Texas plans to execute sexual predators

Twice , under 13, these people keep doing it until they have to hide their crime, kill the victim. I am all for the death penatly

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Why should we wait for a second child to be victimized? Hang'em after the first conviction!

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tammy, the first thing that came to my mind after reading the first paragraph was WHY WAIT FOR TWO? I say we put sexual predators in the death row express lane!!

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Don't mess with Texas.

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Child molestation is one crime wherein there is absolutely no defense. Even with murder, one can argue self defense, but there can never be a reason given for being a sexual predator. It's a shame that it isn't an automatic death penalty for such people.

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My first thought was HELL YEAH! Then I realized I was opposed to the death penalty. But with pedophile we know there is no means of rehabilitation, and we know the recidivism rate is very high... killing them would be the easy way out.

I also think branding them, making them wear scarlet "P"s, hamstringing them as well taking away their drivers license would be good too. I really wish there was a way to correct them "It is better to put a millstone around your neck and throw it into the sea then to hurt one of my little ones."

Maybe we could convince them to do it to themselves?

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No, we should not be executing these people.

Prison is not a very nice place for perverts. I would think living the rest of your life in a cell, getting boogered up twice a day would be sufficient punishment.

I don't know why the rest of this country refuses to get tough on sex offenders. This is truly one group that we should lock up and throw away the key.

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If I believed in capital punishment, they'd be at the top of my list.

However, since I don't, I can't pick and choose.

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Actually Lauren, sex offenders have to be removed from gerneral population in prison B/C they get beat up. Once away from everyone esle, they get the same benefits as the rest.

I don't really have a problem with the dealth penalty. There is usually plenty of years b/4 they have to walk anyway. Now sex offenders? My idea would be wait for the trail and one yr to be over and say bye bye. I give them a year b/c hey sometimes they do have the wrong person....

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Man, most of you people are freaks, really. I have three kids and child rapists don't rank high on my list of quality people, but I'm philosophically against the death penalty. Even if I wasn't against it in all cases, we're talking about rape, not murder, and that doesn't even meet the archaic standard of an eye for an eye.

But the reason you guys are so freaky is you're buying what they're selling. This is conservative Republican nutjob political posturing in Texas -- which goes on quite a bit here; it's like state pastime. Both Louisiana and South Carolina have similar laws on the books, and they have never, never ever, been imposed or even sought by the prosecution. Why? Because the laws are unconstitutional. They wouldn't survive a trip to the Supreme Court, even the pretty damn conservative nutjob Court we have sitting now, and believe me the first child rapist who spares the life of his victim who is sentenced to death, his/her -- not to leave you ladies out, unusual though it might be -- will go to the Supreme. And the sentence will be overturned and for as an added bonus the law struck down. Period.

Of course everyone but the conservative right-wing nutjob Republicans in Texas, and a select few other states, know this. This is merely vote-for-me-at-the-next-election-'cause-I'm-darn-tough-on-dirty-perverts rhetoric. Worse, it's a waste of money. All the money that's been spent promoting and passing this bill could have been pumped into recovery and counseling programs for children who are raped. Instead we have this dumb-ass, weightless law imposing a penalty that will *never even be sought*. (Oh God bless us if some rogue, penny-ante Texas prosecutor who barely passed the Bar on the fourth try does seek the penalty to make a name for himself; think of the money -- millions -- we'll waste chasing this case all the way to the Supreme, just to get a life state penitentiary sentence, anyway.)

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Anyone who gets convicted of that ONCE should NEVER see the light of day again.

For those of you who are against the death penalty, OK, let's put them in a dungeon and cut off their tools and NEVER EVER let them out. NOT EVER.

And yes, executions do happen and will happen for this in Texas (and other places), because the vast majority of Americans believe that raping a child means the end of any rights to live any semblance of a life. By the way, rape (even of an adult) in many other countries is a capital offense.

By the way, speaking of politics, Barack Obama was the only Illinios state senator to vote to preserve EARLY RELEASE for sexual predators. Nice.

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I'm typically against the death penalty... but if anyone ever touched my daughter, I don't even know what I'd do. There is no good punishment for someone who rapes children.

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What Ann said.

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Thanks Sandyone. What Ann forgot to say is that they should never, ever be let out. I don't believe they can be cured, their crimes often escalate, and turning them loose as has happened in too many cases is wrong.

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More of what Ann said.

I'll also add that the longer these scumbags are free, the more victims they have. Many of these victims then go on to become scumbag pedophiles, too. It's a geometrical progression that breaks my heart and turns my stomach.

The huge numbers of pedophiles we hear about is not just because 'now we talk about it'. It's mainly because the numbers of them are getting so large.

It is very sad and scary.

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SKL,

"And yes, executions do happen and will happen for this in Texas (and other places)..."

No, you blockhead, they haven't and they won't. Prosecutors are forbidden to even seek the death penalty for child rape in states that have the death penalty and capital crime status for child rape. You may be thinking of executions for cases of child rape where the rape is swiftly followed by the murder of the child. That's a capital crime, rape and murder of the victim, in any state with capital statutes. Otherwise, the state legislatures do not want these rape-only laws tested because they will be struck down. It is mere posturing. It looks good on paper to people like you have no clue what you're talking about. No matter what Texans want -- God save of us from what Texans want -- the Supreme won't allow someone to be executed for rape without murder. There are constitutional issues.

