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That runs up against my perpetual problem with capital punishment. If you wrongfully convict & execute some people (which is a mathematical certainty), you can never fix that. With life imprisonment they've always got the chance of exoneration.

Meh, as I said before, I think the argument against Capital Punishment is valid. I disagree, but I understand the points you make.

In the instance of actively supporting raping babies, however, I'm likely not entirely sane on the matter.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:It is the lack of harsh sentences that perpetrates these terrible things.

This just one more of your political opinions that sit in direct contrast with reality. Seriously, these things are studied and the results show the same things constantly - greater punishments do not impact the crime rate, particularly not with sex related crime.

Seriously, have you never read or looked into the issue at all? If not, why not? Why did you think it would just be enough to say 'well I think there'd be less crime if we were harsher to the victims, so I'm just going to assume it is true'.

I think he wants to be harsher to the perps, not the victims.

I don't see what purpose torture would fulfill, unless you wish to show that you are little better than they are.

They’re sick, remove them from society.

They may be animals but we are not, no need to bring ourselves down to the level of beasts to deal with one.

They’re sick, remove them from society.

And whats the most cost effective way to keep them away from society?

The best option is life imprisonment without parole, and dedicated study by behavioral psychologists to try to figure these folks out and whether there is any way to "fix" them.

I can tell a poncy behaviourist quack isn't going to get very far. There is NO way to fix these people otherwise we'd have figured even the slightest bit out already. (Not to mention thats a very very light sentence...given all the 'special protections' pedos get)

Why do you want the taxpayer to pay for these creatures?

Grind them up to feed starving people, IMO.

In all seriousness, you know my opinion on this; particularly heinous crimes, like child rape, deserve little more than a captive boltgun to the back of the head. There should be no doubt at all regarding the guilt of the condemned if you're gonna do this to them, but when this is the case...

Mr Hyena wrote:

The best option is life imprisonment without parole, and dedicated study by behavioral psychologists to try to figure these folks out and whether there is any way to "fix" them.

I can tell a poncy behaviourist quack isn't going to get very far. There is NO way to fix these people otherwise we'd have figured even the slightest bit out already. (Not to mention thats a very very light sentence...given all the 'special protections' pedos get)

There are so many things wrong with this you honestly come off as trolling.

1. Dismissing the profession/discipline is insulting and dumb.
2. As already pointed out, saying that a thing is impossible to do just because we haven't done it already is really dumb. We things every day our ancestors thought impossible or inconceivable. Your thesis here would only make any kind of sense if you could point out a widespread, longterm, dedicated effort to figure out this mental problem and cure it, and its lack of results. Since no such program has ever been undertaken, claiming that one could never work is silly.
3. To the best of my knowledge prisoners in general are protected from abuse by other prisoners. Because prison is the punishment society metes out, not rape and torment in prison. People who advocate for/applaud the abuse of prisoners by orher prisoners are talking out of a desire for vengeance, not reason or justice. And revenge is no basis for a civilized justice system.

Mannahnin wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:

The best option is life imprisonment without parole, and dedicated study by behavioral psychologists to try to figure these folks out and whether there is any way to "fix" them.

I can tell a poncy behaviourist quack isn't going to get very far. There is NO way to fix these people otherwise we'd have figured even the slightest bit out already. (Not to mention thats a very very light sentence...given all the 'special protections' pedos get)

There are so many things wrong with this you honestly come off as trolling.

1. Dismissing the profession/discipline is insulting and dumb.
2. As already pointed out, saying that a thing is impossible to do just because we haven't done it already is really dumb. We things every day our ancestors thought impossible or inconceivable. Your thesis here would only make any kind of sense if you could point out a widespread, longterm, dedicated effort to figure out this mental problem and cure it, and its lack of results. Since no such program has ever been undertaken, claiming that one could never work is silly.
3. To the best of my knowledge prisoners in general are protected from abuse by other prisoners. Because prison is the punishment society metes out, not rape and torment in prison. People who advocate for/applaud the abuse of prisoners by orher prisoners are talking out of a desire for vengeance, not reason or justice. And revenge is no basis for a civilized justice system.

Dismissing it is fine as it doesn't follow the scientific method. You can't prove/disprove behaviour the same way you can support a theory in molecular biology. Thats what 'quack' science means. Come back with a way to measure human behaviour mathematically and we'll be able to consider the profession properly. How do you think it would be cured anyway? Take a course of pills to stop it? send them on a 'counselling session'?

'life inprisonment' is hardly a punishment when the prisoners are given PS3's, television etc. Thats called a hotel.

