to disagree that "name and shame" policy with paedophiles is wrong and dangerous?

[Gigantaur]

i was sent a request to join a facebook group that is printing names and photo's of apparent convicted paedophiles.

When i had a look at the site some of the ignorance and general scaremongering was ridiculous so i joined so that i could post that what they were doing was dangerous and please could they not publish names on the page as it will inevitably lead to some poor innocent person getting harmed.

I also gave my opinion that I simply do not believe that such actions are anything but harmfull to the police and supporting agencies attempts to moniter and observe these people so as to try and prevent further incidents.

I have been (unsurprisingly) rounded on. now i must admit that at one stage i got so angry at the sheer ognorance of some of the comments that i got my judgy pants on over the content and substance of some of the posts.

but really, am i the only clear thinking person in the land? or, as they tell me, am i merely a "peedo sympethiser" ?

Naming and shaming does not do society any good in any crime, especially the highly emotive ones, it only causes, vigilante behaviour, feeling of numbness and innocent people getting injured/killed by the human emotional behaviour surrounded by the "name & shame" attitude.

Innocent until proven guilty, and even then, if proven guilty, I will let the courts decide what their fate is!

1, how can people be 100% sure they are naming and shaming the correct person?

As I said,these 'reports' look like they are court reports and not just plucked from suspicion,so they would of been in the local rag anyway.
To collect them all up together and publish them on facebook is just scaremongering. and I would suggest that the creator really needs to get a life.

These sex offenders have been caught and deal with via the courts.

Bit of a strange mixture of people on that list, must be a rather loose definition of paedophile.

"(Tho if I had my way they'd be packed off to the gas chambers)"

Yep. Gas chambers. Nice cultural reference there. (Rolls eyes)

I know someone who had an "affair" with a girl he met at a nightclub (idiot thing to do - he was married at the time - mid 20s). It later turned out that she was 15 - he tells me he only found out when the police showed up on his doorstep after her parents found out about it (and were, understandably, upset).

He went to prison. He's now a paedophile so he'll be on the sex offender's register, unable to work with children, criminal record etc.

Personally, (and this could just be because I know him) I don't think he's creepy or dangerous and I don't think he should be sent to the gas chambers or chemically castrated but presumably he'd be on this list of "evil" people. If she'd been a few months older this would have not been a legal issue (although still inappropriate).

there was a story recently of a couple who have been married for some 17 years. they met as children.

when he was 16 and she was a few weeks from her 16th birthday they had sex. her parents found out and complained and he was placed on the Sex offenders register.

surprisingly there are some grey area's.

I just don't see how these sites help anyone.

I'm torn on it. I think this information needs to be publicly available, but at the same time, the lot who've joined the fb group I'm on of the same subject are idiots. They really are!

The only problem I had with them was that I saw somebody who I had regular contact as a child on one of them, and one my my high school peers was on there too. The childhood person is the one that shook me up though!

i've been sent information suggesting that the man living next to us is a paedophile. the police wouldn't confirm it either way - so i'm left non the clearer. i have 3 young boys. you can talk all you want about innocent unless proven guilty - but i think you might think differently if there was any doubt about a neighbour. the children are innocent - its the paedophiles who are sick

if your neighbour is a paedophile, how are your children in any more harm than they were before you were suspicious?

your garden is fenced i assume? and secure? you don't allow your children to play outside unsuperived i imagine?

I would guess that given your suspicions you will not be inviting him to babysit.

if you had it confirmed that he was/nt how would that help you?

Well done, you have handled some horrible comments (on fb) really well. You speak sense.

thank you

dreamingofsun would knowing your neighbour is a convicted paedophile/ sex offender help you? I doubt it TBH. You have your reservations about this man now and you can ensure your children are safe by supervising them in the garden etc.

If you read my earlier post you will find that one of my neighbours was a convicted child sex offender. I never knew at the time and, even with the name and shame sites', wouldn't have known as he changed his identity many times and moved up and down the country to avoid being identified. I wouldn't have benefitted from knowing he was a sex offender because there is nothing I can do with that information, other than worry.

exactly bunnyjo. well put

bunnyjo - now i have reservations about him we have limited our contact, eg no longer have neighbourhood social events - so guess agree with what you are saying. i suppose my only reservation is that i now think he might be a paedophile and is probably innocent

Where I used to live a guy was hung in a stair well because 'his' picture had been put up in a local pub as a peadophile. Turned out it was his brother

Ahh.
we can always rely on you LeQueen for some rational intelligent contribution to any argument.

These sorts of groups are pathetic really. What about the paediatrician mistaken for a paedophile? Simply because some idiots can't use a dictionary?

Or what about that young lad whose mistakenly been ID'd as Jon Venables simply because he'd been in court over something minor and was a similar age. He's at risk of being lynched by stupid vigilantes.

I don't agree with name and shame unless it's 110% absolutely positive, and even then, some stupid twerp will cock it up!

YANBU - I think this kind of name and shame attidude makes for dangerous times.

Im sorry but there are too many idiots out there who act first and question (if at all) later. I second IlovePD and worry about the innocent people who work with kids getting targeted, esp if they are men.

However. And it is a big However: I think that once convicted of a sexual offence against a child, the person should be locked up and not let out on early release schemes or due to good behaviour. It has been shown time and time again that the monitoring system in the UK doesn't keep adequate track of paedophiles, and that they do re-offend if given the opportunity.

They are dangerous to children, and cannot be rehabiliated as it is a sexual preference which they have no control over.

I think that to be convicted of a sexual crime against a child should effectively remove all the perpretator's human rights to remain in their society, as they have chosen to transgress all the moral and legal obligations to remain there, the upmost of which is, and should be the protection of children.

My views may be unpopular but they are honest.

if your idea worked LeQueen then surely in the states where the Death penalty is still in effect then there would be no murders commited.

that is quite obviously not the case and proves yet further that it is simply not a common sense response but an emotional one.

whilst that is understandable as a parent i would hope that as intelligent human beings we could compartmentalise our emotions from our rational thinking.

YANBU - there are many problem with this, the main ones being:

1. as people have already said - the well know case of the paediatrician who was victimised

2. Better that police/agencies know exactly where these people are

3. The argument that parents want to 'know exactly who is living next door to them' holds absolutely no value because a) your children are much more likely to be abused by a relative whom you completely trust and b) for every paedophile that you can account for (i.e you know where they live) there are about 10 more who are completely unknown to authorities/police, who may well be living much closer (OK so i totally made up that statistic but you get the point!)