posted on Mar, 23 2006 @ 03:07 AM
They say that pedophiles are "sick". Almost every post replying to this thread have called these individuals "sick". So, I would suppose that I
would be safe to say that these individuals are, indeed "sick". Who could argue this point?
Now what sort of sickness do these people have? Too much testosterone? I don't know. If that were the case, chemical castration using a drug
called depo-provera would eliminate the capability and the physical desire to have sex. But that is not the case. As was mentioned in an earlier
post on this thread, these pedophiles would still have an urge to molest, fondle or whatever it is that satisfies their psyche. This is the point
that I am making. Pedophilia is not a sexual act per se. It is a form of psychological illness. It is an overwhelming compulsion to control,
dominate, or express some sort of twisted and distorted aspect of what they would call "love".
You could incarcerate such individuals for twenty years and they would still have this compulsion, this obsession, to violate children. You could
castrate them and they would still feel some sort of psychological need to use children to fulfill their own psychological need and desire -- often
distorting their actions as something that is loving or something that the child him or herself desires. In other words, these individuals will do
this regardless of the consequences.
There does not seem to be any successful treatment for this sickness, compulsion, deviancy, perversion or psychological disorder or maladjustment.
The recidivism rate for pedophilia is overwhelming.
What are we to do? What can we do with these individuals while still protecting our children? Personally, I would have no compunction against
putting these individuals to death. Some deep rooted, innate sense finds such behavior abhorrent and intolerable. Even if there was a successful
treatment for pedophiles, I would still desire retribution -- death -- against these individuals.
Nevertheless, I have to question whether it is just to execute a person who has, as many would seem to agree, a mental illness?
Again I have to ask, what are we to do with such individuals?
We send rapists to jail and, when released, they often re-offend. Voyeurs, a far less serious crime is also punished by jail or psychological
treatment and they too re-offend at a high rate. In fact, it would seem that many acts that are sexual in nature but also have an aspect of
psychological deviancy or compulsion all have a high recidivism rate regardless of imprisonment or psychological therapy. These people, it would
seem, have such socially repugnant behaviors "hard-wired" into their psyches.
What are we as a just society to do with such individuals?
We could execute them....but does that not raise the issue of executing the mentally ill?
We could imprison them but our prison system is based upon the concept of rehabilitation. Yet, we are dealing with the incorrigible, people whose
psychological state compels them to perform such heinous acts. Imprisonment or psychological treatment fails, time and time again, to rehabilitate or
treat these individuals to the point that they could be trusted to re-enter society.
Again, I ask, what are we to do with such individuals?
We could execute them while ignoring the psychologically imbalanced nature of their actions. We could imprison them without satisfactory assurance
that they will ever be rehabilitated. We could confine them to mental institutions where, again we, as a society, do not have the assurance that the
pedophile would not repeat their "sick" actions upon another child when they are released after having completed "treatment".
I find that this topic has opened a moral and ethical quagmire or morass that raises issues that can only be called disturbing, to say the least. It
is a question that points at the myriad of psycho-sexual disturbances that plague our entire society. From the torment of the sex addict who
feverishly scans the world wide web to gaze at endless numbers of nude bodies to the questions of how there could possibly be so many people who are
willing to sell their souls, their dignity and self esteem by performing sexual acts for a dollar. We have prepubescent girls imitating pop stars
like Britanny Spears and the Christina Aguileras of the world and the parents who allow it in the name of fashion and social trends -- the breeding
ground of a sexually inflamed society.
What are we to do?
I don't know. I don't have the answers. Except that I know that if I were raising an animal and the animal went "bad", that is, became vicious,
I'd put it down. Perhaps these are questions that future generations will have to answer when they have solved the riddle of these tortured minds,
until then, I have to say, for the good of the community, the society, we have to put these human beings gone bad down. That's my answer. But I
still have questions.