From historical accounts I have read of the wars and of those involved in the running of Concentration Camps, a great many were desperately ashamed of their actions when the cold light of realisation came over them when they were no longer under the orders of superiors. Many times I have read how soldiers have said that in another life they could have been best of friends with the people they were ordered to kill.

I was responding more to torturing children (and snipers targeting them) in Syria.

I doubt torturers were just doing a 9:00 – 5:00 in the third reich either. Guards and other parts of the machine, sure, but nor the main perpetrators.

Sentimental stories about children, that I would previously have shrugged off as schmaltz, now bring lump to my throat.

And stories of nasty things happening to children, where previously I would have tutted and wondered about the world, can now make me openly cry (in a very manly way obviously) and haunt me for days.
When I first met my wife (when I was 27), she told me that her mum got very emotional when she heard about anything bad happening to children – they didn’t need to be at all related to her, just any story she heard could have her in tears. I thought she was crackers.

Now, nearly 20 years on and two kids later I am not far off the same as her – getting emotional watching Children In Need etc…

iolo – Member
I have no children of my own but have nieces and nephews.
Should someone carry out such henious crimes with them I would be in jail for murder. There is no doubt about that.

Is this a good way to be?

I was responding more to torturing children (and snipers targeting them) in Syria.

I know what you were saying, I was just trying to articulate that, through the many accounts of the World Wars I have read, a great many people did a great many things they are now thoroughly ashamed of when at the time they were following orders (or through the orders being given, allowing lines to be blurred more than they should).

I am sure many of those people torturing and sniping children in Syria (or any of the genocides in Africa where children have been tortured and raped) will look back one day and realise what they did was wrong. I doubt the same would ever be said of Ian Watkins.

some pliers even the bleeding heart liberal bed wetters.

Are you familiar with the Norwegian situation? Given the way they responded to the Anders Breivik massacare of Socialist Party member teenagers, I daresay you might describe the entire nation in such a pejorative way.

I remember the news at the time reported the party members involved and the young party (Socialists) members left alive, as collectively approving the statement: “We will not deal with this by punishing, we will deal with it with our love” (I paraphrase).

Interestingly, the prison system to which Breivik was sent, has a regime which we might see as more akin to a well-appointed holiday camp with educational programmes attached.

There doesn’t seem to be, apart from the withdrawal of free movement in society, any “punishment” involved.

This approach to emprisonment has resulted in a nation with one of the lowest, if not THE lowest, rates of re-offending on the planet.

Go, as they say, figure…

a great many people did a great many things they are now thoroughly ashamed of when at the time they were following orders (or through the orders being given, allowing lines to be blurred more than they should).

Have a read about Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority figures, looks at this very thing.

Is this a good way to be?

Depends al I suspect tribally it had some advantages as we killed the “weird” one sin our tribe to protect our genes/kins
it may have little use these days but what ar eyou suggesting?
To be clear I am not saying I would do it [ kill someoen who did that to my kids] but i would certainly feel it and every day for the rest of my life.

Breivik

Not sure we can compare a politically motivated fool with a paedo tbh.

Any ideas what they do with paedophiles – I know they do chemical castration and we dont – rubbish internet connection cannot google
I do agree that generally we have not decided whether our prisons should punish or treat and we therefore do both badly. I also think education/reform/help, which is what Norway generally does, is the best way to reduce recidivism.

FWIW they also have maximum security prisons like we do and Brevik is held in one of them iirc

So, not an approach you would describe as from “bleeding heart liberal bed-wetters”, then?

Is paedophilia a “curable” condition and should we seek to cure rather than punish, do you think?

Junkyard
it may have little use these days but what ar eyou suggesting?

Not suggesting anything other than questioning why some folk seem to think it’s right/a good thing to have these unbridled hysterical reactions to this crime. It seems to make it OK to say they should be killed etc, but avoids analysing the cyclic nature of the crime (abused becoming abusers) and any attempt to prevent it (although capital punishment would of course stop the cycle 🙁 ).

I think you may need to switch on your irony filter if you thought that was a serious point.

