If he would've been correctly re-integrated, this would've maybe never happened.

This proves it: all this prison time alone, without good programs in place, was just "vengeance" and it didn't work.

You can't draw conclusions from one case. Treatment could have helped him, but he was a menace in that state and shouldn't be released. So you can use this one case to argue either way. I'd sure not want him released. Most people aren't like this.

I don’t believe there is any evidence suggesting successful treatment for these kinds of offenders. Known recidivism is quite high, and combined with the underreporting of sexual crimes, meaning the reoffending rate is almost certainly way higher. We’re taking a massive risk releasing them.

I’m comfortable making the moral call that the freedom of a convicted child molester is worth less than the 25-99% risk that they will molest another child.

Careful, there's a slippery slope to drawing these conclusions about other classes of undesirables that start with your broad and unproven statement about sex offenders. Show us some studies about recidivism that prove sex offenders recommit sex crimes at a greater recidivism rate than, say, drunk drivers or drug users.

Sure, https://smart.gov/SOMAPI/sec1/ch5_recidivism.html

"Langan, Schmitt and Durose (2003), for example, found sexual recidivism rates that are four times higher for sex offenders compared to non-sex offenders"

According to this source, The recidivism rates among those who molest boys is 35% after 15 years. Rates of recidivism are based on arrests and other recorded information, so actual rates will be higher (probably considerably higher if you take into account the low rate of reporting sexual assault).

There are differential rates based on the situation of the crime - incestuous molesters are less likely to do it again, for example. But people who's motivation to offend is general attraction to children, and who's situational offence scenario is no more specific than living in a world with children, are way more dangerous.

The psychological effects of being sexually assaulted as a kid are _really_ bad (want sources for this?), so yeah, I'm not just making this up, or making snap moral judgements. I genuinely consider the risk too high.

The slippery slope is a logical fallacy by the way.

Actually, the slippery slope is real. DNA testing started with Sex Offenders, and is now close to becoming a requirement for any felon. Registry requirements and reach is expanding as well.

> The recidivism rates among those who molest boys is 35% after 15 years.

You cite a statistic that is drawn from a type of crime that is a very small percentage of the overall types of sexual offenses. Why not also cite the rate of incestuous molesters, who are a far larger number of offenders?

Because I was replying in a thread about a man how had kidnapped a five year old to make pornography. My understanding from the literature is that such an offender is very likely to offend again, and likely to escalate (which would be murder in this case).

I don't believe these things apply to so-called sex offenders in general, and I know some of the laws around sex offences are utterly ridiculous.

The slippery slope argument is still a logical fallacy, you're saying because some push things to unreasonable levels, that the reasonable ones can't be supported. So, using the slippery slope argument the other way, should we be releasing prolific serial killers because they might not kill again? Where would you draw the line? (Of course, as you'll no doubt realise, the slippery slope argument will apply no matter where you draw that line, which is why it's a logical fallacy).

Jeff never had the benefit of treatment and was returned to society unchanged. That, imho, was a crime perpetrated by society.

The slippery slope goes in two directions, mainly:

First, if we as society are going to lock them up forever, why not just save ourselves the expense and execute them all.

Secondly, if we are going to do this to Sex Offenders, and it proves really useful and effective, let's start doing it to violent criminals. Then, say, bank robbers. Then, we should get rid of all the drug dealers. The repeat drug users gotta go now. While we're making society better, let's also clean up all the fraudsters and tax cheats.

An example that springs to mind is the way Nazi Germany dealt with the Jewish people. I believe they were morally okay with it, too.

> First, if we as society are going to lock them up forever, why not just save ourselves the expense and execute them all.

Because locking someone up is reversible.

Your slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy in any case. Not all crimes have equal rates of damage or recidivism. There are many good reasons to differentiate between types of crimes and their motivations.

Presumably you agree that we should probably lock up serial killers, right? According to your style of slippery-slope argument you have no way of distinguishing between that and executing children that won't go to bed on time, because it's all a continuum.

Yes, I pretty much agree with you. I was disagreeing with the blanket "lock'em all up forever" opinion expressed above. Emotional reactions I can understand to crimes like these but some sense needs to be exercised or we end up in another situation like Nazi Germany.

I've just clicked on your profile and see you have "ex-con" in your bio, and I wonder if that's where some of this disagreement is coming from. I just thought I'd make clear that am not in favour of generally harsher sentences (in many cases the opposite). I'm very skeptical of marking people for life for past mistakes.

What I am actually talking about a specific subset of criminals, who's motivations are reasonably well understood, and who's crimes are extremely damaging.

I kinda thought my story of Jeff gave away my status.

Brain fart, sorry!

Another thought occurred to me regarding sex offender treatment. You might think that it's for the benefit of the criminal, but it's not, really. A properly run program "fingerprints" offender behavior, making it easier to solve crimes by helping eliminate suspected offenders who don't fit the pattern.

And, hey, if an offender is real serious about staying out of prison after release, he can learn good self management tools, too.

> People change, believe it or not.

People do change, but people who sexually abuse children outside of their immediate family do so far more rarely than, well, most other socially unacceptable behaviors.

The degree of certainty that someone who has displayed that behavior remains a menace just based on that fact alone is fairly high.

I also agree with this. A very wise man I once knew had a saying he liked to give.

"Past behavior is the best predictor of future thinking. "

Is there any evidence that it’s possible to “cure” violent sex offenders?

Or psychopaths, for that matter. I would very much like to see the attempts to "cure" someone like Ted Bundy.

They cured him pretty well IIRC.

People can change, but it requires a lot. Most of the time, people will just follow their patterns of thinking and behavior, mainly because they are not aware of the patterns and do not have correctives to change their behavior when they recognize old patterns. Sex offender treatment tries to train them in this.

Define “correctly re-integrated”. Note: defining it based of re-offending makes your argument circular.

If you think all those people in prison can be re-integrated you’ve never seen true evil.

Fantasies and wishful-thinking apart, most of the prison population are a real threat to society and a not-so-small percentage will stay that way forever. Others are made that way inside prisons.

Incarceration rates per 100K population: U.S. 693; Germany 76; Netherlands 69

Germany and the Netherlands both have lower violent crime rates. An extra 600 per 100K Americans deserve to be imprisoned and are a real threat to society or there's something wrong with the US approach.

If we follow your analogy, that these 2 things are similar. Then we should also accept the premise that pedophiles are probably born that way.

Which would make identifying them, before they commit a crime, hugely beneficial. Treating it as a disease, might lower the stigma, and allow these people to self identify themselves.

There actually are programs like that. I've seen posters saying something like "Do you like children more than you like? Contact ..."

Well, these are two different things. One is to like A instead of B. The other is to still like A, but not do anything about it.

What a simplistic dichotomy.

Consider the possibility that there are a set amount of pedophile's born in every generation. We as a society can decide how we treat people with that condition, and what might work best, reducing suffering, at a reasonable cost.

It's not a ridiculous statement to assume we haven't found the global optimum for that problem. Specially considering the huge risk of recidivism.

> Consider the possibility that there are a set amount of pedophile's born in every generation

He was not jailed because he was born that way. He molested and raped a child.

There are programs for enabling pedophiles to live with their kink without committing crimes. The public is generally not interested in funding them because they don't like to admit that pedophiles are humans, too.

So yeah, it's absolutely a failure of society.