Do you think sex offenders can be reformed?

[Puppystarfish23]

I recently found out a friend of mine has been sent to prison for 4 years. He was my mangers son and he also worked with me. I've known him for 4 years and he dated a couple of my friends.

He left work a couple of weeks ago I knew he was going through something but I thought it was because he'd fallen out with a colleague over something petty he rang the crisis line and asked for my support. me not knowing it was because of the crime he committed but I still said no as I was on holiday for the next couple of weeks so I wouldn't be able to. He said okay he'd do it alone.

Not long after he and his dad my mangers went on mental health leave for 3 weeks we all all felt very badly for them and showed them are support.

My friend told me he was leaving work to go travelling and possibly move to Wales. We hugged and I wished him the best of luck on his last day.

Then two days ago I see articles all over social media with his face on. He'd been sent to prison for posing as a 12 year old online and talking to little girls and had pictures of children as young as five. I was in utter shock and felt so sick reading what he'd done. He got arrested in October and was sentenced to 4 years last week. My work protected him and still let him work with myself and others unknowingly until is court hearing. We even had a kids Christmas party at our work when he was on shift.

I've made a joke of the situation with my colleagues just to show a brave face and pretend we've not all been traumatized by what's going on.

I even made fun of the fact he'd gotten a new found that was a shitty Nokia now we all know why he had that phone because the police had taken his old one.

I feel completely lied to and as if I never knew the real him. It wasn't the man I knew. My friend was a kind, funny person who was well educated, wealthy and didn't struggling in his dating life so I don't understand.

I want to hate him and before this happened I'd had said pedos deserved death

Updates

1 y

I'm upset that my work protected him but I feel for my manger at the end of the day that's still his son and I wouldn't know how to cope myself if someone I cared about committed a crime like that either. My mangers not been in work since the news came out.

In the mug shot he looks dead behind the eyes. I think what prison must be like for him and what his victims must be going through. he'll struggle in prison and probably won't make it out alive if I'm honest but is that what he deserves?

Updates

1 y

Pedophiles have been round since forever as much as we might not like it. It's clearly a caused by some kind of mental illness no one can be in there right minds to commit such a crime. Know one what's to talk about the situation and no one wants to help these people and I can understand why but how can we ever change things and save children from being abused if we don't look into the root cause and ways to stop it

[CheeseMonster]

I know someone who was in prison for 4 years for similar charges. I talked with him about it once after he got out, and he said if he could push a button and fix that part of his brain, he would immediately no questions asked.

He's religious and tries to live a moral life, so on a personal level he hates that part of himself. On a family level, it nearly ended his marriage, it separated him from his own children during 4 very developmentally significant years in their lives, and the family moved churches several times and lost a lot of friends as well.

It's a difficult topic because it's so flatly horrible, but humans are complex and deep. Confronting it on a personal level forces you to rethink what you've always been told about humanity and justice. However, unlike other historically shameful topics, no deeper understanding or context can change the clear immorality of the action itself.

[lightbulb27]

If there was effort put in by the person to reform, probably. I've heard some were abused themselves... they are just repeating what they learned, normal for humans... we just repeat the "training"/wound we get... until corrected.

But when is that realization made as to right/wrong and the original wounds healed?

It does seem wrong to expose him to other kids... that's flawed, but they can't do much legally probably. It's a touchy situation.

[CupcakeTheDestroyer]

Among the kinds of criminal acts, sex crimes and hate crimes are the only criminal acts that cannot be rectified or blamed on an external source. They can learn to withhold their urges to openly harm others, but it doesn’t take them away. These men have something inherently wrong with them, whether that’s taught to them or genetic we still don’t know, but rehabilitation for them is not going to be as easy as if it was for something like Larceny.

[Agape93]

No they can't be fixed, they will always be a danger to society. Always, no exceptions. They need to be taken into the woods, executed and thrown into a ravine. Then do the same for any who support or defend them

[OneViewpoint]

I don't know if they can be reformed reliably to the point they can reenter society. But they can be castrated reliably. They can earn a spot in a sex offender database.