Mr Hyena wrote:

They’re sick, remove them from society.

And whats the most cost effective way to keep them away from society?

Unfortunately, not execution.

This has become an argument against the death penalty: it's too expensive to sentence them to death.

Never mind that it's largely death penalty opponents who have made the death penalty so expensive...

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:An arguement I have seen, which is not popular in some circles as it means the fabled 'Rehabilitation' is nigh on impossible. Is that, folks who are this way, either naurally find Children sexually attractive (and have limited to no control)

I don't think anyone "naturally" finds children attractive - paedophilia is a paraphilia and most likely results from psychological damage or trauma of some kind.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:or have chosen to like children, as say someone can choose to be bisexual or homosexual.

The old "being gay is a choice" chestnut? Have you seen this argument from anyone other than the westboro baptist church?

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Chemical Castration for example has been shown not to work in some cases, and in fact made some more aggressively disposed towards 'dominating' Children, much like the mindset of most Rapists.

This is absolutely true, chemical castration isn't a magic bullet and can make some offenders worse as you pointed out.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I sadly do not think there are any easy answers

Yep. Refining the system that's common in the west at the moment (attempting to rehabilitate and then monitoring offenders, using psych evaluations to determine if they're still to dangerous to release and indefinately detaining them if they are) is probably the closest we'll ever get.


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Mr Hyena wrote:I can tell a poncy behaviourist quack isn't going to get very far.

Of course! You're right... we should leave the issue up to aggressively juvenile revenge fantasists, whyever didn't I see that before?

Of course! You're right... we should leave the issue up to aggressively juvenile revenge fantasists, whyever didn't I see that before?

Probably better than the psychologists, prison wardens and government that allowed pedophiles out of jail to rape children again.

If the tests aren't giving accurate results; they need to be scrapped.

Mr Hyena wrote:

Of course! You're right... we should leave the issue up to aggressively juvenile revenge fantasists, whyever didn't I see that before?

Probably better than the psychologists, prison wardens and government that allowed pedophiles out of jail to rape children again.

If the tests aren't giving accurate results; they need to be scrapped.

I think you should clarify that to "Released paedophiles from prison after their alloted sentence had finished", which I believe is what happens to most if not all prisoners.

The ones who aren't released are of course those that either have life sentences or die in prison.

biccat wrote:This has become an argument against the death penalty: it's too expensive to sentence them to death.

It depends how you do it. The main reason for the expense is the system of investigation and judicial review intended to prevent you from executing the wrong people (which probably still isn't foolproof). It was very cost-effective in, say, Cambodia under Pol Pot, but that's hardly a shining example of a well-run justice system.

I don't disagree with the death penalty on an ethical level, but I can't agree with empowering the state to kill its citizens partly because I've yet to come across a state I'd trust with that kind of power, and also because the only way to create a system that as closely as possible "ensures" you don't periodically execute someone for nothing is to expend staggering amounts of time and money which are better invested elsewhere.

Mannahnin wrote:That runs up against my perpetual problem with capital punishment. If you wrongfully convict & execute some people (which is a mathematical certainty), you can never fix that. With life imprisonment they've always got the chance of exoneration.

I wonder what's greater, the number of wrongfully executed people, or the number of victims of murderers and rapists after they are wrongfully set free?
It could be an intersting statistic.

Mr Hyena: You are displaying a lack of knowledge on what behavioural psychology is, how it is practiced, and how it's theories are tested. It is not a perfect field, but there is no field of science which is. I would say it is approaching a level of reliability that makes it useful, but is held back by an over-reliance on human brains and the ethical considerations that come with that.
I think you are confusing it with cognitive psych or psychiatry, neither of which are particularly related.

In any case, "curing" the paedophiles is only one outcome of study. Others might be identifying the causes, and therefore being able to effectively prevent people becoming paedophiles. There is a lot to be said for studying these sorts of things.

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:I don't think anyone "naturally" finds children attractive - paedophilia is a paraphilia and most likely results from psychological damage or trauma of some kind.

An opinion that may or may not be without merit.

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:The old "being gay is a choice" chestnut? Have you seen this argument from anyone other than the westboro baptist church?

While homosexuality may not be a conscious choice, it's certainly not genetic as some have offered. It's probably a combination of environment and genetics.

Presumably a lot like pedophilia.

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:The main reason for the expense is the system of investigation and judicial review intended to prevent you from executing the wrong people (which probably still isn't foolproof).

In part. But that leaves the question of who are "the wrong people". In the US it's not simply those who are not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but those who didn't have good lawyers, those who might be mentally deficient (depending on the state), and those who haven't committed a homicide offensive.

