to think steralisation should be enforced

[claw3]

on anyone who abuses children?

Oh I forgot this was an AIBU thread well then that makes it different

YABatadU

claw3 on Tue 18-Nov-08 10:49:50
"Cory - Baby P for example, are you suggesting that he might be innocent? or baby P had another medical reason for his injuries?"

No, but you cannot make a law for one case alone. A law cannot be made and then rescinded every time a new case comes up.

I do know of other cases where the evidence has looked very black against an adult and they have been convicted only for the conviction to be overturned. The problem is that the jury and the judge were convinced by the evidence at the time. Mistakes are made.

There have even been cases where children have died because severe medical problems were interpreted as child abuse and the child was taken away from the parent who was pushing for more medical investigation.

If the punishment was of such a nature that it could not be overturned it would almost certainly have two effects:

innocent men and there families would suffer terribly

juries who knew this would be very unwilling to convict so more abusers would walk free

Oddly enough capital punishment does not work out that cheap. People tend to be on death row for years, which costs more than ordinary prison, and the costs of fighting all the appeals mount up hugely (or so I remember from when we learnt about this in school RE lessons back in the 80s).

Saying that things have gone too far implies that there are now more child murders and more child abuse in Britain than there was in the last generation. This isn't actually true: Britain has relatively fewer child murders now compared to the 1970's, and is now one of the western countries where this happens least frequently (a very different story from the 1970s!). America with its harsher system does far less well when it comes to child murder/severe child abuse.

Kathyis6incheshigh not in the UK. The phrase was (IIRC) "You will be taken down from here..." and it was literally that you would go straight to being hung. In America you can spend most of your life on death row and that's wrong on so many levels!

I'm still resisting commenting on Baby P.

That's interesting Tinkerbellesmum.
Would it still be like that if we reintroduced it though? Or would we have to leave time after sentencing in case of an appeal?

No way to know as no one is talking about it and I can't see it coming up for discussion in the UK.

solidgoldbrass, If you read CountessDraculas "cut off their goolies" bit then you would see that she meant it in jest.
However, as I stated before the damage done by sexual child abusers isn't one that can be rehabilitated.
I have yet to find one example where the adult is released and not continually monitored (again sexual child abusers) because they are not "cured" but admittedly can relapse. They (don't know about the UK) have to be put on a list when they live in a neighborhood with children. They aren't allowed to participate in anything that would invite children to come within limits of them such as Halloween trick or treating, etc.
Do you have an example of someone that has been sexually abused and has been cured? I do not.
As for other abuse of children I can give you several examples where the surviving abuser isn't trusted to be around children but instead will have to be taken care of (supervised) for the rest of their lives. Sadly, the children in these cases did not survive.
On to the baby P. case. Correct me if I am wrong but isn't it the fault of a certain section of child care agency that failed before with another similar case to follow up on the child? Wasn't there also a doctor that didn't report what was clearly abuse ie broken ribs and back, bruises etc.
Something not only needs to be done about child abusers in general but in particularly to the overseeing of this particular agency (and attending physicians) if this can happen repeatedly.

Yup. And off with their hands too.

Why not lobotomize while we are at it?

heh, too late Dominion. I'm already being called on that very statement. Fortunately, (at least in the states) it is up to the state and not the individual to determine what is to be done about such things.
Again, I don't know why the same thing that happened to baby P. happened to another child years(?) earlier.

Another problem for those that are "rehabilitated" and set free is employment. If they apply for a job who will hire them? How are they to make a living when they have to drag their past out for the world to see? Many end up returning to prison or what other institution they were habitating because they cannot make a life outside. So again, someone else has to house and feed them.

BLueshoes: dictatorships are often very nice places to live if you keep your head down and conform. ANd just hope very strongly that you never fall foul of anyone who feels like reporting you for some or other crime, or that any of your friends get arrested for anything and might implicate you. Mind you, as an expat you probably were safe from false arrest and torture because it might have made for an international incident.

It is a utopian view - apart from anything else. Hindley and Brady had no kids, the Wests left their own well alone, the Soham murders were nothing to do with the parents.

