Garborg wrote:
Azzi wrote:
All depends if you believe in rehabilitation.
NO!
- sexual abuse
- murder 1, 2
Would it be ok to rehabilitate for these if the defendant is 8 years old?
That's the question I keep asking myself. People agrueeing against rehabilitation can not answer yes to this question without opening a large flaw in reasoning.
A child that age doesn't have the mental capacity to understand the crimes. As children we do not think as adults do.
Is there any child who cannot be rehabilitated? This is debatable. It's been long thought that children who are sociopaths cannot be rehabilitated to develop a conscious. It doesn't mean all sociopaths are murderers...most aren't. But someone who is a sexual sadist and a sociopath...probably will be.
There have been instances, and I'm thinking of one specifically, where a child has committed a horrific crime, was deemed to be essentially a sociopath (and unredeemable as such)...and yet once she (yes, she) grew up, she was released and functioned well in society. Her husband knew who she was, her daughter (yes, daughter) did not. The case became public when her anonimity was blown. I'll look it up if anyone cares, but she and another girl tortured and murdered a little boy. There were some minor sexual elements to the crime (lacerations to the penis), and this specific girl was pretty much the ringleader of the two. It was in the UK. I forget how old she was, but it was somewhere between 9-12, and the child was about 4, IIRC.
So how do psychologists explain her transformation?
Some believe she's simply learned to wear a mask of sanity. She fakes empathy, and as she isn't a sexual sadist she functions like many sociopaths do in our society. They can care about things close to them very deeply, but it's more akin to a possession, which also allows them to be highly abusive to those they love at times. And they care very much about themselves.
Some believe she was simply misdiagnosed, and that her flat affect regarding the crime was due to the entire process which occurred afterwards, with the police, authorities, trial, etc.
Both are possible. And some believe that perhaps she was a sociopath then, but once removed from the bad family situation and placed in a highly structured environment...there was enough time in childhood to change.
That's also a possibility, though I think in some cases it's been clearly demonstrated that environment doesn't make a difference (though it certainly can hurt...it can't always help).
But the real question you're asking is, can a pedophile EVER be treated. I'll relate one case that a professor of mine had personally. None of my psychology professors who had active or retired practices worked with pedophiles by choice, and all had the same reason: they are untreatable. One of my professors maintained an active practice while teaching, and she had a family in crisis. It was a family with two sons, and the older son had serious behavioral problems, and now the younger son had started too. Generally speaking when you see a pattern similar to what she was specifically seeing, it's got an outside source. One doesn't need to jump immediately to sexual abuse, it could be more benign, such as the older sibling being severely bullied at school and now he's bullying the younger sibling.
Unfortunately in this case it wasn't that benign. It was molestation. Rape, in fact. The older son asked for a private session and revealed that not only had a relative been raping him, he had recently (very recently) raped his younger brother. He was very remorseful about it, that he could have done to him what had been done to him for years. There's a lot of reasons why he did it...but the professor illustrated this case as the ONLY case in her experience where a pedophile (in this case, the brother) was potentially redeemable...and it largely hinged on two factors:
1) He had just committed the act, it was early, he had not been repeating it.
2) He was remorseful and saw it as wrong.
The shitty part is, she was bound by law to report it. Well not shitty, it had to be reported, but she met with the family first, keeping the older son seperate. She told the parents what was going on, and after the initial reactions had all flashed through, they were supportive of the older son. She advised them to get a good lawyer. She also allowed them to see him before she notified the police, but she could not allow any access between him and his brother, because of the younger brother being the victim. She also could not continue to treat the family as a whole...because there was now a conflict (as the therapy for one may not benefit the others). She recommended in this case that the family get a new therapist, that they get an individual therapist for the younger brother, and she would continue with the older until he could be transitioned to a counselor with the state (as she would no doubt have to testify, because there is no privledge with specific acts).
