Commuting the Sentence of Medical Pedophiles

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Originally Posted by Loki

Pedophiles have urges that normal people do not. Children, meanwhile, are unable to suppress their urges, whatever they are. The situations are not comparable.

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Ah, right. Because Loki says so, it's not comparable. Again, on exactly which facts do you base that conclusion? Children behave differently because their brain looks different compared to that of a normal adult (since it's not fully developed yet). And, hey, strangely enough the brain of a pedophile also looks different to that of a normal adult.

That's what I'm talking about here. It's idiotic to measure someone up to normal people's rules and laws when he is subject to a completely different set of rules due to his brain chemistry.

We're talking about crimes here. It matters a great deal whether someone is incapable of stopping themselves from committing an act or from considering its consequences. It's a whole another matter when someone gains pleasure from doing something, yet is more than capable of refraining from that act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe_disorder

And the relation of this to pedophilia is?

Disinhibition, impaired judgement, personality changes, altered sexual behaviour. Relevant to several aspects of the discussion in this thread (which involves not just pedophilia but also other mental problems as well as various felonies). Based on past experiences perhaps I need to clarify that it wasn't some sort of attack directed against you. It was just at the forefront of my mind after reading the OP, perhaps because I've lately been dealing with patients who have different forms of frontal lobe syndrome. I wonder what'd happen if a lifelong pedophile (a minority among those convicted of child sex crimes) were to develop a frontal lobe syndrome.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

Didn't you just tell us that spiking a drink is no excuse?

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No I did not, what part of "where someone else has drugged another person against their will" is so difficult for you o understand?

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Furthermore, you're pulling a Loki here. So, let's try that again: What, in your opinion, is the cause for autism, bipolar disorders or paranoid schizophrenia? Please answer the question this time, you dodged that the other two times I asked. If you don't do that this time I think I am indeed entitled to call you an ignorant dipshit. As you yourself said: Ignorance is no excuse.

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I believe it is a pretty rare situation for people not to be held for their own actions. Just because someone is bipolar does not mean they should go off free if either of their personalities choose to murder someone.

RB, do you know what bipolar disorder is?

And, while we're establishing what you do or.do not know: do you know what might happen to eg. a schizophrenic man who kills someone during a psychotic episode? Specifically, do you know if they really get off free?

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Disinhibition, impaired judgement, personality changes, altered sexual behaviour. Relevant to several aspects of the discussion in this thread (which involves not just pedophilia but also other mental problems as well as various felonies). Based on past experiences perhaps I need to clarify that it wasn't some sort of attack directed against you. It was just at the forefront of my mind after reading the OP, perhaps because I've lately been dealing with patients who have different forms of frontal lobe syndrome. I wonder what'd happen if a lifelong pedophile (a minority among those convicted of child sex crimes) were to develop a frontal lobe syndrome.

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Bad impulses and an inability to control impulses are two different issues as far as I'm concerned. I don't think the legal system should be in the business of being lenient to criminals who commit crimes they enjoy. If someone is a minor (whether because of age or mental capacity), I can see some grounds for leniency. In extreme situations (mind of a 5-year-old, extreme front lobe damage, etc.), whether someone is punished depends on possibility of improvement and the reason the person ended up so mentally deficient. If there's no possibility of improvement, I think it's only fair to society that this person is put away in a psychiatric ward until the end of their natural life. If there's a possibility of improvement (e.g. the schizophrenic wasn't taking his drugs, which work when taken), then the extent of leniency should depend on the second factor. If the person did not take the drugs with the knowledge that it can lead to serious problems, they're at least partially responsible for any crime they commit once in a diminished capacity. If the problem can be rectified and the person did everything reasonable to treat it, I'd be willing to give them parole.

Yes, that's more or less how we treat these issues in most civilised societies, and it's also why people who commit child sex crimes or people who commit crimes due to a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia usually end up in psychiatric care in Sweden.

Schizophrenics often have no insight into their disease, ie. their disease can be such that they don't (can't) believe they're sick, which can hamper compliance to antipsychotic therapy. A schizophrenic who won't take his meds--but who's relatively fine as long as he does take them--may belong in permanent psychiatric care, but he probably doesn't belong in prison.

