Can sex offenders be decent people?

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At work on Friday, one of my co-workers, who has kids, was looking at this website http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/homepage.htm for her neighborhood. It's a map of registered sex offenders, with their complete addresses, photos, and offences.

So I was bored and decided to check it out for curiosity. I put in my zip code, my friends' zip codes, places where I used to live and I'll be damned if every fucking neighborhood had one of these guys every few blocks.

That was depressing, but here's the kicker. I click on one of the dots in the neighborhood where I grew up, at random. I just about shit myself. Up pops the picture of a good friend's step-dad. I had spent plenty of time over there as a teenager and young adult, never noticed anything strange. He was always fine. It was one of those moments when everything went slow motion.

So here's my question, and this is something that I can't figure out. My friend never said anything, and I think that whatever he is registered for happened before he moved in with them. She would have said something, we were close. But even so, he did this to someone somewhere. The offense listed was forced oral copulation with a person 14 years or younger.

But he also helped me buy a car, fixed my crap cars all the time, helped us BBQ, helped us with silly teenage projects etc. I having severe cognitive dissonance, and his picture looking out at me from the web is haunting me. I don't know what to make of this. What do you make of it? Should I hate him now? WTF???

― Logged_Out, Saturday, 15 October 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

I don't know what to tell you, but it sounds like your next visit there might be a bit strange. Do you see this friend often?

― Orbit (Orbit), Saturday, 15 October 2005 20:20 (twenty years ago)

Yes, sex offenders can be decent people. Obviously there is no possible excuse for what he did, but if the offense occurred a long time ago, he may have been able to rebuild his life since then and repent for his sins. I do believe that people make mistakes and that people can change. Which is not to say that you shouldn't also be shaken up by this discovery: it's an unfortunate thing to learn, and it will probably always color your view of him.

Also worth seeing:

http://adorocinema.cidadeinternet.com.br/filmes/woodsman/woodsman-poster01.jpg

― jaymc (jaymc), Saturday, 15 October 2005 20:21 (twenty years ago)

alot of paedophiles think of it not as abuse but as love, as 14 year olds and younger as being able to give consent.

― anthony, Saturday, 15 October 2005 23:41 (twenty years ago)

As I understand it paedophilia can be a difficult perspective to "cure". On the other hand, the law's a pretty blunt instrument when it comes to labelling people sex criminals. I hope I wouldn't let that kind of knowledge make me pre-judge somebody, but I'm sure I'd take serious precautions as far as my own kids were concerned.

― Nöödle Vägue (noodle vague), Saturday, 15 October 2005 23:44 (twenty years ago)

We were notified recently of a registered Level III offender moving into the next block. His offense - talking dirty to some junior high girls (13 and 14 y.o.) when he was 18 or 19. This however was his third offense, so he got 5 years. (His earlier offenses were more physical in nature, along the lines of inappropriate touching.) Now he is 23 or 24. Maybe he has learned to keep his mouth shut around young girls, but maybe not as the official report stamped him likely to re-offend.

― Jaq (Jaq), Saturday, 15 October 2005 23:54 (twenty years ago)

have any of you seen the film 'happiness'?

('decent people' is kind of hard to define perhaps)

― j c (j c), Saturday, 15 October 2005 23:56 (twenty years ago)

Yes, "decent" is hard to categorize. People can be very compartmentalized. We all know about how Hitler loved animals, etc. Even the most vigilantly monitored kids are going to witness some sort of sexual acting-out. It's a matter of degree. So many variables, with a world of difference between an older kid showing a younger kid his porno collection and the actions of a bona fide predator.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Sunday, 16 October 2005 00:08 (twenty years ago)

As I understand it paedophilia can be a difficult perspective to "cure". On the other hand, the law's a pretty blunt instrument when it comes to labelling people sex criminals.

i've worked with child sex offenders in state care and and adult sex offenders in prison, but not in a therapeutic role so my knowledge is anecdotal and patchy. i'm told there are high-success rates with certain types of specialised turnaround therapy for children under 16 but a lot of this depends on the age of the individual before deviant behaviour embeds. many of them are acting out brutal early life trauma visited on them through no fault of their own and a skim through the files requires a strong stomach - it ain't pleasant however you dice it.

i'm told a part of this work revolves around 'fantasy redirection' where individuals are given 'masturbation homework' in an effort to gain access to and re-programme sexual thought presumably. the tragedy is that only a few of these specialist units exist in this country and the need is acute.

