Living Near Sex Offenders

No, it's that an expert declaring you dangerous is not the same as convicting you of a crime.

In terms of protection, it should be more important than past deeds. You can't protect yourself against what I did yesterday.

This belief is itself a psychology, only it's a psychology born from intuition, and probably mixed with ideas about retribution.

False. It is a belief based in fact. I bet this is where your failure of comprehension stems. Have you looked at the recidivism rate for pedophiles? Or the current inability to cure it and difficulty to treat it?

And b/c I feel I must I will repeat. Likely to be a pedophile =/= pedophile. At the moment the only way to know someone has the predisposition to rape a child, willingness to rape a child and ability to rape a child is to wait for them to do so. Once that has happened it is in societies interest to keep such person away for societies protection.

oh, I see. I should have read the whole thread before posting. hmm...you're sure it's a fallacy to think one who has raped a child in the past would be more likely to rape a child in the future than someone who has never raped a child? I've never heard that. It definitely would run contrary to intuition, huh? ah well, lots of common sense is not actually logical, I suppose. for me it doesn't matter much because I have no problem with the punishment part. prison is too good for them, IMO.

Your right to be safe does not negate my presumption of innocence. The ability to cause harm once before you are caught and prosecuted is the price we pay for living in a free society where individual rights are respected. Declaring someone mentally incompetent is one thing, but locking someone up because you suspect them of some deviant proclivities they haven't acted on is several steps too damned far. You might as well lock us all up preemptively, just in case.

I demand that there be an educational/hippie children's toy/apparel chain called "Pedovillage."

So the logic of your argument bugs me a bit. You are saying a member from group A is more likely to be a pedophile than a member from group B. Likely to be a pedophile =/= pedophile, therefore I will not lock-up members of group B. I will, however, lock up members of Group A because they are likely to be a pedophile, even though I maintain that likely to be a pedophile =/= pedophile.

Shut the fuck up, gul. Nobody asked you to mediate. If he agrees he can come out and say it, without couching it in a mountain of hair-splitting, symantical bullshittery.

On the contrary, I think it's probably a good general rule. But I don't think that psychologists are unaware of this rule. They will factor that rule into their assessment, combined with other factors I know less about. Unless we believe that studying psychology makes a person LESS competent to judge a character's likely future actions, we'll have to assume that a psychological assessment is at least as good as our own general rule.

But you and I have just agreed that a professional psychological assessment would not convince us. If it is at least as reliable as our rule of thumb, then our rule of thumb can't be sufficiently convincing either.

And now I'm really off to sleep.

I bring it up, because your standard m.o. is to argue with somebody over something they didn't say. It was a good example of your flawed thought process. And it's a public conversation, so I'll interject myself where I please, fuck face.

Someone who has raped a child IS a pedophile. There is no 'more likely' they 'are'.

I thought we were going with the idea that pedophilia is a condition that may or may not cause somebody to rape a child. In other words, he was a pedophile before the rape, he remains one after the rape, the rape occurred because he's a pedophile. The rape does not make him what he already is.

You thought wrong.

this surprises nobody.

Then you haven't adequately addressed Packard's question about locking up clinically diagnosed pedophiles. We lock up criminals because they committed a crime. We lock up the insane to protect them or others. You've articulated a position for locking up pedophiles because they might harm others. Why only lock up the ones who have already done harm? We can prevent harm by locking them all up on diagnosis. I realize you are uncomfortable with this pre-crime encarceration idea. So am I. But logically, it is no different from the post-sentence incarceration idea. Both are premised on preventing the crime that hasn't happened.

And b/c I feel I must I will repeat. Likely to be a pedophile =/= pedophile. At the moment the only way to know someone has the predisposition to rape a child, willingness to rape a child and ability to rape a child is to wait for them to do so. Once that has happened it is in societies interest to keep such person away for societies protection.

same thing can be said for drunk drivers, thieves, and drug users...

permanent lists to protect others?

Okay, so what if it turns out we have a test that works. Do we then lock folks up who haven't actually committed a crime?

my apologies Packard...i think i'm finally caught up now. apparently, the test i took this morning used up all my brainpower.

yeah, that's pretty much where i'm coming from....though I admittedly may place a little more value on the punishment part than others. same goes for the assholes who abuse animals or the elderly. i'm a vengeful bitch when it comes to people who pick on the vulnerable and the weak.

Okay, so what if it turns out we really can train otters to pilot space submarines. Do we then start taking Midnight Funeral seriously?

Does this mean that 'vatican' is Latin for 'paedophile' or specifically 'choir boy diddler'?

There's a reason you don't want to answer the question. What is it?

I'm hearing resonances of The Minority Report here.

However, I also don't buy the "There's no cure/if he did it once, he'll do it again" dictum.

It'll turn out to be some sort of fault in the neuro-cognitive wiring that can be screened for and treated, and/or prior victimization that forms a compulsion to pretend this behavior is "normal." This can be treated right now.

No need to stock the for-profit prison system with people who might do something they haven't done yet.

Then you need to read up on the recidivism rates for sex offenders.

Numbers run between 4% and 20%, depending on correctional efforts. Are you prepared to incarcerate 80% to 95% who won't re-offend?

You surrender the benefit of the doubt the first time you rape someone.

Why don't we do this with every crime? Some will return to a life of crime, so we should send them all away for life!

And by the way, don't think I didn't notice that when the data didn't fit your expectations, you completely changed tactics.

Not that I give a fuck what you notice, but I didn't even click on your link. Does it break it out by scale of offense, or does it let statutory rapes drag the stats down?

Obviously because not all crimes warrant the same treatment. Rape definitely rings the bell, though.

Because the numbers of sex offenders is inflated by the number of 18 year olds banging 17 and -1/2 year olds, and 50 year old guys pissing on their front lawn nekkid. They most likely won't commit sex crimes again.
But the hard-core Girl Scout fuckers ALWAYS do it again after release from prison. Thus your stats do not tell the whole story.