Punishment or psychiatric care, you should put them in the appropriate place. RB mentioned sociopaths earlier, and one reason why we put garden variety sociopathic criminals in prison is that psychiatric care doesn't rehabilitate them any more than does prison--psych care just seems to make them better at doing their dastardly work without being caught. My impression is that this is why we don't usually consider things like antisocial personality disorder as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

From what I've gathered (based on recent debates in Sweden), most people convicted of child sex crimes are not lifelong pedophiles and are more appropriately viewed as suffering from a psychiatric disorder of temporary duration. The recidivism rate for these people--after going through conventional therapy rather than surgical or medical castration as per RB's wishes--is something like 3% in 5 years, which includes soliciting child porn. Most of these people belong in a psych ward as much as they belong in prison. If we can accept that some people can be lifelong pedophiles without violating a child, and we can accept that people who've committed a crime (rape, aggravated assault, murder, robbery, theft) can be let out into society after having served his time, then we should be able to accept that a person convicted of a child sex crime can be let back into society.





Now, back on the matter of RB... I'll admit I have no studies at hand (and probably won't until I get back to uni), but I spent most of my psych rotation on 1. a forensic psychiatry ward and 2. an addiction ward. I know that a lot of people insist on this "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic" business, but that's just one view. It's one encouraged by AA, and AA is very successful in rehabilitating certain kinds of alcoholics (kinda like how abstinence-only sex-ed is very successful among certain groups). But if you look at large numbers of people who abuse or misuse alcohol it seems many have a good prognosis with or without AA, with or without professional psychiatric help. Many people can even learn to drink responsibly after being cured. Some people (exclusively men?) seem to suffer instead from a type of alcoholism that they more or less inherit from their dads (such that they risk becoming heavy abusers of alcohol shortly after beginning to experiment with alcohol in the healthy way almost all western kids do, and just end up having the most disastrous lives no matter how much we intervene). So there are different ways to look at alcoholism.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

No I did not, what part of "where someone else has drugged another person against their will" is so difficult for you o understand?
I believe it is a pretty rare situation for people not to be held for their own actions. Just because someone is bipolar does not mean they should go off free if either of their personalities choose to murder someone.

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Okay, so you are an ignorant twat. Thanks for playing. And what is so difficult to understand? YOU YOURSELF SAID OTHERWISE. CAN'T YOU EVEN READ YOUR OWN SHIT?

I never said they should go free. I said, they should not be treated the same way as normal adults. You've just proven again that you don't know ANYTHING and that you also are unable to answer questions when posed to you.

So, what exactly are you doing here? You're going off on irrelevant tangents, you're unable to read, you don't answer questions, and you don't educate yourself on matters you don't know anything about, instead harping off on your misconstrued and false ideas, making yourself look like an idiot in the process.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Yes, that's more or less how we treat these issues in most civilised societies, and it's also why people who commit child sex crimes or people who commit crimes due to a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia usually end up in psychiatric care in Sweden.

Schizophrenics often have no insight into their disease, ie. their disease can be such that they don't (can't) believe they're sick, which can hamper compliance to antipsychotic therapy. A schizophrenic who won't take his meds--but who's relatively fine as long as he does take them--may belong in permanent psychiatric care, but he probably doesn't belong in prison.

Punishment or psychiatric care, you should put them in the appropriate place. RB mentioned sociopaths earlier, and one reason why we put garden variety sociopathic criminals in prison is that psychiatric care doesn't rehabilitate them any more than does prison--psych care just seems to make them better at doing their dastardly work without being caught. My impression is that this is why we don't usually consider things like antisocial personality disorder as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

From what I've gathered (based on recent debates in Sweden), most people convicted of child sex crimes are not lifelong pedophiles and are more appropriately viewed as suffering from a psychiatric disorder of temporary duration. The recidivism rate for these people--after going through conventional therapy rather than surgical or medical castration as per RB's wishes--is something like 3% in 5 years, which includes soliciting child porn. Most of these people belong in a psych ward as much as they belong in prison. If we can accept that some people can be lifelong pedophiles without violating a child, and we can accept that people who've committed a crime (rape, aggravated assault, murder, robbery, theft) can be let out into society after having served his time, then we should be able to accept that a person convicted of a child sex crime can be let back into society.

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I still don't follow why you're classifying pedophiles together with schizophrenics. Pedophiles have urges that are illegal if acted upon, but are no more likely to act on their urges than other people. What if someone else has urges to dominate women? Or to kill people? Should we be lenient to them as well?

