Sexual Deviants; Are They Treatable?

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Graph showing Deviants likely to reoffend

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 Opinion

Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor 

Studies show treatment to stop Child Molesters and Rapists is not working, initially yes, but as time passes, those sexual urges come back, resulting in reoffending with no looking back.  The Pro and Cons who treat and cure versus those who wish to permanently incarcerate seem try to disprove each other's theories and studies.

Is there a cure?  Mental Health experts whose livlihood and Jobs rely on Government and thus Taxpayer funding think so! Law Enforcement, Communities and victim's advocates who are on the front line as victims think not!  Repeat offenders seem rife in today's society, somehow disproving treatment works.

The issue of Child Molesters and Rapists released back into society after prison outrages communities fearful for their Children safety.  Communities resorting to protesting outside of the Deviants home, harrassing the Child Molestors and Rapists until they finally move to another community, resulting in a vicious circle all over again as another community takes up the gaunlet to rid what communities call a  Cancer of the worst kind. 

With recent developments in Thailand on the capture and detainment of accused Child Molester Rapist, Christopher Paul Neil caught "Dead to Rights" videotaping his sexual exploits with children and posting them on the web, society in general do not want him extradited back to Canada to stand trial in the fear he would be released into Canadian Society in a few short years, versus spending a lifetime in a Thai Jail for his horrendous sexual acts against children.  

Many parents of children the world over feel "Thai Justice" is the "Ultimate Cure" befitting of this man's Crime and a warning to others who visit Thailand  and feel crushing poverty of Thai Children, means available sexual playtoys to be had for the pleasure of a few dollars !

National Post 

With a proliferation of horrific allegations in the headlines, Canadians can be forgiven for thinking that child molesters are everywhere. But what is the actual prevalence of the problem, and how should we be dealing with it? In this, the third of a four-part series, the National Post explores some of the more extreme solutions to the problem, from controversial medical treatments to neighbourhood segregation.

As he languished in a Regina jail last spring, Peter Whitmore, perhaps Canada's most notorious pedophile, reportedly tried to castrate himself with a tin can.

Whitmore was attempting rather brutally to do what psychiatrists across the country struggle with on a daily basis: how to quash the powerful urge in some men to have sex with young children.

While the techniques used by doctors are undoubtedly more effective -- and humane -- than the soup-can method, debate rages about how well treatment works, the likelihood of child molesters striking again and whether hard-core offenders are actually curable.

Some psychiatrists maintain that they can essentially convert even the most child-fixated of pedophiles into men who are sexually attracted to other adults, using a combination of chemical-castration drugs and psychotherapy.

Others say good treatment -- maintained in some cases for a lifetime -- will keep most pedophiles from offending again, but believe ingrained pedophilia cannot be stamped out.

"Once it is an established proclivity, it's a bit like saying to an adult heterosexual man: 'We're going to change you from being attracted to women,' " said Dr. Shabehram Saroosh Lohrasbe, a B.C. forensic psychiatrist. "It's basically an impossible task at that point. There is no cure. All we are doing is improving the individual's ability to self-control."

In this field, though, even the statistics are in dispute. Many experts cite studies that suggest the rate of recidivism -- committing another offence after the first brush with the law -- is in the range of just 10-25%.

"There's a myth that they are untreatable ... just the reverse is the case," says Dr. Paul Federoff, an Ottawa psychiatrist.

Others say those reoffence figures, based on actual convictions, underestimate the true rate at which they fall back into old behaviour.

To complicate matters, incest perpetrators are considered easier to treat and much less dangerous than those pedophiles whose only sexual interest is in children. A few of the latter have had hundreds of victims.

Until the past few decades, treatment of pedophiles was like something out of A Clockwork Orange, the classic 1960s novel that pitted behavioural scientists against a violent thug. Under a technique called aversion therapy, patients would be shown an image of the type of children who aroused them, then given an electric shock or some other unpleasant stimulus. It worked, experts say, but the effects soon wear off.

Techniques have progressed somewhat. At his Royal Ottawa Hospital clinic, Dr. Federoff typically starts by prescribing anti-androgen drugs, popularly known as chemical castration. By pushing down testosterone levels, they tend to suppress sex drive. Doctors say such drugs can have horrendous side effects, from nausea to breast development and osteoporosis. LHRH analogs, new versions of the medication developed to treat prostate cancer, have fewer complications, Dr. Federoff said. Patients bedevilled by their urges often tell him that taking the drug is like "going on vacation."[/q]

url="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=4a5d2a3b-00a2-43be-8d83-164274d4f964&k=83909"]