabilitated, they have no opportunity to work, they are chased from town to town so of course they are probably going to re-offend because in their mind prison is much more tolerable. But a religious life under strict rule with severe consequences for attempting to leave may be an answer perhaps? I have not worked this out completely yet so forgive my lack of details, all I know is that what we are doing is not helping the problem, it’s getting worse.

 

[Nordar]

no, my argument is based on evidence - yours is based on emotion, hysteria and vengeance
your attitude is incompatible with the forgiveness of Christianity

First of all I am not arguing, and my statements are based on cold hard facts. No hysteria involved just the plain truth, no vengeance either. I did not say anything about forgiveing or not forgiving did I? what I said was that these men need to be put away so that they can no longer continue to hurt Our children.

I believe they are sick for what ever reason they cannot help what they do but they need to be protected from themselves and our children so put them away. We can certainly pray for them, vengeance has nothing to do with it.

 

[jack_hawkins]

First of all I am not arguing, and my statements are based on cold hard facts. No hysteria involved just the plain truth, no vengeance either. I did not say anything about forgiveing or not forgiving did I? what I said was that these men need to be put away so that they can no longer continue to hurt Our children.

I believe they are sick for what ever reason they cannot help what they do but they need to be protected from themselves and our children so put them away. We can certainly pray for them, vengeance has nothing to do with it.

well sorry but I saw no cold hard facts - it is something which I’ve done research on so I know that this idea that SOs can’t be rehabilitated is about 20 years out of date
I see a lot of polemic and demonising which just doesn’t fit with Christianity

 

[rayne100]

I’m not completely sure really, but the problem is not getting better it’s getting worse. It’s so bad that they are having to build seperate prisons for sex offenders just to house them all. These folks are not being rehabilitated, they have no opportunity to work, they are chased from town to town so of course they are probably going to re-offend because in their mind prison is much more tolerable. But a religious life under strict rule with severe consequences for attempting to leave may be an answer perhaps? I have not worked this out completely yet so forgive my lack of details, all I know is that what we are doing is not helping the problem, it’s getting worse.

Michael,
That is an interesting point. I agree that we are sort of in a catch 22 regarding this situation. Gut reaction is to protect yourself and your children from people like this (I say people becasue it is not just men who are guilty of these crimes), however by alienating and denegrating and harassing people like this, it serves against rehabilitation.
There has to be a way to continually monitor these people. If one is truly rehabilitated, then they should have no problem submitting to the monitoring.
The real question is whether or not these people can truly be rehabilitated. Some can and some cannot, there has to be some measure of finding this out.
A suggestion would be to try and determine this before the person is released from jail. Meaning that rather than letting the person sit and rot in a jail cell, we should be having them go to group sessions, private sessions and much much more.
Once the person is released from jail however, the monitoring should not stop. This person should be required to hand over to the athorities, all of their user names and passwords, or at the very least, there should be a law stating that the athorities have unlimeted access to their IP address information and can search and monitor all accounts by that person used online. This should cut down on the amount of internet issues that are happening or at least nip them in the bud before they go any further.

I’m sorry if i have gone on and on regarding this, but I have a unique situation (not myself but someone very close to me) that I am going through at the moment and it has really caught me in the middle of this situation.

 

[Nordar]

well sorry but I saw no cold hard facts - it is something which I’ve done research on so I know that this idea that SOs can’t be rehabilitated is about 20 years out of date
I see a lot of polemic and demonising which just doesn’t fit with Christianity

Right that is why the prisons are full of sex offenders, and why in my area alone there are so many of them ( these are repeat offenders) that they have them in trailers and don’t know where to put them. Because the idea is 20 yrs out of date right!:

OK tell you what. Let someone take the rehabilitated SO’s into their home to live with their children, see how that works out.

 

[jack_hawkins]

Right that is why the prisons are full of sex offenders, and why in my area alone there are so many of them ( these are repeat offenders) that they have them in trailers and don’t know where to put them. Because the idea is 20 yrs out of date right!:

OK tell you what. Let someone take the rehabilitated SO’s into their home to live with their children, see how that works out.

