Conversation With a Pedophile: Chapter 25 - Amy: Handling Sex Offenders

Chapter 25 - Amy: Handling Sex Offenders

Amy begins this chapter by stating: "What is the best way to handle sexual offenders? I don't have the answer. I only know, both professionally and personally, what doesn't work. In prisons, I see only more street-savvy molesters being released. I believe that stringent therapy, combined with custody of child molesters, is the best shot we have at protecting our children and addressing the epidemic of sexual abuse that continues to afflict our society." page 202, para. 1. Dr. Amy Hammel-Zabin spent many years in both psychiatric hospitals and prisons. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on adults who had both psychiatric illnesses as well as histories of sexual abuse. She found the two linked in most cases. She also found that patients are not asked directly about past abuse. Psychiatric patients may wish to discuss abuse, but are afraid to because of the current laws requiring the patient to be reported to the authorities if the patient is deemed to be a threat to children.

I spent 3 months in a rehabilitation hospital as an out-patient recovering from alcohol abuse. I remember there were no questions asked about childhood abuse. While talking privately to other patients, many revealed some type of real or perceived abuse. However, it seemed to me that the patients goals were to serve their time in rehab and get released; the doctors main concern was to give the patients coping mechanisms to live their life day to day without abusing their drug of choice. All too often physicians deal with controlling the symptoms and not the underlying problems causing the symptoms.

In conclusion of this chapter Amy states, "When we get past the outrage, perhaps we may more clearly see our way into how to deal more effectively with the problem: how to treat criminals who have victimized children, how to help those who are beginning to become sexual predators, and how to empower our children so that they may become invulnerable to sexual abuse." page 206, para.2. Until that day arrives, pedophiles who abuse children forfeit their access to children. Future generations of children should be protected at all costs. Abuse must stop here and now.

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