Amazon Defends Pedophile Book

[Nathan Campos]

Oh my God! I can't understand how a book like this entered at the Amazon store...

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers is an organization of professionals whose business is the treatment of, as they say, "Sexual Abusers". But rather than self abusers, it's clear that they are paid to take care of sexual predators.

"Studies that have tracked sex offenders over longer follow-up periods have found that pedophiles who molest boys, and rapists of adult women, were the types of offenders most likely to recidivate at rates of 52% and 39% respectively."

"It is also important to recognize that official recidivism statistics are always lower than actual reoffense rates, because some sex offenders commit many sex crimes that go unreported and undetected. It is estimated that less than 10% of all sex crimes result in a criminal conviction."

"Although we cannot predict with certainty that any particular offender will act in a specific way, we can estimate, with moderate accuracy, whether or not an offender belongs to a high- or low-risk group."

Imagine going for heart surgery and being told that they have a moderate hope that you'll survive the surgery.



"What percentage of convicted sex offenders undergo treatment?"
"According to the Safer Society Survey (McGrath, Cumming, & Burchard, 2003) there are 1,549 sex offender treatment programs in the U.S."

"on average, about 70 adult sex offenders are treated each year in each outpatient program." (NOTE - We're not talking about those in the prison system.)

So what do we have? 1,549 sex offender treatment programs TIMES 70 adult sex offenders are treated each year in each outpatient program.

1,549 X 70 = 108,430 adult offenders in treatment in (outpatient programs) the US. That is not including juveniles or those treated in prison.

And remember that quote above?
"It is also important to recognize that official recidivism statistics are always lower than actual reoffense rates, because some sex offenders commit many sex crimes that go unreported and undetected. It is estimated that less than 10% of all sex crimes result in a criminal conviction."


More numbers, sorry.
"One study found that the average number of victims for non-incestuous pedophiles who molest girls is 20; for pedophiles who prefer boys, over 100."


That's only the highlights. Most of what I quoted only concerns children. Now you have a little better info to talk about whether or not special laws are needed. Anyone want to start a YES/NO poll?

Read that web page from The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers

I pointed out the recidivism rates SEVERAL pages ago and was told I was wrong.

Originally Posted by TGS

The thing about pædophiles, nazis, terrorists and vegetarians is precisely that they are human. If they were not human we would not be so appalled at their behaviour. Characterizing them as inhuman or sub-human lets them off the moral hook and lets us off the hook of working out a reasoned response to them and to the behaviour they engage in.

you sure now on the vegetarians?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

..



you sure now on the vegetarians?

I've seen what it did to my daughter!

[SameOldStory]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

I pointed out the recidivism rates SEVERAL pages ago and was told I was wrong.


you sure now on the vegetarians?

I missed that. I was careful to find an organization that other layman would have a hard time refuting. While searching I found even worse information, and the fact that it is a VERY underreported crime.


"you sure now on the vegetarians"

I would rather work with someone on drugs than a vegetarian. When I was young and stupid (as opposed to old and stupid ), I lived as a vegetarian for two years. Not out of idealism, but simply to see if there really were any health benefits. Perhaps if you have some weird disease there might be. But otherwise none.

The one good thing about that episode was that it made me reevaluate all that I had been taught. I slowly switched from being a liberal to being more conservative.

Sorry.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

you sure now on the vegetarians?

I know its a weakness but I'm just an old fashioned liberal.

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by recluse

I am perfectly willing to explain my position.
I admit I am overly sensitized about this issue and apologize for any misunderstanding that may have caused.
My comment about "The Will of the People" was originally in response to another poster using it. I simply meant that most of us agree that child molestors are evil.
My point has been that if child molestors and their advocates are comfortable enough in today's society to actually try to publish a guide to their perversion, then something has obviously gone wrong.
I strongly feel that such a work should not be allowed to exist because it has no redeeming moral, historical or artistic value. That it indicates a clear disregard for the law and the rights of children to live without fear.
When I made that statement, I was basically told that it would lead to a domino effect, one that would apparently end in mass book burnings, the end of Freedom of Speech and the collapse of Liberty.
I honestly don't see the connection.
All I am trying to say is that it is obvious that more needs to be done to contain and eradicate this evil. Period.
I have no ulterior motive beyond that.
I never believed you were supporting child molestors.
I thought you believed I trying to dismantle Freedom of Speech as a whole.
I hope I have been able to explain my position and cleared the air.
I accept your apology without reservation.
Just so you know, the applause was from a victim who was told she can't post wanting a molestor killed. I was supporting her right as a victim to say it.
If you need further clarification, just let me know.

