GAMBLE'S GAMBLE...
Those who prey on children should be locked up, as a minimum. Paedophilia is a gross crime and any of us who have kids must recoil at the very thought of it! However, the UK Police's Child Protection Chief thinks otherwise. He reckons that child sex offenders should be encouraged to seek treatment rather than be threatened with jail. Jim Gamble, of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), said it was a practical way of dealing with the scale of the problem. He believes that treating some paedophiles in the community is a sensible way of reducing harm.
This is just more bleeding heart liberal claptrap. Those wretches who would prey on our kids MUST be locked up, so they cannot access children for their wicked ways. Gamble seems to suggest that those who are caught looking at images of kids on the internet for their sexual gratification would do better with a community service rather than a penal sentence. Wrong. The intent is there, and if they are treated with the traditional kid gloves, one day they will come for our kids in 3D, not just on a computer screen. Sorry, but locking them up - in a harsh prison environment is the right thing to do. Gamble should resign, his views are out of synch with what people want, I believe.
David Vance
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David -
Well this former Superintendent in the PSNI has recently changed his tune. From 19 April 2006:
"Some charities and organisations offer therapeutic treatment to child sex offenders, but Gamble says the only certain way of preventing a paedophile from reoffending is the knowledge they are constantly monitored - both online and in the real world - and face the threat of jail."
http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,,1756066,00.html
Perish the thought that the Marxists in the Home Office or Scotland Yard have nobbled him, resulting in him circling the wagons around his career and pension.
Exactly right Pete.
Has anyone realised that, to a paedophile, all that they are doing is expressing their particular sexuality which, of course is their human right. All the arguments that have been used to promote the acceptance of homosexuality can also be applied to paedophilia or any other method of sexual expression. It is, therefore,, our duty to understand this and to make amends for the bigotry that we have shown them.
I, do not accept this argument and I view paedophilia as a serious crime. However, in support of my argument I would point out that we are now required to accept transexuality as normal and that a man can be a woman and vice versa despite what their genetic makeup says. What is next? Does anyone share my concern?
Peter,
Yes, I do and I had meant to put it into the piece! I have previously wondered aloud what comes next after legitimising homosexuality? If all lifestyle choices are fine, what's the problem with bestiality, it's a private choice, right? Why be judgemental there???
What IS the problem with bestiality? I might find it distasteful, I might not wish to talk to such persons, but it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
As for paedophilia, the problem (for me at least) is not that I think it's disgusting but that it harms children - children are being used sexually either without any sort of consent, or in some case with 'consent' (inverted commas) where the child might say "yes please do that" but is too young to understand what they're doing and thu too young to give genuine consent.
Anyone who deliberately molests a young child in a predatory fashion should go to jail, and probably never come out.
However, this is a complicated issue. What of the 16 year old boy who sleeps with a consenting 15 year old girl? I don't think there's any need for him to go to prison.
What about somebody who has never touched a child, but views child pornography? Perhaps, in some cases, psychologists might identify somebody who has been viewing child porn, but would not harm children (afterall there are many people who have fantasies but never act them out). Perhaps such people would be better put into treatment than prison?
So whilst I agree that proper kiddy fiddlers should be banged up for a very very long time, I don't think all cases are the same.
Thirteen years ago a detective who worked exclusively on child rape and molestation cases, told me something interesting. She said the public doesn't understand that there are three sexual preferences, straight. gay, and children. She said the people whose sexual preference is children cannot be treated out of this desire or punished into refraining from their "natural" sexual orientation. She had come to the conclusion that they should be imprisoned for life or put to death, as the menace they inflicted on society couldn't be controlled by law or mitigated with treatment.
Jim Gamble is a fool. He is going to put more children in harms way with his idiotic proposal.