I hope I wouldn't let that kind of knowledge make me pre-judge somebody

really difficult call. you'd have to be a robot not to make judgements even unconscious ones. i met this one guy (adult) who i had a good conversation wtih and then shook his hand and looked into his eyes as i did so. there was nothing untoward in his side of the interaction but something in the exchange gave me the creeps at an almost psychic level and i had to wash my hands as soon as i was out of sight. i didn't know until after that he was a convicted child rapist but i've met child rapists before with prior knowledge of their offence history and been ok with them. we're asked to suspend judgement which we all do to a point but you have to own up to colleagues if you get the strong heebies about someone at that gut level. if you verbalise it you're dealing with it so the saying goes.

talking predjudice, this was the first job i ever 'vagued up' if someone asked me what i did. my parents knew but not many others. still not sure if this was/is for my benefit or other peoples.

― oh yeah, Sunday, 16 October 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

seven months pass...

oh man @ this headline:Sex offenders sue for playground access

― Courtney Gidts (ex machina), Thursday, 1 June 2006 15:07 (twenty years ago)

Aren't these lists known to be a little too all-inclusive. Like a guy convicted of statutory rape for having sex with his 16 girlfriend when 22 is grouped with serial pedophiles who target little kids?

― Super Cub (Debito), Thursday, 1 June 2006 15:28 (twenty years ago)

This thread reminds me of all those Law & Order SVU episodes, which as a rule promulgate the idea outlined above, namely that if someone starts engaging in this kind of deviant behavior in adulthood, you've already missed your chance to "cure" them through therapy, etc., and that there is very little chance that they won't re-offend.

Not to defend pedophiles, rapists, et al, but I always imagine myself in their position. You will be marked with this label for the rest of your life, essentially at the mercy of any concerned -- can you "overreacting" in this situation? -- parent who discovers your past, first stop for the police should any kind of sex crime occur in your area, etc. You "do your time" but then life the rest of your life in fear.* Given those kinds of social attitudes, I ask myself why the penalty for these offenses isn't life in prison? Society apparently considers them dangerous, and certainly doesn't want them around.

* Unless, of course, you have some kind of sociopathic tendencies, in which case the question is even more appropriate.

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Thursday, 1 June 2006 15:51 (twenty years ago)

You "do your time" but then life the rest of your life in fear.

Victims have already been given a life sentence.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Thursday, 1 June 2006 15:55 (twenty years ago)

I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying it seems like a kind of perverse punishment to incarcerate people for five years (or whatever) and then let them out into society again. On one hand, people have nominally served the time that society has deemed appropriate for the crime, yet have this quasi-circumscription of their freedom. On the other hand, society basically feels that they HAVEN'T served their time, yet persists in letting them back into society, where they can be worried about and assumed dangerous.

Or, to put it most bluntly, if we agree -- as most people do nowadays -- that victims have been given a life sentence, why aren't (statutory) criminal penalties adjusted so that these people get life, too? What we've got currently just seems like weird societal passive-aggressiveness.

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Thursday, 1 June 2006 16:54 (twenty years ago)

Aren't these lists known to be a little too all-inclusive. Like a guy convicted ~~of statutory rape for having sex with his 16 girlfriend when 22~~indecent exposure for public urination off the side of a road is grouped with serial pedophiles who target little kids?

― Courtney Gidts (ex machina), Thursday, 1 June 2006 16:59 (twenty years ago)

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