Why are there so many pedophiles?

[Euromutt]

It *might* just be time to find some new friends...

I'd laugh if it weren't all rather serious. And frankly, there's nothing to change your perspective on an aspect of the criminal justice system as to have someone you care about fall afoul of it.

Neither of my friends are bad people. They made mistakes, but I'm not convinced that those mistakes merit prison sentences, especially since I know nobody was actually hurt. In the case of one of the two, there was no actual minor involved, or a sexual encounter, just a cop from the next country posing as a 13 year-old in an internet chat room. But in both cases, these guys pleaded guilty because their lawyers advised them that sex offenses involving minors (even fictitious ones) are such emotional topics that going to trial was a no-hope proposition. And frankly, some of the attitudes encountered in this thread bear out that hypothesis.

Does it really serve society to brand these guys as ex-convicts and sex offenders for the foreseeable future? The nasty thing is that the other guy could have bargained for a suspended sentence if he had paid for a course of state-mandated psychotherapy out of his own pocket, but because he didn't have the money for it, he had to go to prison. Around the same time, a local city councilman who pleaded guilty to a more serious offense managed to wangle just that, because he could afford the treatment. Sounds like class justice to me. And as it is, my friend will hopefully receive the same therapy at the state's expense in prison, so it's not like the state is saving money by incarcerating him.

 

[JWideman]

A broadening of the laws and their application. 18 year old guy with a 17 year old girlfriend? Nobody would waste their time with such a case. Now they want to put kids on the sex offender list for taking pictures of themselves.

 

[Praktik]

A broadening of the laws and their application. 18 year old guy with a 17 year old girlfriend? Nobody would waste their time with such a case. Now they want to put kids on the sex offender list for taking pictures of themselves.

Ya - isn't that just plain dumb?

Kid branded for life for "distributing child pornography" (ie, distributing pictures of himself or his girlfriend).

If there's ever a perfect example of why there needs to be judicial discretion and an end to blanket rules about sentencing then that is it.

Someone shoulda stepped in and said "We're bat-◊◊◊◊ crazy to be prosecuting this kid for child porn"

 

[pgwenthold]

I don't necessarily like babies or small children, but for some odd reason they absolutely love me. Always have.

Kids like pretty much anyone that makes eye-contact with them. You say you don't necessarily like babies, but if you give them any attention, they will respond.

 

[fuelair]

I don't necessarily like babies or small children, but for some odd reason they absolutely love me. Always have.

Think cats with no fur.

 

[garcia<3]

Most men (at least in my experience) DO NOT find babies especially cute, unless they think it's their baby. I find them annoying when they cry and of no interest at all otherwise. (I'm apt to go gogoo over puppies though. Could be a wiring fault).
Can't speak for women, but I've watched men and women on trains when someone comes on with a baby. The women- even pre-pubescent girls- tend to smile at the baby. Most men don't.

Dunno how typical this is. Anyone?

I'm a girl and I find puppies and kittens way cuter than human babies

I only smile at a baby if it smiles at me.

 

[fuelair]

It's good to look at/smile at/ wave to small people - let's them see they are noticed. Helps them be social/learn social.

 

[Dancing David]

Neither of my friends are bad people. They made mistakes, but I'm not convinced that those mistakes merit prison sentences, especially since I know nobody was actually hurt. In the case of one of the two, there was no actual minor involved, or a sexual encounter, just a cop from the next country posing as a 13 year-old in an internet chat room. But in both cases, these guys pleaded guilty because their lawyers advised them that sex offenses involving minors (even fictitious ones) are such emotional topics that going to trial was a no-hope proposition. And frankly, some of the attitudes encountered in this thread bear out that hypothesis.

Excuse me, but for your friends to be charged they had to do a number of things:

1. The person calimed to be a thirteen year old.

2. The other person discussed having sex with them and tried to arrange a meeting.

So regardless of 'if a crime occured', the people you are aquainted with made arrangements to have a sexual encounter with an underage minor.