We could all agree that "the wrong people" shouldn't be executed, but we'll all disagree on who meets that standard.

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:also because the only way to create a system that as closely as possible "ensures" you don't periodically execute someone for nothing is to expend staggering amounts of time and money which are better invested elsewhere.

A system that is 50% efficient at killing the right people would be pretty cheap. However, when you move up the scale it gets more expensive for a smaller step in efficiency. 100% efficiency - which people with opinions similar to yours have made - might be possible, but it would be prohibitively expensive.

Relapse wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:That runs up against my perpetual problem with capital punishment. If you wrongfully convict & execute some people (which is a mathematical certainty), you can never fix that. With life imprisonment they've always got the chance of exoneration.

I wonder what's greater, the number of wrongfully executed people, or the number of victims of murderers and rapists after they are wrongfully set free?
It could be an intersting statistic.

The number of victims, without question.

We value the lives of criminals higher than we value the lives of their victims. This is a good thing (IMO) because it means that the state is sensitive to its own exercise of power. Better that N guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. (where N may be 10).

Da Boss wrote:

In any case, "curing" the paedophiles is only one outcome of study. Others might be identifying the causes, and therefore being able to effectively prevent people becoming paedophiles. There is a lot to be said for studying these sorts of things.

I have personal experience with this kind of thing and I can tell you what police, lawyers and psycologists who deal with these people told me.
After a certain age, there is no current known cure for pedophiles, they just keep cycling the behavior pattern. If someone grows up in a violent home, they are statistically more likely to be a pedophile.
Even more disturbing to me, that I personally witnessed, was a mother and grandparents who denied her son was a pedophile, even though multiple accusers who had no relation ship to each other came forward. I watched her lie in court about where he was and what he was doing, all the while accusing the victems.
After the kid(12years old) was convicted, she changed her story to "It was society's fault my lil' darling is messed up."

biccat wrote:While homosexuality may not be a conscious choice, it's certainly not genetic as some have offered. It's probably a combination of environment and genetics.

Presumably a lot like pedophilia.

Except that one is a dangerous mental illness and equating the two is pretty offensive to homosexuals so I'd be cautious of doing that outside concernet trolling efforts. And no, as far as I'm aware there's no "gay gene" (and I never argued that homosexuality was genetic, in case anyone thought that's what I was saying). In fact, the gay/bi/straight trichotomy is potentially misleading, as sexuality is often more fluid than that in humans and a number of other animal species, but that's another issue.

biccat wrote:But that leaves the question of who are "the wrong people". In the US it's not simply those who are not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but those who didn't have good lawyers, those who might be mentally deficient (depending on the state), and those who haven't committed a homicide offensive.

We could all agree that "the wrong people" shouldn't be executed, but we'll all disagree on who meets that standard.

Oh definitely, that's a whole debate in itself imo. But as long as we agree that there are wrong people te execute, my point holds up.

biccat wrote:A system that is 50% efficient at killing the right people would be pretty cheap. However, when you move up the scale it gets more expensive for a smaller step in efficiency. 100% efficiency - which people with opinions similar to yours have made - might be possible, but it would be prohibitively expensive.

Yeah, that's prettymuch what I said. In order to have a system that wasn't dangerously likely to kill the wrong people (however you define those), you'd probably have to spend so much on it it wouldn't be worth it.


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Da Boss wrote:In any case, "curing" the paedophiles is only one outcome of study. Others might be identifying the causes, and therefore being able to effectively prevent people becoming paedophiles. There is a lot to be said for studying these sorts of things.

Agreed. Another possible benefit of study is greater understanding of psychopathology and behaviour, which has aided a number of criminal investigations in various parts of the world

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:

biccat wrote:While homosexuality may not be a conscious choice, it's certainly not genetic as some have offered. It's probably a combination of environment and genetics.

Presumably a lot like pedophilia.

Except that one is a dangerous mental illness and equating the two is pretty offensive to homosexuals so I'd be cautious of doing that outside concernet trolling efforts.

Why? It's no different than other traits, such as: what music you like, whether you prefer gold or blue parachute pants, whether you like colored sugar or sprinkles on your cupcakes, and how you vote.

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:And no, as far as I'm aware there's no "gay gene" (and I never argued that homosexuality was genetic, in case anyone thought that's what I was saying).

Well that's refreshing. So many people (especially a few here) make the assumption that it's one or the other and, finding one offensive for whatever reasons, choose the other.

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:Yeah, that's prettymuch what I said. In order to have a system that wasn't dangerously likely to kill the wrong people (however you define those), you'd probably have to spend so much on it it wouldn't be worth it.