This is what makes me so angry about this law: it is a huge waste of money. Money that would pay for programs for abused children; money that would pay to house people who commit serious sex offenses against children for life, for real, instead of letting them out, them and other "life" sentence recipients, because there is no space and no resources to house them.

But I hope empty rhetoric makes you happy. Really I do.

As for the death penalty for rape, it's only on the books mainly, almost solely, in second and third-world countries with extremely harsh laws for all criminal offenses: you know, the places so barbaric we feel we have to invade them in order to "free" the people from all that tyranny.

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All medical evidence points out that the number of actual, diagnosable pedophiles -- sexual attraction to a fourteen-year-old does not meet the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of pedophilia, despite what Dateline NBC may tell you -- is probably static throughout the population over the last couple hundred years. It's that they are all connecting up through the semi-anonymous Internet, and having their fantasies made concrete by images and videos available there; so they are more likely to *act* on their urges, as with any network of like-minded individuals, a bunch of people telling you what you want is okay, well, you wind up thinking it's okay. But it's very unlikely there are more of them.

The sexualization of pre-teens and early teens in mainstream commercial marketing doesn't help matters much, either.

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Child molestation (which to me is rape and an abomination, no matter what the degree) has always been with us. It was and still is underreported as are rape, non-sexual child abuse, and domestic violence. Kids are afraid, they are ashamed, they are often convinced it's their fault. They remain silent and often push the molestation to the backs of their minds with disastrous results. They don't all become abusers of course but I'm not sure they ever completely recover.

I think those crimes often result from the abused becoming the abuser, as you said. Violence begets violence.

I do agree that violent crimes against children (the ones that make the headlines) are much more prevalent today and my heart hurts once again each time it happens.

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Ann,

"They remain silent and often push the molestation to the backs of their minds with disastrous results."

And often with outstanding results. This is dicey territory because I have to explicitly state that I don't think adult sexual interaction -- and I don't just mean the sex act(s) themselves, but a whole list of inappropriately intimate behavior that does not respect the adult/child barrier -- is acceptable, benign, passable or any such thing, but the human brain, and the brains of children especially, are amazingly resilient. Sometimes pushing all this to the back of emotional and cognitive development is the best possible circumstance for many assaulted children. I think that's why parents frequently choose to let an abuser go, with the advise and support of the child's pediatric psychiatrist, because allowing the child to heal from the incident and protecting the child from future incidents of abuse is paramount to the child's recovery. Adults often say they need "closure" but children just want a return to security.

I'm not saying you're not right in some cases, that some, many, abused go on to abuse, or otherwise act out violently, but a therapeutic environment of recovery for the victim is much more important than exactly how the offender is punished. While we go on with our fascination with crime and punishment, the victims of this complex societal problem are often left far behind, or become mere tools of aggressive prosecution in highlight, made-for-TV-news cases.

I still think that ultimately the solution to this problem in our society is not execution, or incarceration -- although once the crime is committed, incarceration is not only the law but, I think, justified and necessary -- but a restoration of self-respect and ethical backbone among pedophiles. Yes, pedophiles are human beings and are capable of self-respect, ethics and morally correct decision making. Indeed pedophilia is considered a disease, a diagnosable psychiatric condition for which the criteria is quite clear but the treatment astoundingly difficult. Often pedophiles don't even know what drives them; they can't explain their urges; and as remedy they are taught rather Byzantine, ineffective technical strategies for redirecting their urges. Sure, some pedophiles are monsters, but those are few; hardly most pedophiles are monsters. I believe we can prevail about the human decency of pedophiles and teach them to make ethically and/or morally correct decisions about acting on their urges. But very few therapeutic regimens are focused on simply building up the pedophile to make good decisions despite the inappropriate, harmful urges driving them.

You can't execute every pedophile. You can't incarcerate every pedophile. Hell, we won't even prosecute 10 percent of them, and that's a generous number. But by providing a societal environment of education, of teaching the harm caused and the ability to control behavior, as many people control their strong drive to steal, take street drugs or otherwise seriously violate the law or basic morality.

We have to teach them to care. Labeling each and every one of them monsters, they don't care. If everyone thought you were a monster, would care what harm you did to everyone?

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San,

Child rape is a lot more than just rape. It is extreme violence, battery, includes kidnapping, etc. If you think there has never been an execution for a crime that didn't include murder, you are mistaken.

Your attempt to offend others into silence won't work.

It has been proven many times that child molesters' recidivism is almost impossible to reduce. And if you think that it's sufficient for the next generation to suffer only 8 or 9 child rapes for every 10 suffered by this generation, you are way in the minority.

Sure pedophiles are "people," but their DNA does not outweigh our children's rights to grow to maturity without being sexually abused. And it amazes me to hear you say pedophiles need to be taught that child rape is not nice and not a great idea. They know this; that's why so many of them add threats, kidnapping, and murder to their crimes.

If there is ONE crime that should cause a human to be stripped of rights as necessary to protect others, it's child rape. That's my opinion and I am sure most Americans share it.

You seem to know a lot about this subject or it is near and dear to your heart. That's great. I hope you are successful in helping to reduce pedophilia (I assume that's your goal). In the mean time, I don't want any child rapist to ever get within a mile of my children. The risk is too high and my children are too innocent to be expected to take that risk.

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