She said it was her opinion that the older son would never reoffend, provided that therapy continued for him...which it did. She said it was the only instance in which she would have continued to treat a pedophile and that was ONLY because she felt it was treatable.
The relative who committed the rape she did not believe was someone who could be rehabilitated. And that was the common belief when I studied psychology. The few who believed it COULD be treated, often relied on more than mere cognitive therapy. Some used medications to dampen or remove sexual arousal. Some tried reorientation therapies. None of the methods currently used work long term. The 'best' therapies tend to work for about six months. I'm sure you could find some people who don't reoffend, but you won't find any who don't
desire to...except MAYBE in rare cases like the one I mentioned where it's caught almost immediately and they're still very young.
I'll also conceed it's possible for someone to have pedophila desires and not act on them, just as many adults have various fantasies that they would never act on but might find desirable as a fantasy. Many people (men and women) have 'rape' type fantasies which are ONLY fun as fantasy, they'd never wish for it to be tried in reality. Then there's also the debate of people who do like various fantasies and porn...and whether exposure to said porn can lead (as cause and effect) to actual harm being done. My personal opinion there is in some instances it might create the desire...but more commonly it's people who have that interest anyway, and desire to commit such crimes anyway...and will whether or not porn of it is accessible.
As to sexual desires, there are MANY avenues and outlets for one's sexual desires. Anything involving unwilling partners (or people who cannot consent, such as children or people with various handicaps) is a choice that someone makes. I will grant that perhaps (probably) some people have no control over what they desire...they simply desire that...whether they'd choose to or not. That's a shame and I can feel sorry for that. But what one does with that desire is a choice. And when it involves someone who cannot or does not consent, then they have to pay for that crime.
One last thought on the 8 year old. Let's take a totally different crime, like a thief. It's much easier to rehab. a child who is a thief, than someone who's 50 and been a thief most of their life. Ask *anyone* who works in the justice system. It doesn't follow that all older people are incapable of rehabilitation, simply that children are
easier to teach and mold than adults who have a lifetime of bad habits and poor choices.
Many criminals like to paint themselves as victims, and much of their 'victimization' tends to be self reported. In other words the tales of hardship and lack of love sob stories only have one source generally...the criminal. And that's often given the lie by the amount of support they receive from family (money on the books, visitation, etc.). Most criminals are paroled to a relative's home.
That's not to say that some sob stories aren't true. Some are. But as adults people have to take accountability for their lives. It's an area in which I can be very naive myself, but much less so over the years as I know people in law enforcement and see some of the same people come back in time and again. Why? Because crime makes them money. I often think if they simply put forth the same amount of time, effort and work in legitimate enterprises they'd be wealthy AND free (and wouldn't hurt so many people). But time and again, there they are. And it's not all people who come from poverty with a poor education...I'm also talking about doctors who deal dope or rip off state insurance, or sell fake miracle cures...or who sexually abuse patients.
I guess the real problem is how do you tell the difference between someone who simply is never going to change...and someone who
might at some point down the road.
You can't. I know I can't. Which is why we (generally) don't have life sentences for most things. Though in California we do have a three strikes system, but as much as many people like the concept, it's not a GOOD system when you have people going to prison for life for stealing a slice of pizza. (Because their previous crimes were felony crimes with some form of weapon/violence iirc).
Are there some acts though so dangerous to society where a person...whether capable of rehab or not...needs to be removed from society, either for our safety or as just punishment? It's an opinion question really. And I don't think we can answer it via crime. There are some murderers who killed for such specific reasons they're probably unlikely to do so again and their reasons don't make them a threat. Such as the woman who is battered for years and years who finally snaps. Such as someone who kills in the heat of passion. I'm not justifying those things, I'm simply saying it's more understandable to me. Someone who in cold blood murders someone for the insurance money? Yeah, I don't want them back in society, thanks.
But I also have to say that we're doing something
wrong when we have the prison population we do, and the crime statistics versus other nations. Some of that may be due to good things, like some of the freedoms we have here...but that's certainly not all of it.