The capacity to perpetuate abuse is fundamental and has nothing to do with biological status. Yes, most child abuse occurs within the home, but so do most adult murders and ditto banal domestic violence (sic) which are all acts of savagery in one form or another, non?

Tis kneejerk politics bowing down to the baying lowest common denominator - the howling, unthinking masses with wipe it clean solutions, masking rather than solving the problems.

Sterilising Tom, Dick or Harriet would just push the problem further under the dm ranting carpet.

Interesting thread claw.
I agree with you. A mother who allows another adult to brutally traumatise her own child (such as child P) should not be allowed to have more children.

It is simply not fair on the baby.

Unfortunately this will never happen in UK, people will agrue that it is her human right to have children if she wants to, and so she will probably have baby after baby, with no stability and suffering ill treatment.

What about the rights of babies to come to the world into home that will actually protect them and love them? It is all very sad.

Oh lawks. Have I spelled fundamental wrong? It looks funny.

Wehaveall, as I keep pointing out, there have been cases of people being released not because they were thought to be rehabilitated, but because new medical evidence showed that there had never been any abuse in the first place. These people were innocent despite convictions!

There are medical conditions which will give such symptoms as bruises, gaping wounds, burn-like looking scars and ribs broken for no apparent reason.

I myself was aghast to find how quickly the A&E paeditrician went from 'I cannot diagnose this pain' to 'it must be caused by some emotional trauma' to 'can you think who might have abused your daughter?'. It doesn't bear thinking of that some innocent man might have been castrated because dd's consultant was too ignorant to recognise a condition that is in the medical textbooks.

I understand cory. Here in Texas there is a big controversy about people sentenced to life and the death penalty that may be innocent. Unfortunately, reopening closed cases and collecting DNA evidence isn't possible for one reason or another, whether it be outdated laws or just negligence on the part of the system.
There are no easy or perfect answers. It isn't comforting though to those that suffer to leave things as is.

Mamadiva posted...
"Eleanor
My dad and siblings all turned out not bad not one of them has ever raised a hand to any of their children!"

Oddly...
Although mum was beaten by both her mother and nuns at her school and my dad was badly beaten by teachers (made to stand on a desk while his legs were caned) I cannot recall either of them hitting me.

I'm not sure if this view makes you left wing or right wing, but can everybody get in the centre and a little perspective, ta muchly.

It is difficult, wehaveall, but one thing you can do is to look at the statistics and see if modern methods mean a rise or a drop in a certain type of behaviour. Despite the recent much publicised case of baby P, this type of severe child abuse has got much less frequent in Britain since the 1970's. It is not the case that we are now faced with an overwhelming tide of abuse cases compared to either previous decades or to other comparable countries. In fact, Britain is scoring better than ever on this count and improving its position compared to other similar countries. This makes it doubtful whether we really should be going back to an older system. Of course, what we all want to see is no child abuse at all, but the first sign is decreasing instances of child abuse.

solidgoldbrass, you would like to paint Singapore as a dictatorship and paranoid police state where all it takes is a false accusation to get a person convicted. Singapore's tough criminal laws and safe society does not support your argument one bit, so I cannot blame you.

You are misguided about Singapore. It has a very developed legal system and efficient transparent court system. The UK can take a few leaves out of its book

On the issue of expats, Singapore has applied its penal system time and again to foreigners, including those from UK and US despite diplomatic pressure. Its legal system stands up to scrutiny, so there is nothing to hide.

I agree with blueshoes. There was a case (sorry I cannot recall how many years ago) where an american teenager was damaging cars and got caught. He had a public caning (they didn't really hurt him...more embarrassing than anything) but the americans were outraged. I think they handled the situation outstandingly. Obviously the child had no respect for others property in a foreign country. His parents hadn't raised him to respect others property or laws (something I find a lot of americans don't consider important) and the punishment was compassionate (they didn't hurt him) but authoritive. I applaude them for that.

Morning - its been really interesting reading everyones opinions.

The murder rate in the UK has more than doubled since hanging was abolished, is this because we are now catching more criminals, population increase etc, etc or because we now have no detterants?

Is that the murder rate in proportion to population, Claw? Where do you get the figures?