It is not a defense to say 'no crime occured', because a crime did occur, they arranged to have a sexual encounter with someone they beleived was a thirteen year old.

I imagine but do not know that they even made physical choices to demonstrate that they were going to drive or arrive at this encounter even.

Now the issue is 'was it entrapment'?

Did the person acting as the thirteen year old start the conversations about sex, did they initiate the idea of having sex, did they initiate the meeting?

Sorry but your friends broke the law, you can have sex with a wide variety of adult men and women in all sorts of ways, they were ignorant and foolish to do what they did.

But the issue is not one of 'emotions', courts are about the facts:

1. Did these people believe that the person was thirteen?

2. Did they initiate discussions abot sex?

3. Did they initiate and arrange to have a meeting to engage in sex?

4. Did they engage in behaviors which demonstrated an intenet, willingness and choices to make the meeting and engage in sex?

You can argue that this is a 'no victim' crime, except for the fact that they could have been talking to a real thirteen year old.

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

With a nod to Magyar for entertaining levels of ridiculous, it's interesting (in a sad way) to note that there are a substantial number of female adults who abuse male or female children as well. The difference in response seems to be the largest reason why this type of abuse is so rarely reported.

When a 25 year old man has sex with a 15 year old girl, most everyone thinks he is slime, regardless of whether the girl consented. (I realize that her consent isn't worth anything legally, but it matters for the girl involved, to be sure.) I agree that it would be a rare sort of couple formed this way in which the man wasn't taking advantage of the girl and I totally support the prosecution of the man.

When a 25 year old woman has sex with a 15 year old boy, most people react by wondering what the woman was thinking and congratulating the boy. In rare cases, it is prosecuted, but not usually. Again, it would be a rare sort of couple where the relationship was sound and I support the prosecution of the woman.

A female is the perpetrator in 1/4 of reported sexual abuse cases, but it is almost always assumed that a pedophile is a man. There is also evidence that boys underreport abuse by females, so that number is likely higher. Here's a link to a 1997 US government statistics compilation showing the data for that year. The table is a bit messed up, but if you shift the first and second numerical columns left 1, it makes sense.

I've got no history in this, nor have I any particular inclinations of sympathy toward the perpetrators of either sex; I've just always wondered why it's so badly underreported... It seems like moms sexually abusing their kids would be so much more outrageous and "news worthy" than dads, but you just don't see it.

Two things: no man in the universe wants to admit to anyone else that he's been raped, by a man or a woman, but especially by a woman because that's a humiliation like admitting to being beat up by a girl, and boys might be less damaged by sex with an older woman than girls are with an older man.

When the teacher in Florida was arrested, comedian Bill Maher called for her release every week. "When a man has sex with a teenage girl, that's a crime. When a teacher has sex with a 13-year-old, it's a crime it's not on videotape!". "A 25-year-old man with a 14-year-old girl can cause a lot of damage. A 25-year-old woman with a 14-year-old boy can only raise his self esteem!". "I'd have done her when I was a kid. I'd do her now in a second!".

I don't know whether the boys the teachers were sleeping with were damaged or not or whether it was rape or not or how it compares to a man sleeping with a boy or a man sleeping with a girl but I know one thing: there has to be something wrong with an adult woman who would even want to do that. You look at Mary Kay and the LaFave woman and you think, why? Beautiful and intelligent women who could very easily get a handsome man their own age and they go for some hairless skinny idiot kid? You have to be really screwed up.

I was too old for 13-year-old boys when I was 13. I'll bet you the girls in that class were ignoring that boy.

 

[Euromutt]

It is not a defense to say 'no crime occured', because a crime did occur, they arranged to have a sexual encounter with someone they beleived was a thirteen year old.

I didn't say that no crime occurred; I said nobody was hurt as a result. I also don't know whether or not my friend believed the other party was actually 13.

I imagine but do not know that they even made physical choices to demonstrate that they were going to drive or arrive at this encounter even.

