To suggest a campaign for a referendum on the death penalty for child abusers?

[TheVoiceOfReasonableness]

I’m a professional (I’m not going to reveal my capacity as it could be too outing) but let’s just say it is within the criminal justice system.

I have been involved with many cases of historic child abuse and child abuse images.

Although I could never voice this opinion publicly, because of my job, I really do think that we ought to consider the death penalty for child abusers.

The problem is, they can’t be cured.

The courses and “treatment” programmes that exist both inside and out of prison are geared towards “minimising risk” of committing further offences and are designed to give paedophiles “strategies” for avoiding “risky situations”. These only work if the paedophile is actually motivated not to hurt children.

The problem is paedophiles are extremely manipulative and are often quite intelligent.

They know what the offender manager (the modern term for a Probation Officer) wants to hear and may be saying all the right things while secretly still believing that there is nothing wrong with what they do.

The death penalty for child rape can easily be justified in my opinion. Arguably it is a worse crime than murder as the victim has to
live with the trauma of what has been done to them and it really does ruin lives permanently.

Now that we have left the EU (I voted remain, but every cloud has a silver lining...) bringing back the death penalty would be just as easy as having another referendum then passing legislation if the majority of the public want it.

We need not go down the American route of spending decades on death row- before we abolished it in the UK in the 1960s you got two appeals and that was it.

As for method- we had the quickest method with hanging and it would be all over in less than 15 seconds. There was no ceremony or last words, your cell was next door to the gallows you would be taken straight through- rope round neck, trapdoor opens, instant death from a broken neck.

Zero reoffending rate.

As for it being in humane and the right to life- innocent people including children die horribly from diseases like cancer all the time. 40,000 have died horribly from Coronavirus. I don’t think snapping the neck of a murderer or rapist who has abused a child to kill them instantly is that horrific TBH

Christ on a bike, the Brexit referendum was hideous enough, imagine a death penalty referendum!!!

Plus the death penalty has no place in a civilised society anyway, for many reasons.

@Mawbags

Yup - you got it!

And no - this is not a good idea. Let's try to move forward with civilisation, not backwards.

The flip side of executing the wrong person - as well as being inconvenient for their family - is that it allows the real perpetrator(s) to continue on again ... and again ... and again. Since who would waste their time reopening a case closed by the demise of the offender ?

Christie went on to kill 2 more women after Evans was hanged in his place (don't worry, they did say sorry).

And the police lost sight of Castree after wrongfully banging up Kiszko. If he had been executed, they would have had every incentive not to catch Castree, given they had already executed Kiszko for his crime.

Besides, in this day and age, you not only could never have a hangman, but a hangperson. And their right to identify as whatever gender they wish needs to be respected. You might get convicts refusing to be hanged by a transwoman - even with a badge.

Anyway, barbarity aside, who the fuck would look at the shower of incompetent, self serving, mendacious, rapacious, unprincipled tossers we have in government and say "Yup, that's my dream ticket to bring back hanging without any problems whatsoever". I can just see day one of the New Brit Order, and it turns out there isn't enough rope.

Two separate issues.

The death penalty, per se
And
Safeguarding children / dealing with paedophilia.

A Capital Punishment referendum would be a disastrous distraction.

Look more closely at what is going on. Twitter enables a huge network of open paedophiles (MAPs or ‘Minor Attracted Person’) who give the age range they are attracted to and advertise the fact that they have ‘open DMs’. An animé or manga avatar is de rigeur. Some of them are insidiously attempting to establish being a MAP as an oppressed sexuality. Look at the thread about the material promoted by George at ASDA on the Feminism board.

Many if not most paedophiles and child sex abusers are not caught. Focus attention on safeguarding and catching, and on the insidious resurgence of the mentality behind the PIE.

In addition, I'd had PTSD for years before the memories came back. I'd had disturbing images for years before this, which I couldn't place. My DSis has long had vaginismus and is unable to have penetrative sex at all.