Again, the reason we're lenient to people with actual mental illnesses (instead of ones that you seem to diagnose based on the crimes people commit, not the actual symptoms of the diseases) is that they're less able to control their urges than the average person.

Not sure where you get your data from by the way:

Studies that have tracked sex offenders over longer follow-up periods have found that pedophiles who molest boys, and rapists of adult women, were the types of offenders most likely to recidivate at rates of 52% and 39% respectively.

http://www.atsa.com/ppOffenderFacts.html

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Originally Posted by Loki

Pedophiles have urges that are illegal if acted upon, but are no more likely to act on their urges than other people.

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You just made that up

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Again, the reason we're lenient to people with actual mental illnesses (instead of ones that you seem to diagnose based on the crimes people commit, not the actual symptoms of the diseases) is that they're less able to control their urges than the average person.

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Loki, pedophilia IS classed a mental illness...
F65.4 in ICD10
302.2 in ICD9
D010378 in MeSH

http://apps.who.int/classifications/...?gf60.htm+f654
http://www.icd9data.com/2011/Volume1.../302/302.2.htm
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/mesh/2011...d&term=D010378

As was homosexuality. Thanks for playing.

In case you don't understand the obvious, the diagnosis is based on an attraction to people one shouldn't be attracted to. That says absolutely nothing about the ability to not act on that attraction.

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Originally Posted by Loki

As was homosexuality. Thanks for playing.

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Yeah, right Loki, that's a mature argument. I point out that you're wrong and you promptly proff up a strawman once again. Unless you now want to point out that every branch of science and medicine was wrong at some point.

So, pray tell, where is your data for the first argument, namely:

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Pedophiles have urges that are illegal if acted upon, but are no more likely to act on their urges than other people.

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Originally Posted by Loki

In case you don't understand the obvious, the diagnosis is based on an attraction to people one shouldn't be attracted to. That says absolutely nothing about the ability to not act on that attraction.

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You said: " we're lenient to people with actual mental illnesses". This is the heading for the chapter pedophilia is classed under in the ICD10: "Mental and behavioural disorders " Oh, well.
Yes, that may say nothing. But YOU were the one who made that statement and now YOU have to back it up, don't you?

As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia (or paedophilia) is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents (persons age 16 or older) typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children (generally age 13 years or younger, though onset of puberty may vary). The child must be at least five years younger in the case of adolescent pedophiles (16 or older) to be classified as pedophilia

Which part of that definition requires that the person be more impulsive? Are you going to continue with your BS argument?

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Originally Posted by Loki

As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia (or paedophilia) is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents (persons age 16 or older) typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children (generally age 13 years or younger, though onset of puberty may vary). The child must be at least five years younger in the case of adolescent pedophiles (16 or older) to be classified as pedophilia

Which part of that definition requires that the person be more impulsive? Are you going to continue with your BS argument?

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The part which says that one mental condition does not have to be the only disorder a person has?

Among 45 male pedophiles, 29 percent had lifetime incidents of impulse control disorder[...]

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A high comorbidity of impulse control disorders (eg, explosive personality disorder, kleptomania, pyromania, pathological gambling) has been noted in pedophiles
(30%-55%).7
These factors have been postulated to indicate that pedophiles may have neurodevelopmental perturbations. 7,11,44

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http://www.drrichardhall.com/Articles/pedophiles.pdf

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Originally Posted by Loki

I still don't follow why you're classifying pedophiles together with schizophrenics. Pedophiles have urges that are illegal if acted upon, but are no more likely to act on their urges than other people. What if someone else has urges to dominate women? Or to kill people? Should we be lenient to them as well?

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I'm not classifying schizophrenics with pedophiles, it's a parallel discussion in this thread.

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Not sure where you get your data from by the way:

Studies that have tracked sex offenders over longer follow-up periods have found that pedophiles who molest boys, and rapists of adult women, were the types of offenders most likely to recidivate at rates of 52% and 39% respectively.

http://www.atsa.com/ppOffenderFacts.html

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Tbh I don't remember the source, it was from a seminar on child sex crimes in Sweden. The passage you've quoted seems to refer to high/medium risk sex offenders. Are they the largest group among those convicted of various child sex crimes? The literature is dominated by studies that are of low quality or that have poor external validity (eg. a study on a few hundred treated at a single institution). Another perspective:

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Just as the prevalence of pedophilia is not accurately known, the rate of recidivism against a child is also unknown. Recidivism is a term with many definitions, which affect reported rates of repeated offenses. For example, some studies look at additional arrests for any offense, others only look at arrests for sexual crimes, and some only look at convictions, whereas others analyze self-reported reoffenses.31,94,96 The data on recidivism underestimate its rate because many treatment studies do not include treatment dropout figures, cannot calculate the number of repeated offenses that are not reported, and do not use polygraphs to confirm self-reports.96 Another complicating factor is the period during which the data are collected. Some studies report low recidivism rates, but these numbers apply to individuals followed up during periods of active treatment only or for short periods after treatment is terminated (eg, 1-5 years).96,97

The published rates of recidivism are in the range of 10% to 50% for pedophiles depending on their grouping.7,16,17,31,43,94,96-98 Some studies have reported that certain classes of pedophiles (eg, homosexual, nonrelated) have the highest rate for repeated offending compared with other sex offenders.17,99 Generally, homosexual and bisexual pedophiles have higher recidivism rates than heterosexual pedophiles.31,94,98,100 Incest pedophiles generally have the lowest rate of reoffense.98 The more deviant the sexual practices of the offender, the younger the abused child; the more sociopathic or antisocial personality traits displayed, the greater the treatment noncompliance; and the greater the number of paraphilic interests reported by the offender, the higher the likelihood of reoffense.16,91,94,99-102 Several actuarial and self-report tests have been designed to help physicians and law enforcement officers predict which individuals are at higher risk for repeated offense, but currently no single test or combination of tests can accurately identify the future activity of an individual49,91,96,100-110 (Table 5).

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http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com.../82/4/457.full

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International research
Research on recidivism of sex offenders is far more prevalent in the international literature. In particular,
a number of insightful meta-analyses have shed light on consistent findings over decades of research
using various methodologies and in different countries.
In their 1998 meta-analysis of 61 studies and 28,972 sex offenders, Hanson and Bussière found that
the overall recidivism rate for sexual offences, with an average follow-up period of 4-5 years, was 13.4%
(based on 23,393 offenders). However this rate varied according to the type of offender:
• for child molesters, the sexual offence recidivism rate was 12.7% (based on 9,603 offenders);
and
• for rapists, the sexual offence recidivism rate was 18.9% (based on 1,839 offenders).

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http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psych...g-graffam2.pdf



But I'll have to withdraw my earlier claim about people convicted of child sex crimes usually being in psychiatric care. Clearly the same considerations you mentioned in your earlier post should apply to those people, so that only those who need to be in a psych inst and can benefit from it should be in one.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Which part of that definition requires that the person be more impulsive? Are you going to continue with your BS argument?

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I think the impaired judgement etc. become more important for pedophiles who 1. do the deed, and 2. get caught. Just being a pedophile in your head but being able to keep yourself in check is probably a good sign that your judgement and impulse control are fairly all right. Or that you're not being presented with the opportunity.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

The part which says that one mental condition does not have to be the only disorder a person has?

Among 45 male pedophiles, 29 percent had lifetime incidents of impulse control disorder[...]

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And the issue is still impulse control, not pedophilia. Even if the 29% figure is high, that still means that nearly 3/4 of pedophiles have no problem with impulse control. On what grounds should they be given leniency or special treatment?

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Originally Posted by Aimless

I think the impaired judgement etc. become more important for pedophiles who 1. do the deed, and 2. get caught. Just being a pedophile in your head but being able to keep yourself in check is probably a good sign that your judgement and impulse control are fairly all right. Or that you're not being presented with the opportunity.

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You mean anyone who has sex when they're not supposed to or commits an act they know is illegal lacks impulse control? Again, you're conflating actions with actual diseases. The very fact that someone commits a crime is not significant evidence of them having an inability to control their urges.

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Originally Posted by Loki

You mean anyone who has sex when they're not supposed to or commits an act they know is illegal lacks impulse control?

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Actually, no, what I mean is that they may be over-represented.

I would imagine heterosexuals with a lack of impulse control are also overrepresented amongst those committing serious crimes.

They are, which may be one good reason to identify eg. kids with treatable ADHD, or who're at risk of developing early onset alcoholism, early on.

More:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...ent_among.html

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Symptoms of mental disorders among inmates:

Mania disorder-43.2% of State, 35.1% of Federal, and 54.5% of local

Psychotic disorder-15.4% of State, 10.2% of Federal, and 23.9% of local

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Probably citing: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/mhppji.pdf

I'm not sure how many would actually get a diagnosis, but mania and psychotic disorders are two of the things you want to take into consideration when deciding whether or not a person should be in prison or in a psychiatric institution. Naturally it's hard to say which came first, the disorder or the imprisonment.

Since Khen refuses to be civilised, I'll just point out that I've not been aggressive to anyone. Until now, here goes.

STOP BEING A MORON. I SAID THAT IF YOU'RE DRINKING AN ALCOHOLIC DRINK BY CHOICE YOU CAN'T CLAIM AFTERWARDS IT WAS IGNORANCE ETC. IF YOUR NON-ALCOHOLIC DRINK IS DRUGGED/SPIKED THEN IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.

OMG what is so difficult to understand?

Since you're obstinately refusing not just to read what I actually wrote but even be civil I'll have no further discussion.

Btw, an "alcoholic" who hasn't had a drink for 40 years isn't really an alcoholic by any reasonable interpretation of the diagnostic critera. Now, how's your homework on 1. bipolar disorder and 2. crimes committed during psychosis coming along, RB?

PS. so basically what you're saying is that culpability is measured in many instances by standards based on reasonable people (what they know, how they think). I can buy that, although it'd be fun to see a real life ruling on your iced tea example :P I've always interpreted that "ignorance is not a defense" business as being specifically about ignorance of the LAW rather than about the contents of your drink.

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Originally Posted by Loki

And the issue is still impulse control, not pedophilia. Even if the 29% figure is high, that still means that nearly 3/4 of pedophiles have no problem with impulse control. On what grounds should they be given leniency or special treatment?

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Because it's a mental illness which, as you yourself stated, gets special treatment? And don't give me that crap about "homosexuality was also classified an illness" again.

a) That particular diagnosis was revoked more than twenty years ago and
b) several fields of science have been wrong in some areas before.

Unless you now want to tell me that one wrong theory disproves the whole field. Which then, of course, would call your own area into question since the results of poli-sci have also been hit-and-miss as far as I recall.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Since Khen refuses to be civilised, I'll just point out that I've not been aggressive to anyone. Until now, here goes.

STOP BEING A MORON. I SAID THAT IF YOU'RE DRINKING AN ALCOHOLIC DRINK BY CHOICE YOU CAN'T CLAIM AFTERWARDS IT WAS IGNORANCE ETC. IF YOUR NON-ALCOHOLIC DRINK IS DRUGGED/SPIKED THEN IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.

OMG what is so difficult to understand?

Since you're obstinately refusing not just to read what I actually wrote but even be civil I'll have no further discussion.

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Aha. Okay, I'll quote the passage again.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

If you drink something that you didn't realise contained alcohol out of ignorance or whatever then you're still responsible. Ignorance is no excuse.

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Ignorance is the state of not knowing something. Which includes a spiked drink. Don't try to weasel out of your own words here. You even broadened your statement by including "or whatever". And I notice that you still did not answer any questions, be that mine or Aimless'.

So, what do you think is a bipolar disorder?

I have to admit I don't understand the intent behind the homosexuality angle. Okay so it was considered a psychiatric disorder once. Was law and custom identical wrt how we approach mental illnesses today?

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

I believe it is a pretty rare situation for people not to be held for their own actions. Just because someone is bipolar does not mean they should go off free if either of their personalities choose to murder someone.

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Bipolar doesn't mean multiple personality disorder.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

I have to admit I don't understand the intent behind the homosexuality angle. Okay so it was considered a psychiatric disorder once. Was law and custom identical wrt how we approach mental illnesses today?

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Naw, that was a strawman by Loki. He tried to discredit the ICD-definitions by pointing out that at some point something was included which we now don't include anymore.

By that vein, we could also call in question if schizophrenia is a mental disorder since it also appears there.

We could also call physics in question because the physics community once believed in the ether. Chemistry and its various atomic models. Medicine - oh, well, a whole lot of stuff which calls the whole area of medicine into question. Not to mention poli-sci where Marxism was also Teh Shiznit once.

Strange overlap between this thread and the gay marriage thread (where Fuzzy and I were arguing about "Praying the Gay Away" and Reparative Therapy offered by Bachmann & Associates, or what's a legitimate form of "treatment"). :bulb: