An unforgivable crime?

There's only one kind of criminal in the US with a lower rate of recidivism than sex offenders, and that's murderers. I'm not sure there was a sexual element to this crime but either way, the odds that they will commit this kind of crime again are pretty low.

I wasn't being sarcastic. From Sex offender - Wikipedia

quote:

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While often considered highly dangerous by the public once released from prison, sex offenders have a relatively low reoffense or recidivism rate. Second only to murders most sex offenders have between a 3 and 13% chance of reoffense.

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This statement is supported from this report from the NCIA: No webpage found at provided URL: http://66.165.94.98/stories/SexOffendersReport.pdf

quote:

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Certainly, any instance of sexual recidivism is cause for concern, and we should not lose sight that even a 1% sexual recidivism rate represents a certain number of victims of sexual assault. However, there is a rather widespread misconception that sex offenders, as a whole, are repeat sex offenders. While this study is obviously unable to determine the actual rate of reoffense, it is clear that a sex offender returning to an Ohio prison for a new sex offense is a fairly unusual occurrence.
” Study by the Ohio Department of Corrections finding a sexual recidivism rate of 8% among released prisoners

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quote:

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The largest, most sophisticated analysis was performed by Karl
Hanson, Solicitor General of Canada. His 2004 quantitative metaanalysis
examined research evidence and recidivism risk factors in
a total of 95 studies involving 31,000 sexual offenders with an average
follow-up time of 5 years. Hanson’s findings include:

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Overall recidivism rate for new sex crimes: 13.7%
Recidivism rate for child molestation: 12.7%
Recidivism rate for child molestation within families: 8.4%
Recidivism rate for rape: 18.9%

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A less nuanced study of former prisoners performed by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
reached similar conclusions, and found that people convicted of sex crimes had much lower reoffense
rates than people convicted of other crimes. The BJS study followed 9,700 people incarcerated
for sex crimes for three years after release. The findings include:
5.3% of people imprisoned for sex crimes were rearrested for another sex crime.
3.3% of people imprisoned for child molestation were rearrested for another sex
crime against a child.
In contrast, the general rearrest rate for people released from prison was 68%. The highest rates
were stealing motor vehicles (79%) and possessing or selling stolen property (77%)

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I think you've made an enormous error in suggesting that the data you've underlined (or any of the rest of it) supports your contention that "sex offenders in the States have the highest rate of criminal recidivism". Unless you mean to suggest, in an unclear way, that sex offenders in the United States system have a higher recidivism rate than sex offenders in other countries. It's certainly the case that such rates are higher for such persons in the US compared to the UK or Canada, but I'm not aware that the numbers indicate that the US is the highest worldwide.Certainly the contention that, within the US, sex offenders have even a high recidivisim rate is not supported by the Bureau of Justice or any other source.

I'm sorry if you got that impression. It certainly wasn't my intent to get all contentious with you. I think that your statement isn't supported by the facts as I understand them; I definately don't think you're a bad debater or a bad person. I apologize if I came off as getting personal. That's much clearer, thank you. Again, it wasn't my intent to put words in your mouth; I was simply seeking alternate interpretations of your statement that seemed more supportable. On the principle that it's more charitable to assume my opponent misspoke, or I misread, rather than assume he's outright wrong. Take your time. I look forward to your response.

If he's not, I will. Yes, a 10-year-old's ability to understand the consequences of those actions is significantly less developed than an 18-year-old's. And even if it weren't, a 10-year-old's ability to control his impulses and make decisions definately is "somehow" less developed than an 18-year-old's.I mean, that's the definition of "being a child." What, you're telling me you never did anything boneheadedly stupid as a child? You never acted without thought of the consequences?How do you think people learn to consider the consequences of their actions in the first place?

Look, I get that their decision seems obviously wrong to you.But that's what children do. Make wrong decisions. Their brains aren't even all there, yet.It just seems obvious to me that a 10-year-old doesn't have the same kind of moral culpability for their actions.

Well? I mean, come on - they were only ten.If, instead of 10-year-olds, we were talking about two adults with the minds of 10-year-olds - in other words, profoundly retarded - would you still have a major problem with letting these people out after 8 years of close supervision and treatment in the appropriate facility? Would you be calling for their life imprisonment, or indeed, even their execution? Especially when we could be pretty certain that they weren't going to do it again?

So now it's "fully aware", is it? "Fully" meaning what?I don't see that a 10-year-old, being, as they are, ten, can be fully aware of anything. That is, after all, why we have such things as laws against statutory rape.But, you know, whatever. If you have no problem with the idea that a ten year old can commit murder just like an adult, I trust you'll have no trouble assuming that your average given 10 year old can fuck like an adult, too. I'm sorry? Did I give you the impression that someone else was to blame, here?It would be nice if you could address the issues at hand, instead of hand-waving away arguments with ridiculous "tough on crime" aphorisms. If I wanted to hear that shit I'd tune in Rush Limbaugh.