So, correct me if I'm wrong here. You had "disturbing images" for years which you "couldn't place"? Then the memories came back later.

I am genuinely interested in how you came to understand that the "disturbing images" were memories, if indeed that it what you believe.

I also am very interested in how the "memories came back". Apologies if I have misunderstood you. I genuinely want to understand

Death penalty no, but release from prison never.

@hoodathunkit

When I say we processed the memories in therapy, I mean that we talked about how those memories made us feel. The therapist doesn't say anything, she just lets us talk about things we've actually remembered. The police interviewed the therapists as well and required them to hand in their notes as evidence.

And yes, my DSis and I did obviously talk about what happened. But we mostly remember different events, and there are things she remembers and I don't and vice versa.

My DB, who is by far the most damaged of all of us, remembers nothing at all, and we've said nothing to him.

I think it's entirely reasonable - and I say that as a survivor.

Well, for one thing, the images have stopped completely now. Also, they were in fact images from one particularly bad assault that took place in a London hotel when we were 8 and 6 respectively. The police traced one of the men involved; he matched our description completely, 36 years after the event.

The other man had groomed us, and my DM had been suspicious of him and the hotel manager as well.

I had to make a statement to the police about it as well, as did my DSis. We also had to go through a photo ID parade. The police were thoroughly satisfied that it happened.

When I say we processed the memories in therapy, I mean that we talked about how those memories made us feel.

Thanks for replying :)

You said that the memories only came back later, after the disturbing images

I am genuinely interested in how the memories came back and how you knew that they were memories

I was abused as a child and my siblings all have varying memories about what happened, even though the basic core events are understood to have happened by all siblings.

The EMDR happened a long time after I'd made the statement. Afterwards, the images completely disappeared.

I think that victims/victims family should feel satisfied that justice has been served and not just a slap on the wrist, sometimes I feel the sentences etc are just a joke. Life should mean life, you should die in prison.

Cutting the penis off an offender is not going to change their thought process unfortunately, I don’t think any amount of therapy is going to help so the best thing for the safety of the community is too keep them indoors locked up with no access to the internet

The death penalty makes innocent people murderers.

I knew they were memories because they included details of what I already remembered anyway. Like the car we had (I hadn't thought about in years so I knew it had to be a memory.

Also, my DSis separately remembered the assault, but different details. She mentioned details that I'd seen in my images.

Also having young DC also helped. My niece is a dead ringer for how my DSis looked like as a child.

Repressed memories also often happen when a parent is involved as the child needs to trust that person. I think that's why that assault came back to us first, our F wasn't involved in that one. He quite clearly knew and did nothing, however.

It also helped me understand why he gave me the creeps as a teenager and adult, before he died 22 years ago.

I also have disturbing images and memories from events that happened to me beteen the ages of 4 until my early 20s.

Unfortunately once a child has been abused they are vulnerable to being further abused. Predators sniff out vulnerabilities.

I am really impressed that you were able to give the police so much accurate detail arising from disturbing images that you couldn't place, especially that the images / memories originated from a traumatic experience from such an early age.

My memories of being abused become increasingly fragmented over time and each time I recall them and either write about them or talk to someone about them the meory becomes less of memory of the event and more of a memory of telling somone.

Also the earlier memories fade into time as I get older. I discussed the abuse with all of my siblings and while I am certain about central details some memories are likely contaminated by the discussions I had with my siblings.

Memories become contaminated very easily over time and change a little each time they are recalled.

Yes. F it. Let’s hang draw and quarter them too. WTAF?

NO!

Yes we need to protect society and particularly children but the death penalty is NOT the answer and I’m concerned that you hold these views in your position.

What we need to do is tackle the root causes. You show me a child abuser who doesn’t have some kind of traumatic history. Any amount of reading about the impact of childhood experiences gives a sense of how some people can develop with no empathy and no sense of right and wrong. It’s not that simple of course. It’s very complex. And - That’s NOT an excuse and shouldn’t stop the law locking them away so they can’t cause more damage, but let’s at least try and create fewer of these issues in the first place.

