Pedophile Activist on BBC Radio 4 Behind The Crime

[BitMuch]

A convicted pedophile describes his crimes against girls with great self-pity, says his victims did not have negative reactions and if they had he would have stopped before he got caught and argues to reduce stigma for pedophiles. The presenters psychologists Sally Tilt and Dr Kerensa Hocken do not challenge him and repeatedly call for viewers to sympathise with what they call his 'compulsion', comparing his 'attraction' to our desire to eat unhealthy food. Is this the next target for 'just be kind you judgy bigot' propaganda?

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001b43m

It was produced in partnership with the Prison Radio Association. Does that mean this episode is being played to prisoners?

picklemewalnuts · Today 16:10
I live in a village that had a full on moral panic over an ex offenders programme buying a local building.

The rhetoric around it was disgusting.

Barely anyone recognised that there were ex offenders living in the village already, that many people listening to the ranting had relatives serving sentences.

Most remarkably, everyone assumed ex offenders were sex offenders, and that there were no sex offenders already living here.

We have to engage your brain for this debate, and not allow horror and disgust to switch off critical thinking.

Re:
Most remarkably, everyone assumed ex offenders were sex offenders

Does anyone know the reoffending rate? I have to admit that I feel very wary about thinking all child abusers can be completely cured, or even that many are.

Just to clarify, Leaves, the 'ex offenders' in this instance had not committed specific offences. Yes, it was possible they'd committed sex offences. Equally could have been anything.

Meanwhile your next door neighbour could be a sex offender- either convicted or not yet caught.

I don’t know where ‘removing the taboo’ has come from or ‘normalising’ it. Neither were mentioned in the programme.

I think many of us are sceptical that treatment helps sex offenders, this article suggests we are right to remain sceptical.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/30/sex-offenders-on-group-treatment-programme-more-likely-to-reoffend

Here’s another view from someone who has treated sexual offenders.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/18/serious-sexual-offenders-crimes

That treatment clearly didn't.

Not all treatment involves group counselling and peer support.

I take your wider point while also considering that this sentence in the programme notes approximates to a commonly accepted meaning of taboo.

By talking through the key moments in Ian’s life and upbringing, we can start to understand how he, and others, reach the point where they cause harm through shameful acts that cause disgust to society.

I'd also accept there are plausibly nuances of taboo v disgust v shame.

I don't know where commenters/listeners are picking up normalisation from so it would be helpful if they'd comment on that.

I think it's coming from the suggestion that it could become possible to admit feeling sexual attraction to children, and not be considered a criminal.

The separation of the offence from the 'orientation', if you like.

I'd argue the issue is queer theory claiming that it's an acceptable orientation. It isn't. It needs treatment.

Despite all of this, I’ve kept doing the work because I believe it is vitally important to try to prevent further victims of serious sexual and violent offences. And the work is extraordinary and complex, bringing intellectual challenge, self-analysis, purpose, a sense of achievement and altruism, and an array of interesting, dedicated colleagues into my life.

I also do it to help the men themselves. Just about all of the offenders I’ve ever met don’t want to offend again, and most sexual offenders do not reoffend. They want to be useful members of society. However, released sexual offenders face many barriers to this: stigma, ostracism, lack of work, housing, friends, family, human connection. For the minority of sex offenders who do reoffend, it is exactly these types of problems that make it more likely that they may do so.

It would have answered a PP's enquiry if Myers had given an estimate for the lack of recidivism among sex offenders and, specifically, those convicted of offences against children.

My understanding is that sexual offenders have one of the higher rates of recidivism so I'm surprised that Myers says its a minority. I've found stats suggesting in the UK its 12% reconviction rate in 5 years and I imagine the reoffending rate outside of being convicted is much higher.

US stats predict around 45% recidivism over time, which while technically a minority is not the impression that I get from Myers' framing.

I've found stats suggesting in the UK its 12% reconviction rate in 5 years and I imagine the reoffending rate outside of being convicted is much higher.

This feels quite dated.

lanternproject.org.uk/library/research-about-sex-offenders/managing-sex-offenders/sexual-offence-recidivism/

Very obviously, this is yet another area where we need better data collection not vague or poorly defined statistics and data.

James Lindsay discusses the normalisation scale here, I don't agree with everything he says but it explains why there is concern about destigmatising paedophilia.

There have been various attempts over the last 50 years to persuade society that paedophiles are really not that bad (no MAPS) , they are also victims or even that children benefit from sexual relationships with adults; The Kentler Experiment reference earlier in the thread.

I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking its to necessary hold the line and take a zero tolerance approach to any attempt to elicit sympathy for paedophiles because it feels like yet another example of boundary pushing and because there is plenty of evidence that the so called "experts" in paedophilia either can't be trusted because they are clueless but don't know it or they are predators themselves.

@FlorettaB and others, I think what we are seeing here is that responding vigorously to what one assumes this programme said gives people a comforting sense of righteous outrage- maybe this also applies to the villagers faced with the ex offenders project. It's almost wilful to refuse to think seriously about how to prevent offending or re-offending.

