There has been studies of the criminal mind , what makes a person kill or rape or molest children?
Some cases speak for themselves but then there are others where you have to wonder if the person is just evil.
Child molesters in my opinion are just plain evil and I think rehabilitation is a joke, these people are evil and need to be done away with. Medical experts will say there is something wrong with their brain or chemical balance and I say bull they act on their sick and twisted feelings!
Rapist are the same.
Murderers are just killers who try and blame their childhood or some ridiculous claim and that is equally repulsive!

What do you think?
Can these sickos be rehabilitated and why even try?
Are they just evil and that is the explanation?
Every single day these horrible things happen to people and though the medical community would like to say they can find out why and find a way to treat it I say it is time these people get just what they deserve!

Anyone can say that someone is evil and they should just be killed. Heck, that particular argument has inspired some of the worst genocides in human history. And killing murderers and rapists has been the norm for millenia, but strangely, they seem to keep cropping up.

I will support medical research for the simple reason that we know just killing offendors doesn't work. I will also fight against those who wish to label an entire action as evil, without consideration of situation and context. There is a reason why we are judged by a jury of our peers.

An 18-year old boy has sex with his 17-year old girlfriend a week before her birthday. He is now a child-molestor. Let's take him out back and shoot 'im!

No offense but that was a pretty darn ignorant comment. It's obvious that's not what she was talking about with child molesters being evil and impossible to rehabilitate. Any person with half a brain knows a case with an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old and being a sex offender and "child molester" for the rest of his life is utterly stupid. But a true child molester I think that they should be done away with because all research shows that these individuals can not be rehabilitated and the majority of the time their crime escalates every single time they get out of prison.

Some murders are deserved. I don't regard all muderers as evil or in need of rehabilitation.

As for peadophiles and child killers, I don't know enough about the medical side of things to give an informed opinion. If it happened to my family though there wouldn't be anyone left to punish or rehabilitate.

Well I agree with you that there are some very sick people in the world who do such unspeakable things that don't bear thinking about, but is it right to group them together and say kill the lot of them?

Child molesters and Rapists -To my knowledge even when they go to prison and come out again they usually re-offend so I would think they are beyond any kind of help.

Murderers - There are different types of murderers, I think it's possible 'some' of these could have mental problems, what makes one person murder another anyway, there must be all sorts of different reasons and circumstances why someone would do this. Can such a person be helped or 'cured'.....maybe, maybe not, I suppose it would have to depend on the individual case.

i think that theres a warfare that make people making stuff like that, ie, mind controls techniques, or mass brain wash ie, harp, and microwave, even mobile phones.

From what I have observed, when someone is a pedophile, it IS a mental illness. Yes, this does seem to make rehabilitation a difficult subject, but it does not make them evil. The starter of this topic seems infinitely angry at those associated with such actions. Maybe she knows someone who was a victim of such actions? Yes rape and killing is considered an evil act, but saying that mental illness is a joke and all should be killed is ignorant. Mental illness, brain damage, and a traumatic childhood can trigger what allows a person to commit evil acts.... and possibly why they have no remorse. No matter how hard I try, I feel I could never pick up a weapon and kill an innocent person. A killer has no problem with it because their brain is physically different from ours. It's not always about free will choice, sometimes it's genetics that serves a helping hand.

And as for the death penalty for those shown to be guilty of such actions..... Advocating the killing of an innocent life is what helps define the term "murderer". Innocent people die from the death penalty. If an individual wishes to enforce the death penalty knowing that innocent lives are continually taken from such a practice as the decades go on.... It seems that in a symbolic way, that individual also deserves the death penalty.

Yeah, that was obviously not meant to be offensive



And yet, it happens. And why does it happen? It happens because people lump all child-molestors into one big pot.



A "true" child-molestor?

Define it first. Obviously you think the legal definition is "pretty darn ignorant", so please give us a specific definition of a child molestor that isn't "utterly stupid"

Good thing you aren't trying to be offensive!