Thank you for that clarification. I believe we have cleared the air between us completely.

I see no problems with what you wrote above - it makes perfect sense to me. Just as we should not be so paranoid about hypothetical crimes to slide towards greater authoritarianism, we should be careful about the other extreme as well - there's no sense in being so paranoid about hypothetical slippery slopes that we end up being paralyzed when it comes to solving a crisis in the here and now. Just coz' a slope might be slippery doesn't mean the entire world should be covered in gravel .

In the end, it's about a rational approach to solving these problems - not merely appearing to solve these problems through a lot of bluster and angry rhetoric (not referring to you this time). To (completely mis)quote Sir Humphrey Appleby - the former is the act of a social reformer whose goal is humanity's survival into the next century, the latter - the act of a politician who wishes to survive till next Friday.

Here's some more food for thought (apropos of nothing really - just more meandering ). We hear daily of people caught with child porn. That's fine - so they should be, and sentenced accordingly. But how many times do we hear of any children saved from their horrible fate? Or of an actual perpetrator (not merely consumer) being caught or his/her victims being rescued? Are the politicos doing anything at all towards that end? Sure doesn't seem like it - because that's difficult and expensive. It's much easier to make a whole lot of internet-based laws that appear to be tough on such crimes. But are they really thinking of the children? It doesn't seem to be the case. All that seems to be happening is that these crimes are driven underground - out of sight, out of mind . That is not to say that these internet laws are unnecessary - just that one should be very skeptical about what they actually accomplish and not labor under the delusion that they are saving actual children from anything.

[DMSmillie]

Originally Posted by thrawn_aj

But how many times do we hear of any children saved from their horrible fate? Or of an actual perpetrator (not merely consumer) being caught or his/her victims being rescued?

Umm... it does happen:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/31_child...aedophile_ring

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/se...et-paedophiles

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Web+ab...es-a0230247358

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/...rnet-sex-abuse

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11....prostitution/

- Donna

[SameOldStory]

Originally Posted by thrawn_aj

But how many times do we hear of any children saved from their horrible fate? Or of an actual perpetrator (not merely consumer) being caught or his/her victims being rescued? Are the politicos doing anything at all towards that end? Sure doesn't seem like it - because that's difficult and expensive. It's much easier to make a whole lot of internet-based laws that appear to be tough on such crimes. But are they really thinking of the children? It doesn't seem to be the case. All that seems to be happening is that these crimes are driven underground - out of sight, out of mind . That is not to say that these internet laws are unnecessary - just that one should be very skeptical about what they actually accomplish and not labor under the delusion that they are saving actual children from anything.

The most effective means of detecting and stopping crimes are prohibited, or prohibitive. Personal judgment.


I don't keep track of these things so I'll be general.

Some years back you had some wannabe cannibal in Milwaukee, PA. Body parts in the freezer and barrels. That kind of thing. A young (underage?) Asian kid escaped his apartment and ran to a couple of policemen. The cannibal guy told them it was a gay lovers spat. The cops let it go. They didn't want to get involved in something like that.

That army shrink down in Texas, Fort Hood (?). He was acting strange beforehand. But no one wants to get involved. Kills people on the army base.

A law student in the western part of Virginia. He was acting strange beforehand. No one wants to get involved. Shoots a bunch of people on campus.

A guy walks into a church out west and starts shooting people. He was acting strange beforehand. And guess what?

It goes on and on. We're afraid to make any judgments on people and we tell the press latter "He was a little strange".

We reap what we sow.

