How do you effectively rehabilitate a Sex Offender or Abuser to re-enter society?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gwennie B
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Gwennie B

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Brilliant question, and I agree wholeheartedly. In a time when there is so much sympathy for almost every other type of criminal or the sick, there are people who have no problem saying sex abusers should be tortured to death, and that scares me, a lot.

I always feel like I have to push through walls of fear and hyperbole whenever I consider the issue.
 
This is a hysteria, provocative laden question. So feel free to disagree but atleast be civil.

Is absolutism regarding one time offenders, the "once an abuser or offender always an abuser or offender" the norm?

I can understand vigilance with public registries but when it borders on hysteria is when I get a bit skeptical about the rationality of some people who are too busy obsessing over shows like "To catch a Predator" where the threshold of vigilance and hysteria are basically sensationalized into a blur of pseudo-awareness and obsession kicks in.

Obviously after doing their time the offender or abuser has to want to get treatment ie anger management sessions, etc. But the general public doesn't really care about that..they want boogiemen and pariahs to lash out at.

So here's the real kicker...

When does the public reinforcement of the label and the continued ostracizing facilitate futility for said abuser or offender to effectively rehabilitate, that they decide that this is all they are and they commit an offense again because the general public who has access to these registries, has totalized them and made it their issue to harass them to the point where they can't re-enter society.

Or is it easier to just give these offenders and abusers a gun with a single bullet and locking the door saying "You know what to do" because of the American Public's thirst for blood IE justice?

Is public access to these registries a double edged sword?
Should they really be only accessible to law enforcement?
Would hysteria and paranoia claim you if you found out one of these types of people were living in your vicinity?
What would you do?

NOTE: This is more of a anti-hysteria question than a ...Pro-Sex Offender, Abuser Rehabilitation question for all you folks out there who like to jump to conclusions. /wink

debate away
Don't worry Gwennie, I felt the same way writing the question trying to phrase it so I wouldn't need to bring out my vitriol umbrella. ;)
 
In my humble opinion, when the victim of a crime is a minor and the perpetrator an adult (particularly paedophilic crime), society has such a low tolerance for this sort of thing that there society wishes to keep the bar really high lest the offender repeats the offense only with another child. The forgiving part of me says that this isn't really fair, but the pragmatic side says there are certain crimes for which this is no adequate rehabilitation, and to date there's really nothing hard in the medical literature that says that rehabilitation of the sex offender is possible without encroaching upon his or her other rights. I don't think rehabilitation is possible and such is the penantly that sex offenders must pay.

Having said that, I strongly feel that these cases be evaluated individually. Clearly if it a cases of a 17 and 15 y.o. who eventually get married, then this doesn't fall in the same category as a pathological child predator and should be treated the same way. So in short, these should be treated on a case by case basis, but where hardcore child sex offenders are involved, I don't think that rehabilitation is a reasonable nor achievable goal, regrettably.
 
Brilliant question, and I agree wholeheartedly. In a time when there is so much sympathy for almost every other type of criminal or the sick, there are people who have no problem saying sex abusers should be tortured to death, and that scares me, a lot.

I always feel like I have to push through walls of fear and hyperbole whenever I consider the issue.
 
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