Like I say, I have done research on the topic - whereas you are repeating tabloid hysteria!!!
do you even know the repeat offending rate for SOs? compared to other offenders?

 

[Nordar]

Michael,
That is an interesting point. I agree that we are sort of in a catch 22 regarding this situation. Gut reaction is to protect yourself and your children from people like this (I say people becasue it is not just men who are guilty of these crimes), however by alienating and denegrating and harassing people like this, it serves against rehabilitation.
There has to be a way to continually monitor these people. If one is truly rehabilitated, then they should have no problem submitting to the monitoring.
The real question is whether or not these people can truly be rehabilitated. Some can and some cannot, there has to be some measure of finding this out.
A suggestion would be to try and determine this before the person is released from jail. Meaning that rather than letting the person sit and rot in a jail cell, we should be having them go to group sessions, private sessions and much much more.
Once the person is released from jail however, the monitoring should not stop. This person should be required to hand over to the athorities, all of their user names and passwords, or at the very least, there should be a law stating that the athorities have unlimeted access to their IP address information and can search and monitor all accounts by that person used online. This should cut down on the amount of internet issues that are happening or at least nip them in the bud before they go any further.

I’m sorry if i have gone on and on regarding this, but I have a unique situation (not myself but someone very close to me) that I am going through at the moment and it has really caught me in the middle of this situation.

Rayne you have brought up very many good points and a lot of what you have said they do. Where I live in the Jail here they do all that with the sex offenders. Group therapy, individual counseling while they are in jail. Monitoring when they are out of jail mandatory therapy out of jail. Like I said in a previous post at the moment some of them are in trailers they try to find housing for them, so they are not near schools etc. Still the repeat rate is high.

 

[rayne100]

Right that is why the prisons are full of sex offenders, and why in my area alone there are so many of them ( these are repeat offenders) that they have them in trailers and don’t know where to put them. Because the idea is 20 yrs out of date right!:

OK tell you what. Let someone take the rehabilitated SO’s into their home to live with their children, see how that works out.

Nobody is asking the public to invite sex offenders into their homes to live with them or even to converse with them.
The point is that some people can be rehabilitated and some cannot.
I am not disputing that there are repeat offenders, I am also not disputing that there are rehabilitated offenders that go on to live normal lives (as much as you can with that on your record).

I think the problem is that really no one knows what to do. but apply the logic to the rest of crime as well. If a person steals, can they not be rehabilitated? Some can and some cannot.
If a person murders, can they not be rehabilitated? Some can and some cannot.
We do not lock these people up for the rest of their lives and in most cases we certainly do not put them to death (depending on the nature of the murder charges).

The best thing that people can do is to educate their children on the dangers of talking to strangers, on looking for suspicious behavior, on what to do if a stranger or for that matter a family member or friend of the family touches you inappropriately, on what to do if someone tries to kidnap you.
Parents should be vigilant on their surroundings and of the surroundings of the children around them.

They should teach their children to avoid known sex offenders, not to antagonize them or harrass them. As we all know children can be very thoughtless and do stupid things. Rather than egg a sex offender on, they should be avoiding them.
Sometimes kids do some really stupid things and don’t think about the consequenses of their actions, after all they are only kids. But the point is, all of this can not hurt but only help to educate children on being aware of their sutrroundings and situations.
This in conjunction with monitoring of sex offenders by the state and the community, can certainly help to reduce the chances of repeat offenders.

 

[TimOliv]

Here’s an idea: what if sexual offenders who finished there sentence were forced to live out their existence in a monestary under strict observence? Trying to escape would result in an instant life sentence. They would be held accountable by other men and have a better chance of being redeemed. I know there are probably loopholes there, but what do you think?

So your solution is to cloister these men away from where they can do harm to children? Sounds like prison to me. In the case of priests, many priests have opted for something similar to this, consider it an exile, where they live a “supervised life of prayer and contemplation” either in a monastery or in an area where their order can pay extra close attention to them. This is decried as “shuffling” them off to avoid punishment.

