It's hard for me to fathom the mind set of these sick people. They have to be mentally ill. Prison won't change those sick types' brains. What do you do with them when they are caught? In my eyes, if they go to prison they will do it again after getting out. Should they be institutionalized in mental facilities or prison forever? 400,000 members on one site is really disturbing. Dark web child abuse image site with 400,000 members taken down in global police sting The three main suspects are accused of founding and maintaining the site, as well as giving members advice on how to avoid arrest, German police said. The site was structured so to allow easy retrieval of images and video of "the most serious sexual abuse of young children," police said. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/dark-web-child-abuse-image-site-400-000-members-taken-n1266108
Crimes of compulsion are difficult, complex things to parse. Nobody chooses what their sexual attractions are. I can't remember the exact stat, but a shockingly large number of people who are sexually assaulted/abused as children go on to perpetrate the same crimes later on in life, so, wrap your head around that moral/justice pickle. It does seem like the only humane thing to do is institutionalize and rehabilitate them, not that I think we have figured out how to do that yet, but of all the heinous crimes people commit, this one is particularly cruel in that the perpetrators look to be suffering a lot too. It's easy to just say bury them and move on (look at the posts in this thread already), but that's not really dealing with the problem beyond an ape like SMASH level of thinking.
A child's innocence is sacrosanct and should be protected at all costs. Willpower is one of the main things that separates us from most animals. In fact, you can train some animals to not eat food sitting right in front of them. People can and do quit terrible behavior with one decision. If you're sick, recognize it and get help, or put a bullet in your own head.
If they're choosing to enjoy child molestation I don't think it will work. It's in their head, not their junk.
I agree that it's a sickness. I don't think castration will stop them from finding other ways to molest and abuse kids. Their brains are wired differently. Will a lobotomy work? Who knows. Do you just kill them like rabid animals? What they are doing is beyond disturbing, but do you kill the mentally ill or lock them up without a key? I'm torn really, but part of me says just terminate these animals.
You're already acknowledging that we need to offer them a chance to get help, so that's progress over SMASH I suppose. However, we have a fundamental disagreement or misunderstanding about willpower and what a crime of compulsion is. If I believed that people could simply "willpower" their way out of being sexually attracted to children (mind you that also heavily implies that they "chose" to be sexually attracted to kids), then I'd probably think they should all just be taken out and shot too.
Some solutions are as simple as a hammer. Not saying this is one of them, but Occam's razor. I'm not saying they willpower their way out of mental illness. But they can willpower not giving in to compulsions.
"Just terminating these animals" becomes a fairly twisted line of thinking when you realize that these people had no choice in the matter. It's like saying we should exterminate people with depression. That attitude also leads to people not coming forward to seek help, so it creates a self-perpetuating cycle. Edit: One important caveat here is that there are people who are not compulsively attracted to children, but rather prey on children because a child represents an easy target. I do not include these people in any of my posts.
No comparison in people sexually abusing small infants and children to people with depression. I do agree they are both mental problems though, and it's twisted to say exterminate the child torturers.
How about isolating themselves from children? It's not that hard to do. There are examples of tremendous willpower overcoming personal adversity throughout history.
Compulsion, by definition, implies an internal force/impulse which cannot be resisted. Your statement that the force is "resisted" by necessity means it is not compulsion. We can get into the morass that is whether or not these people can be rehabilitated from such a state, but for purposes of this discussion it's important that we agree on what compulsion actually is.
Which approach is potentially more harmful to children, your approach of understanding and compassion or the approach of excluding them from society and not caring how they became what they are or what they may be suffering?
Good thoughts. I am not one to immediately jump to lynching a person because I disagree with their belief or crime. Personally I am very protective of children against predator's and I absolutely feel we should remove people from society who can not resist their compulsion. I also believe its just as important to rehabilitate and better understand the compulsion. Its not necessarily and all or nothing as this type of behavior (nature vs nurture) can gradually grow to an out of control situation. Its important we reach people and get them help before they violate a child. There is very little help out there for people who cross the line of child pedophilia behind a screen.
