Reply #62: I see. [View All]

but some criminal sexual offenses are heinous and are deserving of life imprisonment, at least. If you want people to sympathize with your position that some "sex offenders" aren't much of a danger to others, then I hope you'll also acknowledge that some sex offenders are incorrigible and a danger forever. Muddying the debate with mental illness like Tyler Durden has done is a separate, albeit real and important, issue that touches upon many more than sex offenders.

So is your implication that people with mental illness are incapable of recovery? I'm not sure what you are getting that there, as I don't think it is an uncontroversial claim to state that mental illness is a factor in many crimes (especially sexual crimes - just ask any therapist that treats sex offenders).

Some offenders are likely to pose a persistent risk to society, but my contention from the beginning has been to both clarify the debate and to show that those offenders are a very small percentage of the whole group of sexual offenders (and, indeed, a small portion of child molesters as well). They key is in identifying those offenders, which can be done with greater focus on differentiation within groups. In other words, lumping all child molesters and all rapists into a single category is essentially meaningless insofar as risk assessment is concerned.

Sure, I understand why people are against the DP, in general, but when heinous sex offenses occur from people who were already incarcerated for related crimes, its only natural to want sentences to be longer for first time offenses.

Natural? Maybe. Reasonable? Not by a long shot. The fact that some people re-offend does not mean that the conclusion that we should lock them all up and let God sort them out follows. If that were really the case, then people should have no problem with banishing any kind of criminal forever as that would certainly take care of any re-offense problem. Of course, the problems inherent in that type of solution are that it is unconstitutional, inhumane, and overkill. Of course, I get the distinct feeling that some here simply do not care and would rather rely on emotion to guide their decision-making as opposed to reason.