If you went to a monastery and were told upon reaching it that you would never be permitted to leave otherwise you would go to jail, what would be your motivation to avoid jail? Especially since now you’re living with a whole bunch of sex offenders just like yourself anyway! You might as well get the free college that many of our prisons provide and take advantage of the weight room.

 

[Hellisreal]

Oh, the fact they would get free weight room or anything …

 

[mesquite_magic]

I am on the fence about this.

There is a sex offender living down the street from me. I was never informed by “the powers that be”. I was informed by a women who unknowingly rented the house next to him. For some reason she was given a flyer, while the rest of the neighborhood wasn’t. I have a home daycare, and I have six children to worry about. I looked this man up. He wasn’t convicted of child sexual abuse. He is only named as a sex offender. That doesn’t make me feel any better considering that I have two teenaged daughters to worry about.

On the other hand, someone can be accused of a sex crime just because he was 19 and the girl was 16. After getting out of jail he has to register as a sex offender. He isn’t a child molester, he was just an immature young man who got caught having sex with his underage girlfriend. For the rest of his life he will be known as a sex offender. Should he be in prison for the rest of his life?

As far as recieving Eurcharist, hmmm… maybe this guy has been absolved of his sin. What can we do about that? There are Priests and Eucharistic Ministers who go into the prisons just for that purpose. Don’t know that I should be the judge.

Walking down your street, living in your neighborhood, that is scarey. You have a right to be worried, for sure. Going to Mass and recieving Communion,I don’t know that he should be kept away. If he’s sitting in the front row, at least you can keep an eye on him.

Kim

 

[Hellisreal]

I am on the fence about this.

There is a sex offender living down the street from me. I was never informed by “the powers that be”. I was informed by a women who unknowingly rented the house next to him. For some reason she was given a flyer, while the rest of the neighborhood wasn’t. I have a home daycare, and I have six children to worry about. I looked this man up. He wasn’t convicted of child sexual abuse. He is only named as a sex offender. That doesn’t make me feel any better considering that I have two teenaged daughters to worry about.

On the other hand, someone can be accused of a sex crime just because he was 19 and the girl was 16. After getting out of jail he has to register as a sex offender. He isn’t a child molester, he was just an immature young man who got caught having sex with his underage girlfriend. For the rest of his life he will be known as a sex offender. Should he be in prison for the rest of his life?

As far as recieving Eurcharist, hmmm… maybe this guy has been absolved of his sin. What can we do about that? There are Priests and Eucharistic Ministers who go into the prisons just for that purpose. Don’t know that I should be the judge.

Walking down your street, living in your neighborhood, that is scarey. You have a right to be worried, for sure. Going to Mass and recieving Communion,I don’t know that he should be kept away. If he’s sitting in the front row, at least you can keep an eye on him.

Kim

Hello Kim!

Wow. I bet you are worried about that situation.

I know I cant make the call about his recieving the Eucharist. It seems to me that if he were truly trying to live a law abiding life, he could walk to Mass without even passing my house and avoid going out of his way 2 blocks just so he can pass the park that is smack in the middle of his alternate longer route. My husband has told the authorities he does this, the Priests, ect. But its usless, he could go the quickest route from his home but then he would miss out on the park and the numerous families with little kids on the 3 block stretch from where he turns onto my block and passses the park and gets to mass. So to me, I feel he is still casing kids. Why go out of your way if you have a problem to see them when you dont have to see so many going the Faster way?
I constantly check the internet for updates on offenders in my neighborhood. Yes, I tell my fellow neighbors about the updates to keep them alert!

I dont know why he does this unless to provoke parents.

 

[whatevergirl]

I find it unnacceptable that Our children are being raped and killed by repeat offenders who CANNOT be rehabilitated. I don’t care what any Church in Canada says, or any book by Secular Social Scientists… It is not a matter of being judgemental it is a matter of looking at the truth and of our children that are being abused and killed by these men… These men are a danger to our children and need to be put away, I see nothing against scripture in that our chuldren need to be protected That is what Jesus would want us to do we are supposed to protect Our children. Your argument is Lame.

Great post.