There's no way to tell. My friend was arrested before he arrived at the arranged rendez-vous point, which was admittedly in a town that is a fair distance from where he lives and works, but is also the place he went to college, and he still has friends living there, so he could have had a legitimate reason to be there.

Now the issue is 'was it entrapment'?

Did the person acting as the thirteen year old start the conversations about sex, did they initiate the idea of having sex, did they initiate the meeting?

I have no way to know. Since there was no trial, the transcript of the internet conversation was not made public. I do know that the police department that conducted the sting had been trained in this within the previous three months, so the cop pretending to be a 13 year-old would very likely have been new to this type of operation.

Sorry but your friends broke the law, [...], they were ignorant and foolish to do what they did.

I don't deny that, nor is that the thrust of my argument. What I'm questioning is whether it serves society, or them, to incarcerate them and brand them for life as convicted felons and sex offenders when any actual harm they might have gone on to do might have been averted with, say, a suspended sentence and a course of state-mandated psychotherapy.

To compare, under Washington state law, "communicating with a minor (or a person believed to be a minor) for immoral purposes" is a class C felony if it is done "through the sending of an electronic communication," whereas driving under the influence is a gross misdemeanor. Who do you think is more of a menace to the general public? In 2006, motor vehicle collisions involving a driver with a BAC of 0.08% or higher killed 13,470 people in the US. Hard statistics on internet-initiated sex offenses are hard to find, but this is from an article published in American Psychologist about a year ago:

There were an estimated 6,594 arrests nationwide for statutory rape in 2000 (Troup-Leasure & Snyder, 2005). During about the same time period (July 1, 2000, to June 30, 2001) federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies made an estimated 500 arrests for Internet-initiated sex crimes, 95% of which were nonforcible (Wolak et al., 2003a, 2004). If these Internet-initiated sex crimes were counted among the 6,594 arrests for statutory rape, which they may have been, Internet-initiated sex crimes would have accounted for approximately 7% of all statutory rapes. This proportion of arrests may have grown since 2000 as Internet use has become more widespread and more law enforcement agencies have been trained to respond to Internet-related crimes. In the context of general sex crime risk, however, these numbers suggest that Internet-initiated sex crimes account for a salient but small proportion of statutory rape offenses and a relatively low number of the sexual offenses committed against minors overall.

The article also notes that "internet predators" very rarely assault or abduct their victims.

So why do we treat e-mailing a minor "for immoral purposes" as a more serious offense than drunk-driving?

Moreover, in the general context of this thread, it's worth noting that the article also point out the following:

An important fact that supports caution in speculating about how the Internet has facilitated child molestation is that several sex crime and abuse indicators have shown marked declines during the same period that Internet use has been expanding. From 1990 to 2005, the number of sex abuse cases substantiated by child protective authorities declined 51%, along with other related indicators (Finkelhor, in press; Finkelhor & Jones, 2006). For
example, the rate of sexual assaults reported by teenagers to the National Crime Victimization Survey declined by 52% between 1993 and 2005.

So evidently, it's not that sexual offenses against minors are on the rise; if anything, the opposite appears to be the case. What is on the rise is the coverage given to such incidents.

 

[Dancing David]

I didn't say that no crime occurred; I said nobody was hurt as a result. I also don't know whether or not my friend believed the other party was actually 13.

Sorry, for them to have been charged, it would have been a given. Otherwise they would have sqid so and been able to provide thier own copies of the internet transactions.

There's no way to tell. My friend was arrested before he arrived at the arranged rendez-vous point, which was admittedly in a town that is a fair distance from where he lives and works, but is also the place he went to college, and he still has friends living there, so he could have had a legitimate reason to be there.

Actions considered may also be setting an assignation time and location and then confirming it. To show intent is about that simple, especially if the 'alleged minor' requests a special item that the person has purchased. IE Mountain Dew Red and a Tiger Beat magazine.

I have no way to know. Since there was no trial, the transcript of the internet conversation was not made public.