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by DMSmillie

Umm... it does happen:
...[links]...
- Donna

That does make me feel a little better (that these criminals do get exposed and the victims rescued). Thanks for posting that. Going after these criminals is a far more noble cause than merely trying to whitewash the internet (while leaving the underlying cause untouched).

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

The most effective means of detecting and stopping crimes are prohibited, or prohibitive. Personal judgment. ...

Your point is well-taken.

[crich70]

They do look at where the actual physical computer is at the end of a purchase I believe don't they? If I want to buy a book that is restricted to being sold in the U.K. for example and I'm in the U.S. then the transaction won't go through, but if I take my netbook to England and buy it my physical computer is within the national boundaries of the U.K. and the transaction should go through. At least that's how I understand it from other posts I've read. The internet is world wide but the access points to get on the net are within national boundaries. So you access the net from say Australia, but Amazon itself isn't physically present in the country as the online store is in cyberspace. They're still trying to work out a system of laws for cyberspace I understand.

Originally Posted by Pushka

But using that logic means that geographical restrictions for ebooks doesn't exist either, because Amazon is selling all ebooks from their store in the US. So all books should be available everywhere in the world. But we know that isn't the case, Amazon considers that it is selling specifically to a particular country.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

It goes on and on. We're afraid to make any judgments on people and we tell the press latter "He was a little strange".

The reason for this is partly that hindsight is 20/20. We can always look back at someone's past and say "well, they should have known, he did X." The problem is, there's an X for every one of us, yet only a very few commit crimes.

As a somewhat less violent example, take the concept of the "gateway drug". The real gateway drug is alcohol. If you look at, say, heroin users, nearly every one of them, if not every one of them, started out with alcohol. That doesn't mean that using alcohol, or even abusing alcohol, will lead to doing heroin. For most people, it doesn't. Locking up every alcohol user because they might someday become a heroin addict would be silly. The equation "every heroin user drinks alcohol" does not reverse to become "every alcohol drinker uses heroin."

And that's the problem with "doing something" about people who are considered different in some way. In the case of the killers, you can always find something different -- because if you look hard at pretty much anyone, you can always find something different. You're looking backwards, after you already have your criminal, for some sign that he's going to become one. Of course you can find something. The problem is, out of thousands, maybe millions, of people who demonstrate that same form of weirdness, all but one are not, and never become, criminals. If you jail all of them anyway, as a form of preventative measure, you've just jailed thousands or millions of innocent people in order to catch one guilty one. If you simply investigate them all, you're still investigating thousands or millions or innocent people in order to weed out that one guilty one, which is a horribly inefficient waste of resources. If every cop can thoroughly investigate one weird person per week, then at a rate of one in a thousand, on the average he'll go 10 years of spending all week, every week, investigating weird people before he catches one actual criminal. Assuming a 30-year career, our hypothetical cop would catch three criminals per career. Generally, we expect better results than that from our police. And that's 1 in 1000; make it 1 in 10,000 instead (not getting anywhere near the millions) and the odds are that despite a career of investigation, he'll never find an actual criminal. Or, of course, you can criminalize being weird. That's going to require a lot of jails, because there are an awful lot of weird people out there. And while you're locking up all the obvious weirdos, you're missing the Dennis Raders. So you've jailed millions of innocent people and there's a particularly sick serial killer living unseen among you. That doesn't work either.

Hindsight is 20/20, and we can always look back and say "well, of course we should have seen it coming; he did that." But if you're looking forward, which of the thousands of people who did that are the one you want?

Most gay lovers' spats are gay lovers' spats (though how the cops in the Dahmer case could have been in his apartment and not noticed the smell boggles the mind). Most people who have religious writings all over their vehicles just have religious writings all over their vehicles; I saw one this afternoon, in fact. Most people acting strange never do anything but act strange. Depending on who you ask, an awful lot of us on MobileRead might qualify, actually.