How are we going to know what works unless we try things and then allow scientists to publish and discuss the results? Surely this is a matter of public interest worthy of public debate? 'Lock them all up and throw away the key' may feel good to say, but it isn't practical. just or affordable. So we need another solution.

I work with DA survivors and it's clear to me that abusers are operating within a patriarchal system that enables and excuses their crimes. I chose to put my energies into the survivors. But if people can devise a successful means of preventing offending and re-offending, my very best wishes and thanks to them .

I'm surprised the experts think the reoffending rates are low, they seem to focus on 15% reoffending within 5 years of release. But as time goes on the risk of reoffending rises to 40%. Which does not feel low to me.
ISK why but it feels like the risk is being minimised, in a similar way to how the risk of being raped by a stranger is often minimised.

''Follow-up studies, however, typically find sexual recidivism rates of 10%-15% after five years, 20% after 10 years, and 30%-40% after 20 years. The observed rates underestimate the actual rates because not all offences are detected...''
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12839896/

I am hard of thinking on this. Smacking of being less intelligent or not well read or whatever the other insults were. I have very hardlines with no grey areas.
If logistics are the issue then there are other options which are not the face of kindness. Those are the one I'd much rather use.
Comparing this to housing criminals in society is, to me, highly inaccurate. Using the rate of sexual offences borders on dishonest.
When the rich versions of these criminals start opting for care and treatment instead of countries where their crimes are legal then i might begin to reduce the righteous outrage. If you knew how other countries are just so happy to have any research which dissociates the act from the actor...

Today, right now, sorry no. If the problem is prison space, I'd go harsher rather than kinder.

I would happily go harsher on certain categories. And indeed, the support that potential offenders should get could and perhaps should include pretty drastic measures.

I know castration doesn't prevent other forms of assault. I'd be happy if, with medical advice, men could take drugs that reduce their urge to offend. The joke is about Bromide, I believe. I've no medical knowledge to know the best options, but they should be available. We're already sterilising very young people on the basis of their feelings.

How are we going to know what works unless we try things and then allow scientists to publish and discuss the results?

I'm uncomfortable about what sounds like an experiment with the abuse of children (or absence of such) being one of the metrics, tbh.

I don't think anyone would advocate a lower level of supervision or confinement as a result of treatment.

It's not either/or, again.

a comforting sense of righteous outrage

How about you consider how prevalent CSA is, and how many posters are very likely to have experienced this at the blunt end, before you start making assumptions about motivations?

but we had an earlier poster who is a survivor who said she wanted there to be ways of preventing offending/reoffending- I can't see who wouldn't

I would love it if there were a way to reduce offending, but having personally seen how these offenders manipulate, I am very wary of taking anything they say at face value. This programme, to me, encourages credulity in a very unhelpful way considering the MAP push across twitter and other online spaces.

I'm another that thinks the utmost importance should be given to maintaining boundaries. If that makes me hard of thinking or a pearl clutcher then so be it, I'd rather be that than risk unwittingly enabling offending.

Full paper for download (free): www.researchgate.net/publication/6683030_Sexual_Offender_Recidivism_Risk_What_We_Know_and_What_We_Need_to_Know

If you were asked to given an opinion on whether there should be any research/investigation, would you agree or disagree to it?

If you agreed that there should be some, what form should it take?

If you wanted to prevent people acting on impulses/compulsions, would you want to talk to people who experienced those impulses/compulsions to see how you might divert them from any drive to act on them? If not, from whom would you gather information that would give you plausibly effective interventions?

Thank you - reading the paper the following items are listed as having limited predictive factor on sexual recidivism:

• Victim empathy
• Denial of sex offense
• Unmotivated for treatment
• Sexually abused as a child

I would posit that this is because these things are all incredibly easy to feign for a manipulative offender. The paper states that this is because of the difficulty of assessing remorse, I think it calls into question the effectiveness of using clinical interviews to assess risk.

The main links to recidivism - assault of an unrelated boy, assault of an unrelated boy much higher than incest assault - shows that the higher barriers to the original crime, the more likely a man will reoffend. Someone who abuses a niece is less likely to reoffend once the easy access to family children is removed.

A person who works to get themselves into a position of trust to abuse unrelated girls or boys is going to be more committed to overcoming future barriers. I'd argue those same people are going to be the ones used to pretending and better at manipulating psychologists by working out what they want to hear.

If you wanted to prevent people acting on impulses/compulsions, would you want to talk to people who experienced those impulses/compulsions to see how you might divert them from any drive to act on them? If not, from whom would you gather information that would give you plausibly effective interventions?

Personally I would gather information from places where they believe they are among likeminded individuals rather than where there is a direct reward, even if just from an ego perspective, for convincing someone of a false narrative.

Psychologists long believed that childhood sexual abuse was a predictor of becoming an abuser. It turns out offenders had learned that saying that they'd also been abused got them more understanding, a sense of pity for having been turned into an abuser. When they asked to repeat the interview under lie detectors, the criminals admitted they had said it for sympathy and a possible lesser sentence.