No but your friends had access to it.

I do know that the police department that conducted the sting had been trained in this within the previous three months, so the cop pretending to be a 13 year-old would very likely have been new to this type of operation.

And closer to the training the more likely to follow the scripted protocol and procedure.

I don't deny that, nor is that the thrust of my argument. What I'm questioning is whether it serves society, or them, to incarcerate them and brand them for life as convicted felons and sex offenders when any actual harm they might have gone on to do might have been averted with, say, a suspended sentence and a course of state-mandated psychotherapy.

Now yes, i agree, that perhaps there should be gradiations of sex offender and time limits on some labels. But it does serve society, as defined by legistaltion.

To compare, under Washington state law, "communicating with a minor (or a person believed to be a minor) for immoral purposes" is a class C felony if it is done "through the sending of an electronic communication," whereas driving under the influence is a gross misdemeanor.

i agree DUI should be prosecuted more harshley, that does not change the fact thats ome people knowlingly commit criminal acts, especially after that TV show "To catch a Predator". there are plenty of adults, available and willing.

Who do you think is more of a menace to the general public? In 2006, motor vehicle collisions involving a driver with a BAC of 0.08% or higher killed 13,470 people in the US. Hard statistics on internet-initiated sex offenses are hard to find, but this is from an article published in American Psychologist about a year ago:The article also notes that "internet predators" very rarely assault or abduct their victims.

So why do we treat e-mailing a minor "for immoral purposes" as a more serious offense than drunk-driving?

Moreover, in the general context of this thread, it's worth noting that the article also point out the following:So evidently, it's not that sexual offenses against minors are on the rise; if anything, the opposite appears to be the case. What is on the rise is the coverage given to such incidents.

This will take more time to respond to than i have currently.

later.

I am not sure of the sampling technique and will have to examine, it is imporatant to consider the proportion of charges vs. convictions, and the 'may have' is not a good thing.

 

[pgwenthold]

i agree DUI should be prosecuted more harshley, that does not change the fact thats ome people knowlingly commit criminal acts, especially after that TV show "To catch a Predator". there are plenty of adults, available and willing.

I have a hard time expressing myself in this. What I end up saying is something like, "The sad part of this is that these idiots somehow think there really are these 13 year old girls out there who are so desperate to have sex with someone that they are willing to hook up with some random person off the internet, and want to see pictures of his penis that he took with his camera. And it just happens to be you. Oh, and bring a 6 pack of beer."

I don't like saying this, though, because that isn't really the saddest part of the whole, which is their actually actions, but I never know how to convey it clearly. Not only are they creeps, but they are really, really stupid creeps. Come on, how can any marginally thinking person in this day and age have some supposed 13 year old invite them over for sex and not immediately think it is a sting?

 

[slingblade]

I'd laugh if it weren't all rather serious. And frankly, there's nothing to change your perspective on an aspect of the criminal justice system as to have someone you care about fall afoul of it.

And there's nothing quite like having been repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child to give you yet another perspective on this.

Spoken to any? I happen to know one.

Neither of my friends are bad people. They made mistakes, but I'm not convinced that those mistakes merit prison sentences, especially since I know nobody was actually hurt.

This time. You know nothing about other times. You have no idea if there are kids out there, right now, trying to deal with what one or both of these friends did.

You said it was a first offense for them both. That only means it was the first time they got caught. You've no idea how many other incidents there may have been for which they were not caught.

In the case of one of the two, there was no actual minor involved, or a sexual encounter, just a cop from the next country posing as a 13 year-old in an internet chat room.

I wonder...if somehow the police used an actual 13-year-old to do the same thing, would it make some difference?

I've heard this a lot, this "but it wasn't really a kid, and no one was really hurt!" And I'm usually the one who sees the point of view of the underdog, the misunderstood, the unfairly maligned.

I'm afraid that I can't really see it here. Maybe because of my personal stake in the issue.

