And also, that means enabling paedophiles to come forward without shame for treatment/help. I'm not referring to people who are doing harm - I'm talking about (probably young) men who realise they have unhealthy attraction to children. BEFORE they access images of children, BEFORE they touch a child......let's get these people help. There will be some that don't want help and glory in their sick tastes - but there will be some that are disgusted with themselves. Right now, there's no easy way to seek help - there needs to be a pathway that can be offered to men to prevent them continuing, to prevent them doing harm to children. People don't like to talk about this because it's dismissed as being a "paedo sympathiser" but nothing can be further from the truth. Prevention is so, so important because only by throwing resources at early prevention together with deterrents and restrictions for offenders, will we actually achieve anything. It's how we protect our children.
Excellent points. FWIW, I've been a victim of child abuse and sexual abuse.
Sometimes this is flagged before harm is done. Many years ago I worked with a MAP (multi-agency protection) initative for the rehabilitation of sexual offenders. Those referred to them for treatment as younger and adolescent boys were the ones for whom treatment was likely to be most effective. This was flagged on a red and amber card system. All the research cited by this organisation showed the odds of rehabilitating an adult, male sex offender were low. It has to be caught at a young age.They worked alongside NOTA, a charity committed to working with professionals for the prevention of sexual abuse. This charity had some amazing academics working within it who had published knowledgeable and fascinating material in the field.
The first notable thing about MAP was its lack of conspicuousness. It was housed in an ordinary house. It might have been a dental surgery or a drugs rehabilitation centre. Had they not been incognito, these people would very likely have been open to vigilantism.
The issue is, as you say, that the pathway is complex and the flags too infrequently acted-upon. The work does go on - it goes on inconpicuously owing to its very nature - but it happens. The title of the organisation suggests that the names are filtering through the familial line through already being in the multi-agency system, local hospitals, schools, social services, lawyers and guardians ad litem, and other child protection charities and organisations. But the numbers we know about have to be minuscule in view of the amount of this behaviour we know goes on unreported.
The good news in response to your post is that this treatment work is ongoing. It does happen.
The bad news, as ever with funding desperately urgent issues such as these, is that it's not happening nearly enough.