Not to mention false positives.

Can’t even begin to express how fully I object to this notion.

I also came to see how abusive he was to all of us, including my DM. It was definitely coercive control and emotional and financial abuse. He was paranoid, constantly accusing her of cheating on him (oh the irony). I read letters to her, which as an adult I saw quite clearly as being emotionally abusive and manipulative.

There's also the tragic case of Stephen Kizsko, who was totally innocent and developed schizophrenia in prison and whose mum campaigned for years for his conviction to be quashed, and didn't live long enough to see him released. He also died soon afterwards.

She did. She died four months after him.

Sorry just replied to OP. Didn’t read PP. to all those who have experienced abuse as a child I send you care and healing. Thank you for sharing your experiences to add to this debate.

Most child abuse is carried out by a family member or friend of the family. The burden on that victim to come forward and basically kill them, knowing how that will affect everyone, would mean that very few would report or testify! Victim Support have found that very few victims would want their abuser actually dead.

@hoodathunkit I'm so sorry you went through it too. It's heartbreaking to know how many others suffer in this way. We were abused from a similarly early age. The first assault I remember happened when my DSis was 4.

Tragically, my DB is damaged beyond repair, yet because the memories have been completely repressed (he has no childhood memories at all), we can't be around him because he idealises the memories of our F.

It's been devastating for my DM, too, who is now 80 and completely blames herself. I resent her sometimes for not seeing it, but I can see that she was his victim too.

I've also recently had to cope with discovering that my then 7 year old DD (she's 8 now) was being groomed online.

I was considering reporting historical abuse, but the perpetrator died before I had made up my mind.

If I thought that he would be executed I would never have come forward. I don't ever want to be responsible for taking human life.

BadLad Thank you, that's something at least. Still completely terrible. That's the most powerful argument against the death penalty.

I agree with you

It has been interesting to read the responses here, especially from those who have experienced abuse. It has been an eye opener to see that it would have deterred many from reporting if they thought the death penalty was an option.

I have worked with perpetrators. Everything from those in denial, those who claim they were just “curious”, those who claim to recognise that they have a problem and want help (but then go on to do it again) all the way up to those who genuinely think that this is a sexual orientation and that children are sexual beings themselves, and will voice that opinion. Even one who claimed that he was. not attracted to children in general and never “met the right person“ until he met an underage girl (he was over 40 at the time) and thought they were “soulmates”.

We do have whole life sentences in this country (Criminal Justice Act 2003 Schedule 21) but they are reserved for the worst murderers, not child abusers.

Perhaps a more realistic campaign ought to be for whole life sentences for anyone convicted of raping a child instead?

They don’t change, and we don’t have chemical castration as an option in this country. From the literature I have read on it (it is used in some other European countries), it works like this:

1. It depends on the cooperation of the offender (they can’t be held down and forcibly medicated).

1. It is something which is not permanent- the medication has to be taken regularly.

1. It stops the physical symptoms (arousal) but does not correct the attraction, meaning an offender may still seek out and do things to children notwithstanding the chemical castration.

Thanks for the flack from some of you, by the way, especially those who think I’m in the wrong job and the poster who was outraged that this debate was even allowed.

“#nodebate?”

The logic is this:

“You’re wrong- you know nothing about this. If you did you wouldn’t advocate capital punishment!”

“Actually I do- I work with perpetrators on a fairly regular basis. I know all about them and how they operate, and that you cannot stop them from doing what they do.”

“Then you’re in the wrong job and should leave/ lose that job because your in-depth knowledge and exposure has caused you to become burned out to the extent that you express views which are contrary to the status quo!”

I suppose a history degree is easily transferable.... is it any wonder that most professionals never express unorthodox views publicly but just parrot the standard “acceptable” view on anything (see, for example, trans rights) and keep their real opinions to themselves?