And why do I suspect that you haven't done any research into the topic beyond a few magazine articles? Individuals that can't be rehabilitated? The majority escalating their crimes everytime they get out of prison? Seriously, if we follow these two statements of yours down, do you think they will be accurate?

I am not implying that all mental illness is a joke! I have researched this and what I am referring to is the fact that the medical community wants to put a label on these people who kill and rape and molest children and say they have mental problems and can't control themselves. Now I disagree because anyone that knows right from wrong can choose to refuse to act on their impulses. If it were true that we could blame all wrongs on mental illness and brain chemical issues then we could all use it as an excuse to say hey I could not control my actions and had to steal or harm that individual. I believe there are legitimate mental illness' but when it comes to saying a murderer or molester does these things and can't control themselves because of it I have to say I do NOT agree.
I do agree that each murder case should be viewed on a case to case basis though. Take a parent who kills the person who raped and killed their child they can't be put with the person who kills in coldblood for a pack of smokes. Murder is murder but the circumstances behind each one differs making each case one that should be viewed individually.

I see exactly what you're saying, and completely agree with you. I think we see the difference when we step back and take a good look at the crimes in question. For the most part, to me, those with evil influence will blow us away, put us in awww- for the most part. A perfect example (in my opinion) is this Joseph Duncan, or even Dennis Radar.
If you compare these two and the extent/ infinite horrifying capacity of their crimes to someone else who genuinely suffers from ANY mental illness, there still tends to be a huge difference on the criminal mentality scale. To me, there's a huge difference in a person that's diagnosed anti social personality disorder (psychopath)/or otherwise found "sane," and someone else who suffers from a delusional disorder, for example. Btw, a person doesn't have to be considered a psychopath to considered "evil," in my opinion- it's just an example.
And this is NOT saying that a person of evil influence is NOT responsible for their actions. They are completely responsible. Evil influence is like any other influence, it's a matter of choice, and acceptance, and anyone who does so should be expecting the repercussions thereof..

I think it's all mental illness. I mean, some paedophiles actually, genuinely believe they aren't doing anything wrong, and that, if the child consents then it's okay. This is a genuine belief...Is that the belief of a sane person?

I'm a believer in rehabilitation, but I think a lot of sex offenders it is difficult because of the fact it's a mental issue. I'm all for more research into it, and if the results were that it was a chemical imbalance I see no reason why they shouldn't be helped by being given medication, or brain surgery or whatever it took. Also, if it were acheivable people who have these feelings for kids would be more comfortable going to a doctor and asking for help.
I think many paedophiles struggle with their feelings for a long time. Where can they recieve help? Nowhere. They just have to deal with it, and clearly, many of them can't.
The mob mentality over it doesn't help the situation though atall. It just makes it impossible for those who want help to get over there feelings to actually ask for it before they end up acting on there desires. The whole thing is just a really difficult subject, and a tough call to say what is best.

I'm pretty sure killing them isn't the answer though.

Phew!! Luckily in South Africa the consenting age is 16 . Or I might have been in trouble.

I watched a docu on how they scanned criminal brains and how they differ from normal brains. The part that stops us from acting impulsive is missing in their brains . I think its part of the frontal lobe (Not sure) So they are more impulsive individuals.

Off course it does not account for all criminal behavious , but studying these individuals is good , because maybe we can prevent crime before it happens .

I think it's sad that we may have to face the fact that child molestation is a mental illness and one that can't be cured. I'm Bi-Polar and Bi-Polar is also a mental illness that can't be cured, and the very idea of being lumped up with a child molester as someone having a mental illness disturbs me.

Regarding rape? I don't know if every rape is actually RAPE. I mean, yes, there are guidelines drawn, and forced sex is usually called/classified as rape, and it's illegal, but I don't believe that every rape is forced sex or should be illegal. Some have stronger sex drives- by nature, and it all depends upon what they do with it.

Murder? Some say it's natural, most don't. I know whenever I've watched the documentaries on serial killers, like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, etcetera, I often wondered if they themselves could help themselves, you know? Even if they got a thrill out of what they were doing, I wondered if they could stop themselves from killing- ever. Yes, it's against the law, but is it against all human nature to kill? I can't answer that. I know how afraid I was when Ted and John were walking around, and Richard Ramirez. But, I take a look at those three collectively and can honestly say that only two of them fit the catagory of not being able to help themselves and that's Ted and John. I truly believe Richard Ramirez did it for shock value, not because he couldn't help himself. I guess it all depends upon the killer. I think Jeffrey Dahmers was sick. Just plain sick.

I honestly don't know.

I once briefly knew a future child molester. He was convicted and imprisoned around 20 years after I last saw him.

When I knew him he worked 80 hours a week to supply food to the local charity food pantries.

Do the truly evil do that? If you just want to do evil in the world there must be easier methods than working 80-hour weeks.

Heck, there are places in America where you can legally have sex with a 12 year old, under the right circumstances.

This used to bother me, too, until a physician (medical doctor) recently informed me that "by this definition one out of every four people is 'mentally ill.' And that includes a lot of surgeons, psychiatrists, psychologists, police officers, school teachers, dentists, commercial pilots, fire fighters, nurses, lawyers, social workers, pharmacists, combat soldiers and so on. So I wouldn't worry about it."

Heck, it's my personal opinion that nobody can get through life and remain completely sane. It's the nature and level of *insanity* that's concerning IMO.

"If we weren't all crazy, we'd just go insane" ~Jimmy Buffett~

Isn't that just a little over-dramatic? The one person I know who was convicted of having an affair with a 17-year-old girl, a man in his 50s, was sentenced to unsupervised probation and was not even required to register as a sex offender.

???????

Thats just sad . Probably those polygamist sects .

It's definitely over the top, and yet, it happens.

About two months ago, I heard of a story where two 16-year olds filmed themselves having sex, and a year later where arrested for producing child pornography of themselves. The kicker is that they were presumably tried as adults!



Actually, they don't get a freebie past the laws. They have to prove they have an established history of polygamy(which only the Mormons have been able to successfully do so far). No, this is ordinary people (for that part of the country).

When lunatics are raping and molesting children and it is considered a mental illness, then how do we rehabilitate? Medication? That's all fine and dandy but when the offender decides he doesn't need his medication anymore (self-diagnosis) and goes out and rapes or molests again, then what good has that done? How do you suggest we protect ourselves and our children from these monsters? I'm all for helping people overcome mental illnesses. I have friends on bi-polar medication and it truly helps them------when they take it. And when my friend drinks on his medication he doesn't make logical decisions. There are some people who so far gone with the illnes that there is simply no help for them unfortunatly. I guess you can't lump everyone into the same category and every crime and offense needs to be looked at individually. I'm interested to hear other views on this subject.....fire away!

First of all, a good 90% of all folks who molest children are either family members or friends of the family of the victim. The real problem is systemic, not individual. These things happen in a larger context than just a monster and his prey. So, is the child molester evil, while the mother who ignores her child's evident distress and fear of the molester good? And if the child has the personal currage to tell on the molester and the parents dismiss her story out of hand because he's her uncle, her pastor, where's the evil?

Evil can only succeed when the system within which it works is rife with denial. The Catholic Church is such a system. A family where the father abuses his daughter and the mother drinks herself to sleep every night is another. Similarly, the father of our American House, the President, commits crimes against our people and we do nothing; instead we forgive him all, hope that things will get better, but never blame him. Evil is rarely, rarely limited to a single person in any context. Evil is cowardly and will not act unless it feels safe. Our alienated culture, where we stay strangers with our neighbors as long as we can, is a comfortable fit for the evil doer.

At the moment, it would seem, rehabilitation for child molesters isn't happening. Society doesn't want it. Suicide is high amongst the few molesters who accept help. Whether this is due to our culture-wide hatred for such people (a hatred shared by the molesters themselves, of course!), or to some organic malfunction, we can't be sure. Something is surely terribly wrong with such folks. Surely their personalities are disordered--borderline, narcissistic, something.

The spirit of your post, sandee, is one of vengeance. Such feelings are understandable, but the actions that flow from such feelings are themselves pathological. Vengeance brings no healing, only further harm. Evil has a field effect, if you will, and when the victim of evil commits evil in reprisal, can't you see that the victim is simply spreading evil like a contagion? The antidote to evil is grief and healing, never rageful action.

I was raped by my own dad. There was a time, in therapy, when I wanted very badly to go down to his house and physically destroy him, see his blood in the road and on my hands. I was terrified that I would go through with it, too. My very wise and down to earth therapist reminded me that as long as I stayed sober, I would always be able to choose my actions. He suggested that what I was really after was to be free of my father and if I were to murder him, I would never be free. I recognized that he was right, and that I would not allow myself to bind myself irrevocably to the past, destroying my future in the bargain.

Oh my God! We're all doomed!

I understand your point here.
The mom who ignores her child is just a culpable as the molester and true there is a kind of chain reaction with evil but if we stop it at its source we have a better chance.
What is justice and what makes it different from revenge? That is the question.

But where's the source, sandee? It's evident that my father was molested by his father before him and not unlikely that it goes back another generation at least. All these men were heavy drinkers and alcohol has gone hand in hand with sexual misconduct since forever. So let's outlaw alcohol! Yeah, right.

Psychologically, what my father did to me was a kind of misplaced revenge. All children idealize their parents and when their parents commit evil, the child may misunderstand that evil as love. In this way, he was reenacting what he'd learned at the earliest age was his father's love. Repeating his father's evil was a way to protect his father's idealized image in his own mind. Certainly the rage that fueled his abuse of me was put there by my grandfather. So if you go looking for the source of evil in a person, you'll just find another victim like me. All our sources are sources of convenience only, the usual suspects, little more than scapegoats for a systemic evil that reaches back into the unassailable past. It would be so nice to find a source, but you'll end up with a scapegoat every time, I promise.

As for justice, what my father did cannot be undone. The perpetrators of these kinds of crime, once apprehended, tend to want nothing more than to be put out of their misery. The State is their best friend when it puts such people to death. The acts of rape and molestation themselves are deeply self-destructive acts like binge drinking or overdosing on a drug. The world of the rapist is so far out of balance that his actions feel like a kind of payback for him. Also, the sexuality of people who molest children is so psychologically regressive, stunted, as to be stuck in a kind of sexual infancy themselves. The adult sexual world, understandably in the case of molesters who have themselves been abused by a trusted adult, frightens and enrages them. They feel so inadequate and small that children are what they sexualize as safe, comforting and appropriate. Such people are certainly mentally ill. Such people stand in need of healing, even if our culture is still inadequate to such needs.

What is justice and what makes it different from revenge? I don't think the human race has answered that question yet. So far, our society is inadequate to protect our children and we are inadequate to help the molesters, so we do what we do. Molesters and rapists are looking for trouble and they usually find it. Murder a molester and you may save future children from molestation, but you more than likely put to death a man who was once just such a child.

There's no easy answer. If we want to root out evil, I say we start with rooting out denial. We need to respect reality. We need to respect our feelings and our perceptions. We need to recognize that the seeds of evil exist in every mind, in every person. We need to nurture our intuition and not stifle it. These things, each of us can do. And when enough of us individually have done these things, then evil will have nowhere to hide.

I've never heard of a "medication" that prevents rape.

you dont need to be mentally ill to rape somebody


many normal people are racists

Why I don't feel it's "normal" to be either a rapist or a racist, they're certainly sane. Being just plain nasty is not a "mental illness" by any standard, accepted definition.

