Identifying a pedophile to his neighbours

[Bipitybopityboop]

If you found out, through work, that a pedophile was going to live on a certain street near you.
Would you anonymously let the neighbourhood know?

Would you want to know?

This could not be traced back to one individual.

@IloveJKRowling absolutely agree with you

@MissScotland101 you know nothing about my qualifications.

So actually OP I think providing public sphere information on this convicted offender will actually make it less likely he'll offend against a local child - which is when he'll be beaten up.

So you'll probably be making him safer too.

Lot of paedophile defenders on this thread I'd say something if I knew for sure, but I also would not be able to do a job where I was required to protect the identities of people like that.

If he’s been convicted then as one of the ‘neighbours’ I’d rather know. My kids come before his ‘rights’ to have a normal life. He threw away a chance at a normal life when he committed horrendous crimes.

I’m not saying I’m for him being burnt out of his home or beaten up, but I certainly wouldn’t want one living beside me, that’s for sure. I know they are ‘amongst’ us, but if you know someone has been convicted then I’d obviously rather know about it. Especially if they were my next door neighbour. I would be putting in place plans to make my garden much more private and ensuring that my children tell me if he was ever to speak to them, and to run away from him if he ever did. I’d also even more so closely supervise them being outside especially over the summer months with paddling pools etc.

I just cannot get on board with keeping this secret. The risk is too high IMO. But that’s just my point of view.

@pinkearedcow

No I wouldn't OP - you won't know all the facts and you won't know whether the person is still a danger to children. They may not be.

Once a danger always a danger. They don't stop feeling how they feel just because it's been pointed out to them that it's wrong or illegal 🙄🙄

@Bipitybopityboop

If you found out, through work, that a pedophile was going to live on a certain street near you. Would you anonymously let the neighbourhood know?

Would you want to know?

This could not be traced back to one individual.

No. But if you did, and I found out it was you, I would have no hesitating to dob you and your vigilantism in to the authorities

I always think a little perspective goes a long way. It's estimated 1 in 35 men has an interest in underage females. How many houses in your street? Ive got 120. Most of them are family units of 3+, so I'd guess Ive got 6 or 8 paedophiles that I walk past daily. How many men in your family OP?

fullfact.org/crime/how-many-men-have-sexual-interest-children/

@MissScotland101 do you know @RoseRedRoseBlue personally? How do you know what she knows about the subject? She has not said what her expertise is but from her comments on here I would infer that she is a professional working in areas which include child sex offending. As am I (I have worked on both the survivor side of things AND the perpetrator side, in two different roles, fopr over two decades). I had not heard of Ms Kenney before but she appears to have an undergrad psychology degree and no academic publications. I am sure she is an estimable person but I would submit that I and @rose very possibly have more knowledege in this area than her.

If I was 100% sure, I would tip off the immediate neighbours. Definitely.

Ideally with some kind of evidence e.g. a newspaper article so that they didn't think I was just a troublemaker. And anonymously of course!

@theDudesmummy spot on 🙂

So if the information is in the public domain domain there's no need for her knowing information from work angle, which begs the questions why she's asking.

One option: Information in public domain is highlighted to other people who can access this information.
Other option: the information the OP wants to share is not in the public domain.

First option wouldn't bother me one bit. The second option puts the OP on dodgy ground as most jobs requiring access to sensitive information comes with an expectation that people behave professionally with it. It doesn't matter what your average mumsnetter thinks; people have to do their jobs professionally.

@MissScotland101 I specifically said that people cannot in general chnage what they are "in to". You are therefore entirely correct in this. What I said was some can change their behaviour (and a few, very few, can be assissted to not be "in to" anything at all). A very different thing.

Saying that people should commit suicide is not acceptable.

@Tylila

I was notified about the one who lives next door to me. That’s how we came to be aware of him staring in the window at our daughter. He has been convicted of offences relating to kidnap and sex offences with children.

Six months later, three reports to the police and he’s still there.

Were you notified officially )police or ??) or by someone 'in the know'

If it was me I'd be making a complaint every single time he looked in our direction.

Yes other offenders might (will) live nearby, but not necessarily next door and just knowing he was there would make me uncomfortable in my own home.

I hope they move him soon, and NOT next door to other children.

So none of you use Sarah's Law when you make a new acquaintance, you just depend on some random stuffing a leaflet through your letterbox?

[quote theDudesmummy]@IloveJKRowling of course there is a chance that neighbours knowing about a child sex offender's conviction will have a positive effect on risk, in that they will be careful about who he is able to have access to etc, sure.

But this is only one part of the risk management equation. It may be counterbalanced by negative effects which increase risk, including vigilante and other behaviours causing the offender to be less easy to monitor and less likely to stay in one place or access support/treatment. It is a complex risk assesment exercise, which, despite terrible failures of "authorities" in the past, is on balance better left to professionals rather than the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.