Would a person even want to go on living with that stigma the rest of their life?

[Agape93]

You'd be surprised just how comfortable they can be with it. They don't care until they face rare consequences, and only for the time the punishment is active

[OneViewpoint]

@Agape93 ,

Yeah but, they get the shit beat out of them in prison. They are shunned when they get out. Job opportunities are limited. No one wants THAT living next door. Just hand them a gun with one bullet and leave the room.

[Agape93]

And yet so many do get jobs, they do get relationships and sadly still get around children.

I still say they should have their rights revoked and allowed to be hunted like the vermin they are. Kill em all.

[Puppystarfish23]

Job opportunities!!! we've all already got 3 known pedophiles at work and somehow there all getting premonitions

[OneViewpoint]

@puppystarfish23,
@puppystarfish23,

I'm calling bullshit. Where do you live, Alabama? As far as I know I've never worked anywhere a pedophile was employed. Certainly not a "known" one. Get out of the echo chamber once in a while.

[CaptainSmartass]

Ah, the sex offender database. I'm no longer allowed to access it. Turns out you can't sell it to dodgy countries... And the British sex offender database is apparently protected from people like me...

[Bricealan]

@puppystarfish23 For a lot of reasons, I don't feel a sex offender can be reformed or "cured".

[Puppystarfish23]

What's even more fucked up is he said he wanted to move to Wales. One of his victims was 9 years old and from Wales

[Blunky]

No. Used to get really dumb safety briefings all the time about how rape is bad. Pretty sure rapists know what they're doing is bad, that's why they target people weaker than them and try to do it in secret. Castrate the POS.

[SmokinAces2000]

Generally I’d say no. In my opinion the only way someone could be reformed is if there is a why or a reason for their crime. You can make a case for burglary, fraud, even murder in some cases but you can’t sit in court and say “oh I have child porn because…” there is no justification that you can make for a crime like that. I will say that if someone has those thoughts but never acted on them then they may be able to be reformed but once you cross that boundary there’s no going back.

[DrPepper12]

No. Not at all. Never been a study that says otherwise. They're criminally irredeemable and should be chemically castrated, forced to live outside society and punished severely.

[slatyb]

There are a huge number of things considered sex offenses. His offense is pretty serious. I don't know if he can be reformed.

[exitseven]

Nope, the recidivist rate among sex offenders are very high, near 100%.

[douride2]

No sex offenders can't be reformed. Like someone else said the only cure is death.

[CaptainSmartass]

Nope. Top the bastards. Also the British Govt. needs to do what the Yanks do and publish the sex offender list. Turns out they won't honour the subpoena I sent them...

Simples...

[Puppystarfish23]

We have a thing called Clares law basically if you're worried about someone your seeing and have concerns you can ask the police to give you any reports you may have on them but it isn't simple.

I agree there needs to be a list but usually you can do one Google search and thing a new article. I think criminals in the UK aren't allowed to change there names legally now

[Jerre]

I do not think they can be reformed. It may be several months or years, but he will go back to what his dirty mind is telling him to do.

[Jerre]

@puppystarfish23 Thank you for the Like

[jahaims]

They just have to be put down or sterilized and put into labor camps

[Twalli]

Some can be, but it's hard to do do, and those that can't be reformed are extremely dangerous.

[Bklynbadboy12]

Some can but no many and it depends on what they did cause I don't think sex offender can be reformed at all cause that's a sickness

[beefcakebradybatson]

Some can, but I don't think most can be reformed.

[noohair]

Find another job. There people are not trust worthy.

[jamesgoldman]

Only with a wood chipper and gelatine

[Agape93]

Someone watchs JD

[Jennz6]

Castration is one way to make him reform

[retarb]

Nope. Life sentence.

[verylovelyguy]

I regularly off screen masturbate to young girls on random video chat. How did he get caught

[Agape93]

@_maya_ wtf

[Puppystarfish23]

@Agape93 that's disgusting

[Puppystarfish23]

I've just reported you sicko

[In_Trance]

No they can't

[Pterodon]

Nope