Yes just kill them all.JMO

Way to not read anything on the thread

Have you known anyone who has committed rape? Anyone who has raped a child? I've known several, some seeking help, some not--all of 'em, very troubled people, not normal. I understand that some folks in this thread believe that rape is a normal, if extreme, expression of sexual need, but that's a fantasy born of ignorance. Anyone who's experienced rape understands that it's much more about power, rage and revenge than getting off. There are far safer, legal ways to get off if you have a strong sex drive, after all. Nobody rapes because they're horny, just as nobody has a drunken blackout 'cause they were thirsty.

Indeed. Rape has extremely little if anything to do with sex, but it has almost everything to with the rapist's self-perceived "right" (!) to exert TOTAL CONTROL over other human beings, especially absolute strangers who owe him nothing.



Brilliant!

Do you have any addictions, have you ever tried to stop the impulse of doing your addiction. Good and evil are just the collected opinions of the culture that such events happen in. Ancient Romans didn't see child molestation as evil and it was openly accepted.
I can agree with what you said about murder though.

There's one heck of a difference between an addiction to nicotine and and an addiction to torturing people to death.



The German Nazis didn't see liquidating Jews as evil, "and it was openly accepted."

The Soviet Union in the 30s saw nothing evil in liquidating millions of Ukrainian farmers.

Both the Germans and the Russians insisted that these things were "internal" to their cultures and thus other cultures could have no legitimate interest in them.

Wait, when did we start talking about torturing people to death?



An excellent example of how good and evil are nothing more than cultural opinions.

That's what many serial murderers do and precisely why most of us consider them evil.



Let's make absolutely certain we are using the same language here. Are we saying that it would have been wrong for America or Britain to murder Jews and farmers, because it would have offended our cultural norms, but okay for the Germans and the Russians to do so, because it did not? Sorry, I simply cannot accept that.

Sometimes people are just born that way and sometimes a combination of events in their lives make them that way.... No one really knows for sure.

The only thing that I do know is that people who kill for no reason or rape etc have no self control.


Evil doesn't exist just a view point, what may be evil to you isn't so bad to someone else and vice versa.



There have been and always will be people like this in the world given the sheer number of people from all these categories there has to be some mechanism at work in the brain.


I wouldn't hurt a child.... they are off limits, but when it comes to taking a life I find the prospect exciting personally.

It's possible but not probable at least not yet... If you killed them all you would never solve the problem

As I said evil isn't real just a point of view.

There is no difference, an addiction is an addiction. People think smoking is bad and harms people around them, doesnt stop people from smoking when they need too. Same thing with killing. Just cause you find it bad doesnt mean the person that needs to do it does or going to stop them.

Indulge me if you will for a few minutes. The thought that murderers, rapists and pedophiles are either insane, mentally ill or just plain evil brought to mind an experience my family and I had to endure. My son, now 17, was molested sexually by a 45 year old man. This "man's", unknown to us at the time, was a repeat offender with 3 previous convictions for sexual battery on a child, sexual molestation of a child under the age of 10, and forced sodomy of a minor. Now according to the District attorney who handled our son's case informed us that this "man" successfully completed every program he was sentenced to prior to his molestation of our son. Yet with all of that assistance he repeated and now our son carries the emotional scars as well as physical ones. Is he mentally ill, insane or evil? What good did all of the consuling do? By the way shout your answer to that question loud so my son can hear how he deserved all of these chances to harm children. Tell my wife why her son contracted herpes from this "man" after he was cured. That exact word was used on some of his previous court documents, cured. Well it doesn't matter what definition that is applied to this "man" he is now and forever in a place where he will not have access to children. In fact he was severely beaten during his first year in prison. I am of the opinion that he should be put to death. Think about it the molestation of my son was his 4th conviction. If the proper sentence was applied the first time 3 other children would not have to bear the scars of molestation. My son has been to all the consuling known to man but he is still haunted by his experience emotionally. His physical affliction cannot be cured, herpes has no known cure. Ok opinions give them to me....

While I can't agree that he should be put to death (which I reserve for exceptionally bloody or repeat murders or for treason) I certainly believe he should be kept in a cage and NEVER again let out.

