A few studies (they're really hard to find and finance) that try to determine the number of people in a population who are pedophiles, seem to indicate that they represent a non-trivial amount of the population (at least several million in the US/Canada) and something like 60-90% of them never do anything illegal.

Do you SERIOUSLY advocate locking up all of these people to "err on the side of caution"? Yeck.

In many states, mandatory reporting laws have been interpreted to apply to those who merely express "pedophile tendencies" under the "imminent threat" statutes. Reporting does not often lead to prosecution, but it can. It can also lead to civil action such as social services intervention or execution of restraining orders.

I cite Indiana case law "Kevin Brown vs Indiana c 2006". His biological child was taken from him and his same-aged wife because he called a radio show and admitted to being attracted to kids. He had already informed his wife and friends and even had written plans to ensure that he would never be in a situation he could even remotely be accused of abusing a kid. Nevertheless, his child was taken by "emergency order of protection", by a squad of armed officers. In order to ensure his child didn't end up in foster care, he had to move out of his house, after which they placed the child with his wife and issued a restraining order against him "ad litem".

He took the case to the Indiana supreme court and lost. The conclusion was that there was no obligation of protection of liberty for someone who was an admitted pedophile because he represented an "imminent threat" and he could be subject to civil action by social services or otherwise.

Additionally, in California, in "Jack McLelan vs California c2007" a pedophile loudly proclaimed his attraction to young girls. The district attorney of his area applied a restraining order, barring him from being less than 10 meters from a child, or 100 meters from anywhere children congregate. This ban actually legally prevented him from entering the court, since there was a daycare facility in the same building, though they chose not to prosecute him for coming to his own hearings. He opted to leave the state rather than fight the restriction.

Presumably, a similar argument could be made in some states to raid his house and seize his electronics to search for illegal material, based on the "imminent threat" argument, though I'm not aware of that having been attempted, though it wouldn't surprise me if it had and simply didn't reach the public airwaves, due to the lack of notoriety of the target.

Actually, more often, they call him daddy or uncle (statistically, yes, seriously).

LOL. You said fark.

Why not just leave it at that? It would be more accurate than what you just posted. :-)

Pedobear is a joke. Period.

Did you just seriously argue that alcohol consumption is punished more harshly than child sexual abuse? ....

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Personally, the advice stands.

However, in your situation, I would not hesitate to gripe about it, even while I followed it.

Perhaps I reacted more to the fact that you presented this advice without any commentary on that situation at all.

I think it's one of the fundamental problems of urban living... the lack of community. When Mr Teacher was seen by every student when he visisted the barber and the butcher and the blacksmith, it would be absurd to say "don't fraternize with students", but today that seems reasonable because we live in these huge anonymous conglomerations.

Ugh. I find it somewhat gross to think of. Personally, when i was young, I had a number of teachers I saw on a regular basis outside of school, including one who's house I visited often and another who was a friend's parent and would take us camping in the summers. As a result of those two, other teachers would be over for barbecue or whatever and I knew 8 or 10 on a friendly level outside of school.

School was much easier for me, even as a nerd, when the teachers all saw me in a more personal light.

Our culture is sick and broken that this is "inappropriate". :-)

This is absurd.

The pillars of being a good teacher in the past were

1) Establishing mentoring relationships with students
2) Physical contact such a hand on the shoulder, is clearly shown through many studies and many generations, one of the best ways to establish a bond wit ha student
3) The American "bubble" is absurd to most of the rest of the world and would be considered rude
4) See 1
5) That's probably true, but the other 4 suck

Of course you've never been accused of sexual harassment, You've also never won teacher of the year.

It's sad that we dilute everything to the point of non-existence out of fear... sad sad sad.

I'm pretty sure the study was actually investigating "pedophilia" which the DSM-IV defines as "under 13".

I imagine if you expand that to 16 or 17, the number goes from 0.5% to about 95%. :-)

LOL, I just read it with less beer in my system and I see what you were doing. Need a +1 ActuallySarcasm tag.

Well, you are in the minority then. I am staggered by your ability to submarine your emapthy for both affected parties.

The reality is that most people disagree with you. This doesn't make them right, but it does give them some credence which you can't easily wash away with a snort and a wave of your hand.

Keep thinking really hard.

Heh... you did SORTA accuse some random coward that he was into kiddie porn with no evidence.

I recognize the aim of your post, but that seems rather baiting to me :-)

Personally, I think the issue with celebrities is not one of some sort of conspiracy cabal of rich and powerful, but one of human nature.

Someone who is famous and well known is a HUMAN. Their fans and friends identify with them and recognize their humanity.

Some guy from the news doing exactly the same thing is very very easy to dismiss as "DISGUSTING MONSTER".

It's a simple fact that in child sex cases, the family of the offender often feels the trial and sentencing are too harsh, but it is much less known that the victim often feels the same way.

Some people file this under something strange like Stockholm Syndrome, but in my opinion, it's simply the fact that the victim almost always knows the offender and sees him as a human. It is then hard to demonize him to the extent that society at large is capable of doing.

Think about it, if your brother/cousin/bestfriend were found tomorrow with 600 images of naked children on his computer, could you really feel the world was a better place if he was given 18 years in prison?

No, you would probably like to see him punished, but in a humane and justifiable way... say... with a year's house arrest.

In my opinion, that's what's happening here, not some right-wing conspiracy junk.

Agreed. Child porn is pretty unique in this regard. It's the cultural/legal equivalent of yelling "FIRE" in a crowded.... society.

This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the government?

Did you read the case studies in the linked PDF? I didn't think so.

These people had clearance because of the rooms they needed to walk through but didn't have any real access to data. One was a telephone repairman at a military base. Others were mid-level office workers who had to be in secured areas for office work.

These weren't high level operatives. Just the low-hanging-fruit of the justice system.

All this proves is that there are A LOT of pedophiles in the country, and some of them tend to get caught now and then. Nothing else to see here, move along.