This combined with the risks of everyone focusing on a single potential offender while possibly downplaying/ignoring the risks that may be posed by others who are not "on the radar", is enough for me to say that my assessment of risks will in almost every such case come down on the side of less public interest in the offender.[/quote]
Jesus H Christ. How unbelievably arrogant.

I'm not stupid, I won't focus on this one risk to the exclusion of all else. In fact finding out this information prompted me to buy the Gavin De Becker book on protecting children (which is excellent - totally recommend to all parents). Nor will any other of the hundreds of parents I know, far from it. What evidence do you have to back up this spurious and unsubstantiated claim? You're treating parents as if they're idiots.

Parents have a legal responsibility to safeguard their children. Parents can only safeguard their children properly if they are given relevant information.

In fact in all safeguarding training I've seen, exchange of relevant information is part of it. Openness and transparency. Not arrogant hiding of information from those best placed to safeguard children.

It's not surprising how many children are abused because of the state's inaction if this is the attitude of professionals.

I would consider posting a newspaper article through the door and allow them to follow it up.
If it was word of mouth then I would not.
So many times word of mouth, not specifically paedophile related, has been simply made up by an nasty individual.

[quote RoseRedRoseBlue]@Iminaglasscaseofemotion as I said to someone else upthread, show me a post where I have displayed sympathy towards a paedophile. You won’t find one.[/quote]
You don't need to say it outright, your attitude on this thread gives me the impression I have. There was also a post where you accused me of attacking that other poster (which I can't be bothered trying to find) where you did actually sat something about showing sympathy, or compassion or something to sex offenders.

You did attack another poster, and she raised exactly the same point.

Lot of paedophile defenders on this thread hmm I'd say something if I knew for sure, but I also would not be able to do a job where I was required to protect the identities of people like that

Oh so moral. No one is “protecting” identities. I am not allowed to share any offending i may come across in the course of my work.

So I can’t do around saying Susie’s son is a thief, watch your handbags, or dave once twoc’d a car, mid your keys, or Tracey was done for nicking the petty cash, don’t give her a job.

It isn’t just about the offender, as many have said. It’s also about protecting their families, mum, dad, many have exwives or girlfriends, some even kids. Vigilante “justice” often involves blaming the parents or partners “they must have known”, and can you imagine the hell at school for kids if it’s common knowledge?

These are the people the safeguarding measures are in place for.

I would be absolutely amazed if it was as low as 3 percent of men have some attraction to under age girls. Most just hide it because of the consequences of not hiding it.

People who think knowing meant they could make their children safer are absolutely deluded. You fools.

The most insidious paedophiles won’t even have been convicted. If you’re changing your behaviour to your next door neighbour because you know they have a conviction then your previous behaviour towards your neighbour before you knew was unsafe and foolish. It should be there’s nothing to change because you were already doing everything reasonable to protect your children.

I would want to know personally so I could keep my children away from them and would want to make other parents aware. I was assaulted when I was a child a long time ago and that sort of thing never goes away, I still had nightmares till I found out he died last year. I would want to protect other kids from the same thing not so those who knew could harrass the person but so they could keep their kids away and safe.

If it was easier to access information about convicted sex offenders, there would be a much wider awareness that it's endemic and that there needs to be education about methods (as Gavin de Becker outlines) to protect children. People would be armed with information so would feel more in control and less angry, and there would be less stigma for those family members of the abusers.

I don't see the downside, except that the 'professionals' wouldn't have a sense of superiority in knowing better than normal parents.

Far worse for everything to be secret and then there is a REAL risk of media campaigns and mistaken identity, which has happened in the past. If people could access accurate info easily then far less chance of this happening.

Who does this information (about convicted offenders) being secret benefit? Not children, not parents. And yes, Sarah's law but in my experience quite difficult to get information this way. You need to prove someone has 'access' to your child. Would a neighbour qualify?

@IloveJKRowling I would disagree that I am being arrogant. I was explaining a little bit about how I approach this type of risk assessment. My job/role(s) happen to be pertinent to this particular discussion, which is why I was trying to explain my approach in case it was of interest to others. That isn't being arrogant. I know a great deal about some things and nothing at all about others, like most people. This type of assessment just happens to be something I know about, that's all.

Of course information is important, it's the most important part of any risk asessment. But in this specific situation there may be different sorts of information to weigh, including potential human reactions/interpretations in relation to information. So considering the way a certain community/neighbourhood/group of people/culture etc etc may react to the information that someone convicted of a sexual offence is living at a specific place could be an important part of the assessment.

@MissTrip82 yes that is precisely what I have been trying to say