Mike and Joel,

If you are talking about the guy I gave the book review of, no, he definitesly was not csa'd as a child. He received treatment in prison. He had full understanding of what he was doing. He did have a conscience. He was not a sociopath or psychopath.

Allen = pufferfish

I think he was referring to the young man I mentioned. I couldn't say whether he was or wasn't. He never spoke about it.

Jacob,

I know from presonal experience that children who suffer abuse whether it be sexual,physical,emotional,or neglect will cope to things that they did not do. Just because they feel guilty from the abuse that they suffered. As if their abuse was their fault and so is everything else.

Having to deal with the foster care system here in Calfinoria.
I feel sorry for any kid that gets caught up in that system.
Sometimes it is harder to tell which is worse the foster system or their family of orgin.

As for offenders I do not hold out much hope in many of them truely changing.
My perp is eighty years old and I know that he was offending up until the time he was placed in prison in his seventies.

Mike

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Mike,

I think that some offenders can change. Some certainly want to and make the effort to, so I think it's possible. If offenders can't change their behavior despite the way they think, then what does that say about other criminals? What does it say about us? I think if people look for the best solutions rather than the most punitive solutions, try to help them rather than punish them via treatment, then maybe some headway can be made.

When we say nothing can be done, we're in effect saying its not worth the effort to try preventing the abuse from happening in the first place. I think sexual abuse is preventable, so I have to think that sex offenders can be helped.

Jacob,

Man I owe you an apology. I've been so busy trying to score points off you that I neglected the most important thing of all. It's a pleasure to meet you and I hope we can be friends. May we be mutual support for one anothor as we journey on the road to recovery.

Jacob, I've thouroughly enjoyed our little debate today and I sure am looking forward to the next one. It is most enjoyable to me to exchange ideas with an intelligent, if a little opinionated guy and when it remains within the realm of mutual respect of each others differences, I find it all great fun as well as informative and enlightening.

Your new friend

I don't see how it can say anything about us. We are not even in the same catagory as them. Everybody has faults but it is up to each individual to manage themselves especially when it deals with destroying the life of someone else.


Anything that reinforces their wrong is called punishment. Really... how hard is it to understand that it is unacceptable to hurt a kid? It takes so much damn effort for them to do what they do, most of them are not stupid. They are a breed of their own and are just plain human predators. There are no do overs, once is not tolarable.... we are the aftermath and our numbers grow daily. If someone has even a thought that gives chance to them eventually hurting a kid they should go seek help and take every step to protect children from even themselves. I'd say that very few have even attempted to seek help voluntarily.


There is very little directions in how to go about really helping them, non of which cater to tolarance. If you use the average addict as a model. Treatment relies on first detox, then education and at no time are they supposed to be reintroduced to their vice for risk of relapse. How would you deal with detox to pedophiles? Remove the presence of children from their life. After that? Educate them. At no time do you release them back to their prey, there is no relapse for them.

Here in Australia there is a prison with an offender rehabilitation program. I saw a documentary on it. It’s a voluntary program I think and the way to get into the program is to admit that you offended and want help. The next stage is to acknowledge the damage that you have done in full. I think that is right and I can’t remember the rest. I was impressed by the fact that the men in the documentary were fully visible, not blurred faces and they admitted they were predators. Then talked of the pain and suffering they were responsible for. They showed what I perceived as genuine remorse and did not minimize their role in their offending or offer excuses. I am hoping that this program works. I was impressed.
Dusty

I really don't want to reignite the debate we get around here from time to time about who or what are pedophiles and are they treatable. I just want to clarify a couple of things as a professional who has worked with sexual abusers (juvenile and adult) for 30 years.

The term "pedophile" is a diagnostic term that in reality does not apply to the vast majority of sexual abusers. Yes, there are pedophiles who are not likely to respond to treatment and when caught, they tend to get sent to civil commitment programs after their prison sentences are up. They are pretty dangerous individuals but they represent a small number of the sexual abusers out there, whether caught or not. The fact that an individual sexually abuses a child does not make him automatically a pedophile.

Secondly, the use of aversive conditioning has been pretty much abandoned in the sexual abuser treatment field. The trend for the past few years has been a combination of relapse prevention, empathy work, correcting distorted belief systems and a focus on having a better life that does not include abusing others ("Good Lives Model").

I don't mean to suggest cutting this discussion off, but past experience indicates it will get a bit testy/nasty and people will be polarized into "lock 'em up forever/cut off their nuts" vs. "treatment can work".

Bottom line is that people are operating out of opinion rather than research based facts. If you want to cite legitimate professional journals for articles that support your position one way or another, that's fine. Just remember that we all have opinions and they don't need to be clarified by research to be our opinions.

Ken,

You sound like just the kind of guy that I would love to sit down with for about a week and just debate this subject - and I mean this in the nicest and most respectfull way possible.

While I'm not a diploma carrying professional, twenty + years of personal research into all the aspects of why males abuse does make me an expert. Wow, could you and I ever have some serious fun at this.

Have a good day, Ken.