^I agree there.

As sick and twisted as child molesting is and all, death won't do anything to these people, it's an easy way out really. I really don't believe child molesters and the like should get out on good behavior and even have the option of parole, ever. People can change, I'm pretty generous when it comes to giving people the benefit of the doubt but when you have a few murders and rape charges under your belt that just goes out the window. I just don't want to see these people back on the streets and giving them that chance to repeat another offense unless they're kept under 24 hour surveillance by some authority like the police, and I'm talking curfew, tracking devices, the whole nine yards.

I think you'd be the next Kira!

Hehe, right. I think it's unfair to judge so easily. There are some pretty sick and twisted people out there, and some aren't easy to cure. By unfair, I mean that there's ?a difference. So, are serial killers and one-time killers in the same catagory? Are people whos' brains don't function like most do, and people who were sane at one point equal now? I agree that adults molesting children are sick, but they have to have a reason. I don't quite understand what made you believe that they don't deserve to live. They didn't just one day decide that they wanted to do that for a living. There had to be a reason, something that triggered it. Maybe something went wrong, maybe they liked the feeling and became addicted to it, I don't know. But in my opinion, grouping them as evil, sick, twisted people who have no excuse, it's unfair. Life is unfair, I know, but that doesn't mean people can't be. And why give up on them? Rehab might work, you never know. If it's so bad, shouldn't you give it some kind of effort instead of saying, "It's useless, it'll never work.". They're messed up, and not helping them doesn't help anyone. I might be repeating some things that people have mentioned before, but I just wanted to voice...er type my opinion. Thank you, and if I offended you somehow, I'm sorry.

These child molesters that you want to help, what do you say to the mother of the next child the next victim? They can not be cured and when they are given the chance they will re offend and then you only have more victims!

Amen, that was our experience........No cure for pedophiles except a 9mm hollow point

Agreed, but what we don't want is the situation we faced 25 years ago, when hundreds of Americans were sent to prison for very long sentences for abuse charges of which they were entirely innocent, and even some cases where the abuses of which they were convicted never occurred in the first place.

This was an unhappy period when whisper = rumor = arrest = indictment = conviction.

Most of these people were eventually released with apologies, but apologies don't restore shattered families and shattered careers.

What about the shattered families of the victims?? Why are we always so concerned about the rights and feelings of the predator, when the rights and feelings of the victim are cast aside?? I don't care if you label it evil or not...the molestation of children is wrong. Period. Studies have shown that 44% - 52% percent of all convicted child predators reoffend...and those are conservative estimates. Is the life, sanity, and emotional stability of even one child worth letting a predator go free after they are "cured"? Speaking as someone who was victimized by a convicted repeat offender, I say no.

I do not lump all murderers into one category. There are many who have killed under the influence of drugs, extreme rage, or other extenuating circumstances who would never kill again.

Yes, there are many reasons why a person chooses to victimize a child, but at its root...does it really matter what the reasons are? Child predators reoffend. We know this. It is our duty as a society to protect those who cannot protect themselves. I'm not advocating the death penalty, but clearly therapy is not curing these "people". Keeping them confined to protect the innocent seems to be the only solution. The average number of victims for a child molester is 117. Countless numbers of children could be protected by keeping these predators where they belong...under lock and key.



http://books.google.com/books?id=xH9ucrMFd...7&ct=result

http://www.childmolestationlaws.com/

edited due to links not working.

Probably something like: "To bad...huh. These things happen now and then, that's life! Try and life it, instead of hanging about the house all day!"
Maby your child has some bad karma because of you, your past, her/his past, past live. Maby he/she was ignorant and you should have educated her/him better about sex and self defence!

I wonder if these people are sick or that maby instead the other side of the population is sick!? They deny these feelings to kill and have sex like the wild animals we are!? Everybody kills: bacteria, small insects, small animals, for food.....! So why is it suposedly sick!?

Congratulations...you are the first person ever to be placed on ignore by me.