acm2117 said:
I am not attempting to make pedophilia acceptable. Pedophiles need to be punished, but in reality pedophiles are few in number and what they need is treatment. I was convicted of aggravated sexual assault just after i turned 16 in juvenile court through a plea of guilty, there was no plea bargain involved. I do not consider myself scum. I did what i did once and have never commited another offense remotely like it in the six years since. what i did was appalling and i was punished for it with eight months in a residential treatment center where i only saw my parents three or four times, i was on probation till i turned 18. luckily now i have all of my civil rights back now except for one, my right to privacy due to a legislative oversight. I must register w/ my local police dept. as a sex offender and have my information in the public view though through a change in legislation enacted while i was on probation juvies convicted as little as six months after me do not have their info open to the public. my experiences give me a uniqueview on the situation. yes there are people that cannot be rehabed. just because someone commits a sex crime against a minor does not mean they are a pedophile, the might not have neccesarily done the act because they are attracted to the children. If someone came to my house to chemically or phiysically castrate me they would have a hell of a gunfight on their hands because i feel that would severely violate my civil rights and would not stand for it because i have paid my debt to society and my victim and have moved past that.
First of all, I just noticed that I mis-spoke on my former post. The age for a minimum life in prison in Florida for a child molester is 12 not 8. Just to be accurate.
I understand what you are saying here and I will say, even though someone very, very close to me was abused, I do not believe in death or mandatory castration for pedophiles. And these folks should know that not every person who sexually abuses children are pedophiles by definition. Pedophilia
is a mental disorder just as agoraphobia or ocd. A most abhorrent disorder, but a disorder nonetheless - one that most often leads to the horrific crimes against children we have seen so much of lately. Many people convicted of child molestation, or aggravated sexual battery on a minor, are just that, child molesters - they are very often those who do not obsess about sex with children but who, for whatever reason, find themselves in situations where they sexually abuse children. And, it is true, very often they do not go on to abuse again.
That said, I believe that protecting our children should be of paramount concern to the people in law enforcement and, with the recent attention paid to many cases of child abduction by former offenders, that concern has finally been grabbed. I know from experience that often those who have committed such crimes don't believe that they should receive such harsh sentences because, most often, their crimes were committed with the "complicity" of their victims. Conveniently denying to themselves and the world that young children are not capable of such consent. And I'm not speaking about teens here, in which both the law and myself take a different punitive perspective on. I am talking about the abuse of sexually curious pre-pubescent boys and girls by a person, who for whatever situational reason, cannot curb the urge to submit to such temptation. I am sorry if you feel your privacy has been permanently invaded, but you must understand that people have to pay a price for the mistakes they make in life. Some mistakes are more reprehensible to society than others, thus the price may be dear. I disagree with the use and philosophy of our justice system in many ways. Sometimes it is unfairly and unreasonably punitive. But in this respect, I am in agreement with the laws as they stand and I don't think that the sexual abuse of our children should be a bargaining point in the backrooms our courthouses. We have no way of knowing who is truly dangerous and who isn't.