Can it be cured ? clearly NO or we would not have any repeat offenders and recidivism would be 0%. It is not so no we cannot cure it.

Do you mean can it be treated? If then the answer is , to some degree yes but not 100% successfully. The best we can do is reduce the % of those released who re offend.
That still leaves many folk to become future victims and we need to look at whether we, as a society, are prepared to take that risk.

Good points al but i think it is just the horrific nature of the crimes and the likely hood they will reoffend if they get the opportunity.
I am , to some degree, articulating things that are not fully my own view. I would not murder but I may well never ever even think about releasing folk.
Its hard our job is to protect our kids and we would hav faile dif that happened and changes are our kids would never recover and their lives will be ruined. You are going to get an emotional response form many when this happens even me [ god* forbid].

* I dont mean that bit either Woppit.

This fella seems like one of that category tbh as do the Wests, Brady etc.

(although capital punishment would of course stop the cycle ).

That’s the appeal for me.
I’m more than comfortable to see certain crimes receive the death penalty again.

Before people chime in with the usual arguments about capital punishment not working as a deterrent etc etc….i really dont care, sometimes i just want retribution for a particularly horrible crime or crimes.
If one of my family was murdered or a child of mine sexually abused then i would want the perpetrator dead….perhaps i wouldnt feel this way if prison sentences werent such a joke?
A life sentence should mean just that, the guilty party shut away from the public forever….not rehabilitated back into the community, not let out in 10 years time for good behaviour (FFS!)….and there should be hard labour, prisoners should be earning some of their keep by litter picking, removing graffiti etc etc.

That still leaves many folk to become future victims and we need to look at whether we, as a society, are prepared to take that risk.

Same argument could be made for any crime though surely?

of course Graham but we also need to look at the effects of the crime on the victim not least because those abused tend to be the ones who go on to abuse.
They/ we / all of us probably deserves a higher degree of protection from sexual offences than we do from say theft, given the effects it has on lives. I have seen it first hand with a family member and I doubt you ever really recover – 44 and still in therapy for it 38 years later, never had kids or been able to hold down a proper relationship and shit scared for years he would abuse kids and become a monster himself.

I am articulating this view for debate here to be clear though I suppose i agree with most of it

Before people chime in with the usual arguments about capital punishment not working as a deterrent etc etc….i really dont care, sometimes i just want retribution for a particularly horrible crime or crimes.

I understand your feeling, but looking at it with a cold logical head: to me it is more important to reduce the chance that the people I love are the victims of horrible crimes, than it is to ensure that the offenders face terrible retribution if they are caught.

In short, which is a “better” scenario on balance:

A) two separate crimes by two offenders. Creating two sets of victims. But one offender is caught and he is executed.

or

B) one crime by one offender and if he is caught then he removed from the streets but dealt with more humanely than he perhaps deserves.

An interesting perspective have not heard mentioned is whether he enjoyed the notoriety of what he was doing. The password on his PC (google it, I’m not writing it) and also the wording of some the text messages he sent seem to me to read that was proud of what he did/was doing. I’m struggling to get the right words here but it’s like he saw it as something he knew was wrong but that he was still quite proud of himself for doing it. The best way I can describe it is when you’re a kid and you stole some sweets from the corner shop, you knew it was wrong but you still wanted to brag about it to your mates, yet you couldn’t tell everyone because they would tell your parents.

Frankly, whatever the motivation, he is a very messed up individual. I’m not one for skinning and killing but dropping him into solitary for the rest of his days, along with the 2 mothers as well, would seem appropriate. Maybe let him out once in a while to have a conversation with a psychologist who will try to learn how we can stop other doing this in the future.

(although capital punishment would of course stop the cycle ).

That’s the appeal for me.
I’m more than comfortable to see certain crimes receive the death penalty again.

No, capital punishment would not stop the cycle unless you are advocating killing the victims too. The only way to break the cycle is to find out what makes them tick and use this information to create new therapies for the victims.

