What do you think of a 'Sarah Law'?

[Janus]

I watched a bit of the Sara Payne interview last night but couldn't watch it to the end as all I wanted to do was cry. I was overdue with my first child, a girl, when Sarah was taken and can so remember praying she would be found alive.
So now they have sent the man who killed her to prison for life but somehow it doesn't seem enough.
As a parent and having listened to the arguements presented very comprehensively by one of ladies involved in implementing 'Megan's Law' in the States you have to think this is a good idea but how the hell do you uphold it correctly without the near riots that followed last year's publication by the Mirror of known sex offenders?
What do you think, can it be done?

Bugsy, hopefully, you're right and it isn't any more prevalent than in any other age. I think I was such an innocent that it never occurred to me as a child that these crimes existed, so it was a horrible shock when these crimes began to impinge on my consciousness. I was about 11 at the time of the Moors Murderers trial and I recall being very scared by that. But my parents wouldn't let me read about it so I didn't know the details and in any case, I'm not sure how much detail the media would have published back then.

Tigermoth, follow your instincts on this. I wouldn't say it is normal for a grown man to want to hang around with young children in the street or want to take them out in his car.

If Sarah's Law had been in effect before Sarah had been murdered, Roy Whiting may have been driven 'underground' and he may not have been found. The fact is the police knew who he was and where he was and went straight to him.

I don't see that knowing a paedophile is in your area would make your children safer. R.

Absolutely agree with you Rhiannon... if the hairs on the back of your neck stand up... uyou have to trust your instinct. Some of the offenders we used to hear of in the treatment service I worked in had waited years before doing anything sexual, they just gradually blurred the boundaries about who/ what is acceptable until the children and parents were so trusting...
A single man wanting to take kids out is v suspicious and a family man engaging in close physical play with another families kids is either misguided or plotting, in my experience.
I truly think you need to teach your children how to protect themselves too, from very young (sadly)
My husband says he lost his innocence when I was working with the abused children and its true, once you really know how these people work life isn't quite the same and you have to think about where the boundaries are eg not kissing children on the lips etc. I know people will say I'm paranoid but th ethings i've heard children recount are so chilling...
Oh dear I feel I'm the doom merchant on this thread..

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someone asked for a definition of a sex offender, well I looked this up and the Law in England states that a person is a sex offender if they commit any of the following crimes:
rape; intercourse with a girl under 13; intercourse with a girl between 13 and 16; incest by a man; buggery; indecency between men; indecent assault on a woman; indecent assault on a man; assault with intent to commit buggery; causing or encouraging prostitution of, intercourse with, or indecent assault on, girl under 16; indecent conduct towards young child; inciting girl under 16 to have incestuous sexual intercourse; indecent photographs of children; possession of indecent photographs.
The Law is slightly different in Ireland and Scotland, so if your friend, Jasper, was having sex with his wife in a public place in Scotland, that would be classed as lewd conduct, which is termed a sexual offence.

I have not been able to track down any definition of whether paedophilia is an illness or a crime. I think most psychologists are at logger-heads on that one. It is treated as a crime unless it can be proved that the offender was not of right mind when the offence took place, then they can be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
I think it should be seen as both an illness and a crime and be treated as such. They should automatically be placed under the Mental Health Act and be detained indefinitely.

Well done Lisa for finding out the legal stuff!
Tigermoth you raised some very interesting points.
My dh is home with our two young kids most of the time and takes them to the local mother and toddler club. He is a big solid softie and kids are really drawn to him. Tiny girls and boys are always sidling up to him to sit on his knee. He gets on well with the other mums ( he is the only man) and they enjoy the jokey banter of getting him to do the more "manly" things like fixing stuff,shifting heavy things, or unscrewing the lock on the loo door one time a child got locked in. He is acutely conscious of being the only man there and is almost paranoid about not ever being out of the room with one of the children. n a couple of occassions little boys have asked to be taken to the tiolet and their mum ( who was perhaps busy feeding a baby) would ask hin if he minded taking their son. He has always politely declined . I think this is a real shame, but his viewpoint is you can never be too careful and as a man you must be completely above suspicion at all times.
Havent these * paedophiles ruined simple things for normal folks?

Yes these paedophiles have made the world a very scary place.

Robinw yes of course some things are OK but you need to be sure you have taught your child where the limits are and what is public and private, not to have secrets etc. Can your daughter say when she wants it to stop? Of course when you're watching its less of a risk but most offences are not from strangers but familiar people..
One police officer I used to know was v sceptical until a raid for pornography revealed pictures of various children including his naked grandchildren on the beach, with enlargements to give a clearer view of the genitals. Ugh.