A man who is told the person he's propositioning is 13 should be running the other way as fast as he can. It doesn't matter who is actually on the other side of the monitor, if the man (or woman) is told, "I'm 13." The first response is supposed to be, "Oh, no way, kid! I thought you were an adult; you're way too young for me to be talking to you like this."

Period.

You get me? Pe-ri-od.

But in both cases, these guys pleaded guilty because their lawyers advised them that sex offenses involving minors (even fictitious ones) are such emotional topics that going to trial was a no-hope proposition. And frankly, some of the attitudes encountered in this thread bear out that hypothesis.

Gee, I can't imagine why.

Does it really serve society to brand these guys as ex-convicts and sex offenders for the foreseeable future?

If what happened to your friends keeps them from ever considering a 13-year-old as a viable sex partner again, then I'd have to say yes.

The nasty thing is that the other guy could have bargained for a suspended sentence if he had paid for a course of state-mandated psychotherapy out of his own pocket, but because he didn't have the money for it, he had to go to prison. Around the same time, a local city councilman who pleaded guilty to a more serious offense managed to wangle just that, because he could afford the treatment. Sounds like class justice to me. And as it is, my friend will hopefully receive the same therapy at the state's expense in prison, so it's not like the state is saving money by incarcerating him.

No one's ever offered me any therapy.

 

[Dancing David]

I know one as well.

(And I like fishsticks.)
(But I am not gay.)

 

[Dancing David]

Euromutt, I read the start of the article but did not read the part about stautory rape and the influence.

I regret to tell you that teh article does not make your point at all!

The issue of 'non-forcible' is just a non starter, yes if the person who commits the crime is three or less years older than the victim, then i would not want it counted as statutory rape, but you ignorre an imporatant fact.

Non-forcible sex witha minor (especially outside of the three year rule) is still a crime, even if it is not forcible rape.

Can a thriteen year girl old give informed consent to have sex with a thrity year old man?

(No she can not.) In Illinois they would not charge stautory rape, they would charge an offense that involves sex with a minor.

So what was your point?

 

[slingblade]

I know one as well.

(And I like fishsticks.)
(But I am not gay.)

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

I have a hard time expressing myself in this. What I end up saying is something like, "The sad part of this is that these idiots somehow think there really are these 13 year old girls out there who are so desperate to have sex with someone that they are willing to hook up with some random person off the internet, and want to see pictures of his penis that he took with his camera. And it just happens to be you. Oh, and bring a 6 pack of beer."

I don't like saying this, though, because that isn't really the saddest part of the whole, which is their actually actions, but I never know how to convey it clearly. Not only are they creeps, but they are really, really stupid creeps. Come on, how can any marginally thinking person in this day and age have some supposed 13 year old invite them over for sex and not immediately think it is a sting?

Three things. Just about every man on Earth seems to think he is irresistible and is perfectly willing to believe that strange women will want to sleep with him, whether he is a pedophile or not. Two, they are desperate for you know what and not thinking with their heads. Three, most pedophiles are actually very smart and don't do that.

Most pedophiles target children they know, be it their own children, nieces/nephews, grandchildren, family friends, neighbors, students, parishioners, charges they babysit, etc.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Can a thriteen year girl old give informed consent to have sex with a thrity year old man?

But she could be charged as an adult and put in prison were she to shoot him in the head because he refused to have sex with her.

 

[bigred]

Three things. Just about every man on Earth seems to think he is irresistible and is perfectly willing to believe that strange women will want to sleep with him, whether he is a pedophile or not. Two, they are desperate for you know what and not thinking with their heads.

Three, lol @ the severe idiocy of this statement. Do you think all blondes are stupid, all Irish are drunks (etc)?

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Anecdotally- guys can be very vain. And often "hit on" women way, way out of their league. Women that you are amazed they would even think about trying with.

That's my theory why the "To Catch a Predator" victims would believe a stunning 13-year-old would want to have sex with them.

I could be wrong. Maybe they just aren't very smart. Or just aren't suspicious by nature. Or haven't heard of stings.