Sick

And I mean that in the scientific sense – there is something wrong with him. rather than kill him or leave him rotting in a room for the rest of his life he needs to be studied and conclusions as to what drives someone to do this need to be made.

In simplistic terms – use him to find a cure.

edit – then kill him.

Can it be cured ? clearly NO or we would not have any repeat offenders and recidivism would be 0%. It is not so no we cannot cure it.

There are two questions:
1. Can it be cured?
2. Are we prepared to take a scientific approach rather than a Daily Hate based ‘let them rot in jail’ approach.

The answer to the first might be yes, but I doubt we would ever answer yes to the second question in the UK. Our criminal justice system is entirely skewed towards retribution rather than rehabilitation.

Lunge, read an article on NME that included that. Wish I hadn’t.

Made me feel angry. Impotent, unable to help, powerless, but angry with it. 🙁

Same old debate about crime and punishment left alone long enough it’ll get round to realising that hacking nasty people to death does not resolve anything.

Bascially its about the 3 R’s Revenge, Removal and Rehabilitation. Revenge might be lovely, but thats until the point that we get down to key factors in Watkins behaviour. It is very likely that he will have been offended against himself as is very often that case with paedophilia, so suddenly you will be confronted with the realisation that natural progression to the hang em and flog em argument would be to execute the child that Watkins has offended against so as to break the chain of cause and effect. Of course the other alterantive would be better treatment both for victims and offenders. But hey lets not get a good old knee jerk go to waste.

Removal is very expensive, but in some cases might well be necessary but truthfully the way forward has to be rehabilitation in whatever form that takes.

Lunge, read an article on NME that included that. Wish I hadn’t.

Just read that myself. Incomprehensible.

Totally abhorrent human being, deserves all he/they get(s).

Pretty grim.

About the only positive thing any of us can actually do about this stuff (unless you happen to know any actual active paedophiles, in which case please tell the police immediately) is to make sure that when someone puts their hand up and says “I want to have sex with children. I know that’s wrong, so I’m never going to do it. Please help me to make sure I don’t” we give them a gold star, tell them to keep up the good work and make bloody sure they get the support they need.

There’s a reasonably clear distinction between having sexual urges and acting on them, and a lot of the pitch-fork waving blurs that distinction, which ultimately probably doesn’t help people who have urges that they don’t want to act on get help.

we give them a gold star, tell them to keep up the good work and make bloody sure they get the support they need.

Sorry, which country do you live in? Obviously it’s not the UK…

BigDummy – Member

There’s a reasonably clear distinction between having sexual urges and acting on them, and a lot of the pitch-fork waving blurs that distinction, which ultimately probably doesn’t help people who have urges that they don’t want to act on get help.

Yup. I remember reading a very sad article written by a convicted paedophile, a few years back, it made me think a bit about what it must mean to be like that. He didn’t choose to be sick, who would? But that was the life he got- years of basically repressing who he is, of shame and fear, of never being able to life the emotional lives most of us take for granted. (he didn’t feel any attraction to adults; I gather it’s not always like that- so we’re not talking about just abstaining from some urges, but all- people aren’t supposed to live like that. Sexuality isn’t something you do, it’s what you are) He did the right thing for decades but that wasn’t enough. He claimed- maybe true, maybe no- that he’d wanted to seek help but was too afraid (I had a hard enough time going to a doctor and saying I was depressed; how do you go to a doctor or the police and say you’re a monster?) We’ve seen how people react, it’s only natural to be terrified of that- and I’ve no trouble believing that our (also understandable) witchfinder attitude makes it harder for people to get help, and so creates more victims. (having said that, perhaps the fear of that currently dissuades more abusers, who knows?)

So the word is pity, not sympathy- you can be disgusted by these people, but thank **** that’s not your life. I think that’s how we should respond. We can only give them more shitty cards, because what are the other options, but we don’t need to be so damn enthusiastic about it.

And another Liam Adams, raped his own daughter throughout her childhood 🙁

Northwind, that reminds me of a quote from a similar (possibly the same) guy who said “I hate being a child molester but I love molesting children”.

It’s a pretty messed up way for the mind to be wired.