I agree Jasper, these vile people have ruined our children's childhood. I never had the freedom my parents had as a child, and my child will never have the freedom I had as a child. This is why I strongly believe that paedophiles, no matter what level, should be taken away from the public, only then will we begin to feel a bit safer. These people don't only ruin their victim's lives but all of our children's lives and it's about time we stood up and said "No more!"
I am fed up of the criminals having more rights than the victims and the public.

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My sister was trying to explain to her three year old son in the bath that his willie was a private thing and noone else should touch it, unless it was mummy or daddy washing him or if the doctor needed to look at it. He mulled this over and helpfully added "and it's okay if my sister wants to touch it" !!!

I think that while nobody would want to take any chances with their own children, we must keep this in perspective. LisaV, I was worried when you said that these sex offenders had ruined our children's childhood. I simply don't believe that. Our children have better health, chances of survival, detection of abuse, toys, opportunities for holidays than ever before. Yes, it is true that they probably have less freedom in the sense that we are unlikely to let them play unsupervised but I don't think that has or will ruin my son's childhood because he will never know any better.
I'm not sure of the crime statistics but as far as I'm aware sex crimes against children are not hugely on the increase. I think that we all get very frightened because of the sensational press coverage any case gets.

Tigermoth, truthfully my first thought is that the kids are the only people who will listen to your neighbor drone on and on about his car. It's fun talking about things you love, especially if someone is interested in all the little bits and details.

It's so sad that people feel they have to make their children grow up suspicious and distrustful of men in general. My two are quite young, so I don't know how I'll handle it, but I'd like to think that I won't have to do that. I don't think that the vast majority are bad and there are only a good few.. I think it's the other way around, although the bad few do a lot of damage. And I don't think that there are more bad people around today-- I think it's just more of an issue now because the taboo about talking about sex is beginning to lift. (Still there.. if it weren't, we'd all be safer. Imagine an open dialogue about sex!) So, LisaV, you weren't safer as a child, just more ignorant. Whether that's good or bad is a personal matter.

I'm with the police in naming and shaming. Also, to put it bluntly, the public can't be trusted with the knowledge, as has been proven.

Tigermoth, that neighbour with the car is definitely creepy, I think. Locally we had a case with a pillar of the community - parent governor, scout leader, church council member, general charity fund raiser person...he was jailed after it was discovered he had been abusing boys for about 20 years. He was married, with 2 daughters. Everyone trusted him with their kids; he used to take kids swimming in his van once a week, and 'groom' selected ones who he'd drop off at home last, having driven his van somewhere off the beaten track. He also abused boys at scout camp, and it started with tickling and rough play. Many families were devastated - the boys never told as they were too scared they wouldn't be believed.

I would also be uncomfortable with the tickling thing. I have an uncle who did this, and he tried several times to sexually assault me when I was about 13 - I dealt with it by never ever being in the same room alone with him ever afterwards. I didn't even tell my mother until I was 30. He tried the tickling with my own children, as well, but I have never left him alone with them and I curtailed the tickling pretty damn quick. He stopped. Tickling is a disinhibiting 'thing' - you'll find sex abusers do it a lot as a way of removing physical barriers. Yuk.

tufty, it's very interesting what you say about potential paedophiles trying to blur the physical boundaries over time. I feel that's exactly what the two men I described have done, whether wittingly or not. It left me feeling confused and unsure of my own judgement.

If the men had been related to us, like the male cousins RobinW describe, I would have felt much more OK about their involvement. Even though I know much abuse occurs within families. Mad I know!

The thing is, the family man initiated the rough and tumble - and did so on some other occasions when I was there. If he had been fending off my son it would have been a diferent matter.

Thanks LisaV for finding out that info on sex offenders. Very useful!

Just for the record, I have not banned my son from seeing these men, but I am attempting to remove what I perceive as the risk. My son was given a really useful book by our local police representative, who handed them out at his playclub. It was written for him, not for adults to read, and gave him strong guidelines on how to behave with strange adults or in strange situations ie if lost and there is no policeman around, approach a shopkeeper or a family, not a lone adult. And, if an adult ever touches you in a way that you don't like, do not be afraid to make lots of noise.

As far as I know these rules are not reinforced at school in the same way as the highway code would be. Perhaps that's what needs to happen - a new code for children to make them more aware of what to do when they are with strangers. But then you have the 'taking away their innocence' argument to consider.

