chittydog wrote:
I've read that child molesters were typically molested themselves. But considering that most victims are molested by a family member (read that somewhere else), it makes it hard to tell if it's nature or nurture.
right - i agree that being molested certainly runs a much higher risk for that person to be highly messed up later in life. trust issues suffer extremely especially when it is a family member doing it.
so perhaps my take on 'gene-pool' thinking was not the best wording. through their actions they are carrying on the likelihood to continue their sickness to further generations. so it is not biological - rather behavioral. in a sense, the perpetrator IS actually harming future generations if you look at it in a tree fashion where the original abuser is at the root. i guess that's kind of what i meant.
still, i believe firmly that the 'urges' that sex offenders have are innate and do not necessarily go away with therapy. rather, the people are better able to control said urges. perhaps these people really have a problem with impulse control and not even the sex thing. i've seen talk show after talk show (yeah...i know that hardly qualifies me as expert, but bear with me), that has guests that are sex offenders saying as much - that they still have urges after chemical castration, but it helps the person to keep those feelings in check.
so if they still have those feelings, why not do something to keep them in check permanently - for example through castration?
for habitual offenders, i say take them out of the equation entirely (ie, kill them). here's where i say something extremely controversial: it's not like these people are on the average contributing majorly to society anyway. that is, are these people curing cancer, solving world hunger, etc? i don't believe that this is true. so if they continually affect negatively the population like this and do not add anything to that society - why be part of that society.