From what I read of your posts, you seem to be in favor of a system of capital punishment in theory, but in practice would oppose any that wasn't prohibitively expensive. How is this any different from complete opposition to capital punishment?

I am always fairly amused by people claiming there's a "gay gene." If it were the case, there'd be a "gay protein" we could isolate from their bodies, and a "gay protein inhibitor" could be developed.

Da Boss wrote:I am always fairly amused by people claiming there's a "gay gene." If it were the case, there'd be a "gay protein" we could isolate from their bodies, and a "gay protein inhibitor" could be developed.

An interesting factoid I heard on QI was that whilst only 8% of all people have hair forming the crown of their head rotating anti-clockwise, 30% of "homosexuals" have anti-clockwise hair. No sources were cited, but it does present an interesting glimpse into the possibility of some biological basis for homosexuality. There have also been studies into hormone levels (both in the subjects, and the levels they were exposed to during gestation), etc, etc.

After all, biology is extremely complex, and there is rarely just one gene which can be pointed to as the gene that controls something as complex as sexual attraction. Even something as simple as eye colour has numerous genes which control it.

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:Except that one is a dangerous mental illness

I agree wholeheartedly, it is a sexual perversion that ought to be rooted out and stopped.

I for one support the death penalty for these freaks, but even if that isn't supported by law, then chemical castration should suffice, as these freaks are an abomination and should be destroyed.

Was I talking about paedophilia or a historical view of homosexuality there?

Because before recently people had many of the punishments proposed in this thread for paedophiles inflicted upon them for homosexuality, and even today there are many countries where these punishments are still meted out.

Just something for everyone to think about.

Da Boss wrote:I am always fairly amused by people claiming there's a "gay gene." If it were the case, there'd be a "gay protein" we could isolate from their bodies, and a "gay protein inhibitor" could be developed.

In the interest of taste and class I am not taking the potential of the term "gay protein" to its logical conclusion.

Goliath wrote:

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:Except that one is a dangerous mental illness

I agree wholeheartedly, it is a sexual perversion that ought to be rooted out and stopped.

I for one support the death penalty for these freaks, but even if that isn't supported by law, then chemical castration should suffice, as these freaks are an abomination and should be destroyed.

Was I talking about paedophilia or a historical view of homosexuality there?

Because before recently people had many of the punishments proposed in this thread for paedophiles inflicted upon them for homosexuality, and even today there are many countries where these punishments are still meted out.

Just something for everyone to think about.

Are you suggesting that pedophilia is not a sickness and will one day be accepted?

I really, really hope he isn't.

It seems that way, the way the attitude towards gays is defined as previously the same as the current attitude towards pedophiles.


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Perhaps it's just a bad analogy.

The trolling in this thread has taken a fascinating turn.

I won't say "popcorn", as the stuff gets caught in my teeth and I can't stand that, but my interest is suddenly rekindled.

Relapse wrote:

Goliath wrote:

A Kvlt Ghost wrote:Except that one is a dangerous mental illness

I agree wholeheartedly, it is a sexual perversion that ought to be rooted out and stopped.

I for one support the death penalty for these freaks, but even if that isn't supported by law, then chemical castration should suffice, as these freaks are an abomination and should be destroyed.

Was I talking about paedophilia or a historical view of homosexuality there?

Because before recently people had many of the punishments proposed in this thread for paedophiles inflicted upon them for homosexuality, and even today there are many countries where these punishments are still meted out.

Just something for everyone to think about.

Are you suggesting that pedophilia is not a sickness and will one day be accepted?

No, but I am suggesting that the people recommending these punishments maybe take a step away from the computer and calm down, because they seem to forget that not all paedophiles will act on their urges.

If the punishments are being proposed only for people that actually commit child rape then I am fine with that, but suggesting that they should be extended to anyone with the slightest sexual attraction to children would imply some sort of secret police whose sole purpose is to hunt down paedophiles who haven't yet acted out their urges.

On a different, but related note, what about cases like this?

where both of the participants are under age, but one of them is older than the other?

Would the people on this board propose the death penalty or chemical castration for the girl in this case?

That case has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Though I can see where you'd get confused. A difference of two years when both of them are underage is very similar to what happened in this story.

OP's Link wrote:"extreme online videos of children, including babies, being sexually abused and raped".

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Goliath wrote:No, but I am suggesting that the people recommending these punishments maybe take a step away from the computer and calm down, because they seem to forget that not all paedophiles will act on their urges.

If you don't act on your urges, you're golden.

Can't punish people for thoughts, just actions.