I have found the what to do with paedophiles debate really frustrating....all discussions seem to end in stalemate...parents and police agendas are incompatable. Do you think that the police and the government are developing policies on an economic risk asessment/cost effective model....life sentances are not economically realistic...but if the police are seen to arrest suspects quickly they are seen to be doing a good job....call me cynical??...where are all of the independent experts...have they all been gagged?

close friends of mine are child psychologists and and social workers for a time I always thought they were paranoid but then you see the scale of the problem...the "average" paedophile has committed 200 assaults before conviction, millions of images children on the internet...whose children are they???....everyone I know can recall a "dodgy" incident from childhood the swimming teacher, flasher in the park etc.......at the end of the day do not take risks with your children...you are giving them "freedom" from potential abuse rather than taking it away with a more restricted lifestyle.....and a topical tip for the feastive season...keep your children off "Santas" knee. The other scary piece of info that brought it all home to me the other night was the documentary "Catching a child killer" about Roger Black...in the case of the 5 year old Caroline Hogg who went missing on a beach in Scotland...the police asked holiday makers who had been there that day to send in any photos they had taken to see if they could track this child...they never saw her but managed to identify 34 known convicted paedophiles on the beach that day...and this was in the early 1980s

Has Megan's Law actually had any effect in the US? I'm not sure that it has been effective in reducing paedophile abuse but it has led to the naming, on the internet, of ALL sexual offenders including their addresses. Many of these were teenagers having sex with other teenagers. These people may now have children of their own who may be living with them at these published addresses. Some sites post juveniles and children as offenders (I'm quoting from a letter in today's Independent here). The youngest on the Texan site is 10 years old, apparently.

I saw a small piece abut the effects of Megan's Law. In one State they mentioned, reoffending has gone up from 27% to 29% since it's introduction. Several States use castration even for a first offence and reoffending is 2%. Pretty scary road to go down, though. I imagine the article was selective in what it chose to report.

My son has done some study of paedophilia in Sociology at uni. They believe that probably there are the same number of paedophiles as there were years ago, but that they are bolder and more likely to act out fantasies now. They also have access to more material that feeds their appetites, videos, internet etc. Interestingly, they found that when paedos are integrated into society they are less likely to reoffend, because they are more inhibited than the loner predator.

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I think we don't teach our children that all men (or adults generally) are to be feared. But we do teach them that anyone doing anything that feels uncomfortable or invasive can be asked to desist.

When my son was about 3 to 5 , he didn't like being kissed by anyone - and we respected that. My mother would say 'oh, goodness me, you have to give Gran a kiss!' until I said, no, he has the right to refuse kisses from anyone. I didn't suspect my mother of abuse, but I did respect my son's right not to be dragooned into anything 'bodily' he felt uncomfortable with - and I think that was a useful lesson.

Of course playing and having fun with older boys and men is part of childhood, and I wouldn't stop it (except in the case of that uncle of mine, whom I knew was a danger). But I would keep an eye on the relationship all the same.

My kids learnt that they were never to go with anyone unless I was told first, and that meant anyone. I also taught them ways of finding help if they needed it - ask a shop assistant, or a policeman, or a 'mummy with a buggy' as I always reckoned someone with small kids herself would take a child's distress seriously.

These rules helped them feel safe, and reassured me. They were actually used on a couple of occasions, as well.

I agree with what tiktok has written. I follow similar rules with my son. However, on the main these rules are ones that we have worked out betwen us or I have seen other parents use and have adopted myself.

I have seen a little literature on the subject, but IMO there's nowhere near enough.

When you think of all the goverment campaigns over the years that have reinforced the highway code to children and adults, the difference is huge. These rules of conduct are just as important. Lives are at stake.

I'm also sure that some adults are unaware when they are overstepping the boundaries and making parents concerned. They need educating.

If everyone had a clear idea of what is and what isn't acceptable behaviour between a non-parent adult and child, and children were more confident about their right to say no to something they didn't physically like, then it might help deter potential paedophiles from blurring the boundaries.

Thank you tiktok and tigermoth for your v bablnaced and sensible views. Of course not all men are to be feared but men need to know how to behave responsibly with children and children need to be taught how to say no..even if its not a popular approach. Having worked with abused children i have had no hesiation in teaching my 3 sons and my husband... adn there hsa already been a ( minor) incident when my then 4 year old was able to out it into practise. Its a shame that society prefers o pretend it doesn't happen and then goes crazy when it hits the news.