Still from Fritz Lang's M
The title of this post is my favorite line from the Archy poems. It was his sign-off, if I remember correctly,*** to a passionate defense of the carnivorous spider. I thought of it today as I read this article by Betty Schneider in Counterpunch, which makes an excellent case for ending our current hysteria about sex offenders, especially pedophiles. (I confess I may be abusing the words of the wise cockroach here, since I don't know that he had any opinions on pedophiles, pro or con. But I think the sentiment is transferable, and neither he nor Don Marquis is likely to complain, so I'm claiming the phrase.)
Since I recently defended Larry Craig's right to get busy with the guy of his choice in a public restroom, I don't want any of you to get the wrong idea and think I'm suggesting we jettison the laws against sex with the SpongeBob Squarepants contingent. Not at all. But I think Schneider's article is a fine examination of what's wrong with the current vigilante approach.
I think Schneider is maybe a little too optimistic about the possibilities of therapy, but even if she is, her basic point that our perception of the problem has been wildly skewed by political posturing and media sensationalism is well-founded.
"Certainly, when kids are sexually victimized, they can suffer psychic trauma, as they can from other types of abuse. But their offenders, contrary to popular misconception, are hardly ever high-risk predators. Less than 10 percent of registrants fall into this category, while the rest are low- to no-risk. In an interview with Chris Hansen of "To Catch a Predator," Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic said, ".... if the choice was between a sexual offender fondling my 12-year-old or a drunk driver killing my 12-year-old, given that horrible dilemma, it still wouldn’t take me much time to figure out which I think is more serious." For a perspective on child fatality, the U.S. Dept. Of Health and Human Services has estimated that 1,500 children died from maltreatment in 2003, primarily at the hands of their parents. In that same year, according to the National Center for Statistics and Analyses, 396 children under 14 were killed in alcohol-related crashes. But as for murder by sex offenders, the general estimate is about 50 per year, or one per state."
More than a decade ago I was a crisis line counselor, and I vividly remember getting a call one night from a guy who had walked in on a family member fondling one of the household's children, a toddler. The caller wanted to know what he should do, and I told him the only thing I was allowed to tell him, which was that he was required by law to report the incident to the police. If he gave me any clue about his identity, I would be obliged to call the police. There was absolutely no help of any kind that he could access without getting the criminal justice system involved.
Although I see the basic wisdom behind the reporting laws, in that particular case it seemed to me that they probably did more harm than good. I got the distinct impression that the caller wanted very much to intervene but was extremely reluctant to set the cops after his relative. I suspect he wound up doing nothing at all--which was certainly not in the best interests of the child, or even the offender. If he had been able to seek some kind of professional assistance without dragging the whole family through the legal system, I think he would have. I've often wondered what happened to that child.
***No surprise, I didn't remember correctly. I looked it up today (9/11), and the line is actually "yours for less justice and more charity"--a kindred but not quite identical sentiment. I really should stop throwing up blog posts when it's past my bedtime. Charity demands more empathy than mercy does, though, so I think the correct quote is even more apt.
2 comments:
What interests me about these issues is the way right-wing pundits spin them. With the War gone south on him, Bill O'Reilly is into a heavy story rotation of child sexual predators and sexual permissiveness-- all with a decidedly prurient aroma. Child sexual abuse is an extremely important issue-- albeit affecting a somewhat small percentage of the population-- but O'Reilly co-opts it to produce titillating and overheated sensationalism which produces great ratings. He blames abuse on sexual liberation, of course, and "activist judges," whom he invariably identifies with left-wing politics.
Otherwise, it interests me that the two issues that seem to preoccupy the right-wing most are also sexually oriented-- banning abortion and gay marriage. It strikes me that there is much less concern about "life" among pro-life factions than there is the implicit supposition that a woman engaging in sex-- married or otherwise-- has to face the music, the wages of sin. Homosexuality, of course, just gives the right wing the heebie-jeebies, and they claim a Biblical foundation for their prejudices. Sex is a powerful thing, and so is the Bible, so it is not surprising that the sexual revolution and the appearance of Christian fundamentalism should so dominate politics these days.
And, I agree with BG's earlier post that Larry Craig is a slime-ball hypocrite, but that the rage of his own party has seldom been directed toward those who have had heterosexual affairs. What Craig did was tacky (and kind of sad), but at least he tried to be discreet about it.
The thought of Bill O'Reilly barking on the subject of child sexual abuse literally makes me queasy. That's the sort of thing that makes me give the TV a wide berth.
I agree that the wingnuts seem to love working themselves into a lather over the sexual behavior of everybody but themselves. And I think you are absolutely on target about the pro-life movement being all about woman-hating, not baby-loving. That's why they're so fond of George Bush, in spite of the fact that he's directly responsible at this point for the deaths of thousands of innocent people, including a lot of babies.
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