Look at me: I have a whole series of books on how to kill people (Writers' Digest sells them). I play World of Warcraft. I keep snakes as pets, and more than one. I'm abysmally slow at unpacking any time I move; there are still boxes. I tend to not say the right things to people; I don't do the whole social thing very well. If I were to kill someone tomorrow, the media would have a field day with my life. "Look at the background here: Better known as 'Worldwalker' than by any actual name. Look at that library full of books on how to kill people, books on weapons, books on wars ... the whole library gives me the creeps. Plays evil games, and worse yet, is pretty good at killing other players in them, and don't forget the pseudonyms from there, either. See those reptiles, we're talking live snakes here; how can pet snakes, of all things, not be a warning sign? And look at the pictures of that house!" Except, of course, I've never killed anyone. I've never hurt anyone. The worst I can plead guilty to is harsh words. I'm totally outside the social mainstream. I'm weird as most people see weird. I'm a lot weirder than Dennis Rader, that's for sure. I'm weirder than Ted Bundy. I'm enormously weirder than Harold Shipman (most people are). I'm just not dangerous, and they were.

So "doing something" about the people who don't fit the social mold ... pre-emptive justice ... just doesn't work. Sure, if you cast your net widely enough, you'll catch some criminals -- some of the ones who made the news -- but you'll miss others. You'll give the Shipmans of the world a free pass. And to do that, you'll be arresting thousands or millions of people who will never commit crimes, just because they fit the profile. It's as effective as locking up all alcohol users in order to catch future heroin traffickers. Or, in simpler terms, locking up all males between 15 and 30 would get the overwhelming majority of criminals off the streets ... but is it worth the cost?

[crich70]

You make some very good points Worldwalker. What is the definition of 'weird'? I doubt anyone can really give you a definitive definition of the word, because what is weird to one person is normal to another. Of course we as a society in general have some common ideas as to what is acceptable behaviour within that society, such as theft from another being wrong for example, but other that that there are probably as many definitions of what is normal as opposed to weird as there are people walking the earth. Normality is really in the eye of the beholder for the most part. One person might enjoy polka music for example and another might think that the polka music lover is weird for enjoying it. Or there are the football fans who paint themselves up in the team colors. Some would say they are weird, but from their point of view it's just a way of showing support to their favorite team. It's all relative in that regard, but some things do cross the line from self expression to not being to the public benefit I think. The book in question (IMO) crosses that line by a fair margin. Murder mysteries tell how a murder was committed but they don't give you a blueprint on how to commit a murder. All they do is present a fictional murder. They don't tell you to go to Murry's pool hall on 82nd street in New York (or where ever) if you are looking to buy a gun cheap. And the Writer's Digest books aren't intended as such aids either I don't think. They give general details about various topics so that a story can be told effectively, not so you can go out and get away with a crime.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

...

I would rather work with someone on drugs than a vegetarian. When I was young and stupid (as opposed to old and stupid ), I lived as a vegetarian for two years. Not out of idealism, but simply to see if there really were any health benefits. Perhaps if you have some weird disease there might be. But otherwise none.

The one good thing about that episode was that it made me reevaluate all that I had been taught. I slowly switched from being a liberal to being more conservative....

Ah, munching on a juicy steak for which a sentient creature (which experienced pain and feared death) was slaughtered, is a sign of maturity?

But back to topic: I don't know what the book contained exactly, but unless it was purely a manual on how to engage in criminal activities, my first reaction would be in support of Amazon.

Frankly, I personally feel that religious brainwashing of children probably causes greater long-term harm than experimenting with sex or drugs, but I don't go around calling for the banning of "Bible Stories for Children...."

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Sonist

....

Frankly, I personally feel that religious brainwashing of children probably causes greater long-term harm than experimenting with sex or drugs, but I don't go around calling for the banning of "Bible Stories for Children...."

I'm with ya there! Let's rally the troops!

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Frankly, I personally feel that religious brainwashing of children probably causes greater long-term harm than experimenting with sex or drugs, but I don't go around calling for the banning of "Bible Stories for Children...."

Unfortunately, that would go against the rights of the brainwashers, which as you know, are ... uh... sacred . Harm and happiness, though they can be pragmatically (read - objectively) defined to a large extent, are instead defined solely by consensus in most (if not all) societies. When such consensus happens to agree with the pragmatic definition, we (or at least I) call that society "civilized". Make of that what you will - I've no intention of actually using this definition at the moment, but I don't think anyone can deny that it's a sound one.