The following article first appeared in Coronet Magazine, August 1946
Coronet Magazine, August 1946
“A heartbroken father, his voice trembling with grief and terror, went on the air. Sobbingly he pleaded with the kidnapper who had snatched his daughter from her bed the night before. He begged him not to harm the child. He would do anything — anything at all — if only his little girl was returned home, safe and sound.
For weeks newspapers followed the case, reporting every minor development of the ensuing manhunt. Finally, newsboys were hawking murder headlines that shocked and angered every American. The missing child had not been kidnapped for ransom. She had been abused and butchered. Her kidnapper had been a sex criminal—a depraved prowler who had stolen her from her bed and then had tried to hide his crime by killing a helpless child.
Frantic parents asked for extra patrols around their homes. Americans were aroused, angry, infuriated–and never was anger more justified. No wonder Americans rage and fume every time shocking headlines meet their eyes. It is ever present, terribly real, and deadly serious. It should not only make us angry–it should keep us angrily determined to fight the menace until the solution is finally reached. For there is a solution: As the first step toward it, we must completely revise our present thinking about sex crimes and sex criminals.”
The on-going problem of child molestation will be improved when we move away from the Orwellian sex offender registries and tell the public that the news media has left out a big piece of sex offending story: That 91% of all sex crimes committed against children are from people already known to the child victim (big brothers, step dads, babysitters, church ministers, etc.).
This just goes to prove that no matter how many laws you make to “protect” people, you will never stop all crime.
If a person is intent on committing a crime, they will commit a crime.
Anger and hate has never solved anything! We need to work on educating kids in schools about the dangers of the world, sexual abuse, how to report it, etc.
Castration,chemical or actual, will not work because these perverts will just use other objects. It is either life in prison or the death penalty. Pedophiles are of no use to society.
This story does highlight the fact that child abuse, sexual abuse, etc has been going on for a long time. In the past 20 years, the penalties for most violent crimes has been increased dramatically, yet for 30 years, the overall rate for violent crimes has been dropping steadily. The reasons for the drop are not clear, there are many theories. However, we do know that statistically the increase in punishment hasn’t made a single difference to the rate of violent crimes.
It’s time to take a different approach. Very, very few people set out in life to commit violent crimes. We need to spend more energy addressing the root causes of these crimes, educating everyone, and preventing both the perpetrator from the violence and the victim from being victimized.
Law enforcement is not designed to prevent, they can only act after. These are really social problems and need to be addressed as such. Adding more penalties on top of the ones that we have doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked, and we know from sociological studies that they are not a deterrent to crimes.
While we sit here demanding tougher penalties, no victims are being protected. We need to demand a victim-centric law enforcement system. Take into account the victim first. Address the punishment in a way that helps victims. Prevent victims. Take the steps necessary to keep people from becoming victims.
Keep On Keeping On…Never Surrender!