Unfortunately, a “very brief view” is hardly adequate to appreciate the subtly of what comprises their “paradigm.” I do not believe anyone would dispute that intervention preventing victims is always preferred. B4-UACT clearly identifies one of their founding principles is to identify & organize mental health providers “willing to provide caring and inviting services to clients who are sexually attracted to minors.” But what “caring & inviting services” are delivered?

The first problem is that, in epidemiology, estimating the number of individuals with a mental disorder – and particularly disorders that are highly stigmatizing – are unreliable, if not frequently erroneous. Determining obesity is simple: use the Body Mass Index to compare height to weight. You would not expect individuals to deny their measured weight or height; but, denial of symptoms is endemic to the practice of psychiatry. So, B4-UACT claims that “experts estimate that 0.5% to 7% of all males are preferentially attracted to minors.” This would be a prevalence (i.e. total number of individuals who are MAP’s at any given time) ranging from 600,000 to 8 million individuals. That is a significant difference. By contrast, the prevalence of all cancers combined in the US is approximately 11.5 million individuals. We either have a true “statistical insignificance,” or an epidemic, though B4-UACT is careful to clarify that “there is no solid data to support these figures.”

B4-UACT takes a universal exception to scientific “conclusions” in regard to pedophilia that are based upon “forensic samples alone”:

This results in a skewed understanding of the phenomena of pedophilia and pedophilic desire, such that the specific correlates of pedophilic feelings are conflated with the traits of individuals who commit illegal acts.

But where are the non-predatory pedophiles? Where are they seeking treatment, and in what numbers? B4-UACT only offers that “anecdotal evidences suggests that many pedophiles and hebephiles do not act sexually with children or adolescents, but it is not known how many do not.” In my mind we are left with the analogy of Willie Sutton & bank robbery I used above: go to where pedophiles are, incarcerated or on parole. There is no significant evidence that “some do not act sexually with children or adolescents,” and an abundance of valid, corroborated data regarding those who do perpetrate sexual offense against children and adolescents.

But what is most disturbing to me about the “mission” of B4-UACT is that the provision of “treatment,” as generally accepted, cannot exist in the current, established medical ethic and law. B4-UACT are ethically, legally, and duty-bound as clinicians to report sexual crime against children, without exception; and this even includes suspicion that a crime has been or will take place, without exception. This would mean that the moment a B4-UACT patient admitted predatory sexual behaviour, the clinician would be obligated to report them to the police. B4-UACT recommends that “the therapist should also provide the client with a clear statement” as to what must be reported, but which is often “code” for “if you are committing crime, I don’t want to know.” This is truly a Faustian anti-therapeutic alliance bound to fail.

Finally, all that is left is B4-UACT’s attack on the DSM-IV and the diagnostic criteria itself. As near as I can tell, the objection relies on a position that:

all DSM disorders should be PRIMARILY based upon nonmoral negative values: pain, suffering, disability, impairments, and incapacities of various kinds, consistent with the rest of medicine.

and not dependent on “vice-laden” (i.e. morally wrongful and/or criminal) criteria for their definition. While I personally have my issues with the DSM-IV criteria, I await the debate that will never happen.

Did I mention there were 38 people attending this “Conference?”

Given my very brief look at the link above, can you explain where you see an issue with B4-UACT? It appears they are encouraging treatment to those afflicted by sexual desires for children and minors and to assist them in avoiding acting on those impulses. As long as such characters exist, isn’t it better to identify and treat them before they traumatize a young person? I know from personal experience (not me, but extended family) that the damage done is often irreparable. It’s better for the potential offender to be able to speak with a professional in a therapeutic setting rather than deny these urges even exist (because eventually, they will manifest themselves if nothing is done about them).

I have thought about how – if I were to actually encounter someone in real life who believed this – I would respond. Except for a visceral level of disgust, no response has come to mind. I don’t have any high-sounding words, or long philosophical sentences wherein I could engage a person in a calm discussion about this. The idea that an otherwise intelligent person would think this is OK is just sick. Sick. SICK!

Lord, have mercy.

M. Stankovich, given the professional context which you outlined (thanks for this, BTW), to my ears it makes B4-UACT all the more evil.

Personally, I conclude that serial child sexual predators are best served – and ultimately we are best served – in a combination of compassion tempered by justice, that removes them from a society to which they cannot conform, until “they no longer pose a threat to society”.

Personally, I conclude that serial child sexual predators are best served by having a millstone tied around their necks and being thrown into the sea. (Matt 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2)

Using Willie Sutton’s analogy of robbing banks, I happen to go where the pedophiles are, and have conducted what is close to 400 clinical assessments of convicted child sexual perpetrators – and déja vu all over again – I make the distinction between “minor-attracted persons” and “criminals,” if only because of the depth and extent of pathology in the latter. Some researchers suggest that once the line is crossed to actual perpetration, it cannot be undone; yet others suggest that MAP’s are distinguishable only because they haven’t been caught, yet. The research is quite limited in that, apart from corroborative data associated with criminal investigation and forensic interpretation, the lack of honesty (“pathological defensiveness” like, denial and projection) is symptomatic of the disorder – and in the Catch-22 of veracity, it being the sine qua non of treatment (and repentance), clinicians demand “the truth,” verified by polygraph & plethysmography, yet both patients & clinicians know that if “the truth” is criminal behaviour, the clinician is a mandatory reporter. And rationalizing “sensitivity” and “compassion,” clinicians enter into a premeditated contra-therapeutic alliance of “Talk about your (non-reportable) attractions, but don’t tell me what I’m obligated to report.”

If you use the single criterion of recidivism, meaning a return to custody for a violation of parole or for re-offense, it seems reasonable to conclude that:

1) an effective treatment/rehabilitation modality for child sexual perpetrators has yet to be determined. Take, for example, the sex offender treatment program at California’s Coalinga State Hospital; typical of sex offender treatment across the country, it is a structured, goal-oriented, cognitive-behavioural form of treatment. But the key to understanding the “efficacy” of treatment is in the phrase: [discharge occurs] when and only when, the Superior Court is convinced they no longer pose a threat to society. Literally, decades pass where Coaling does not release a single person. I was once contacted by a friend who is a clinician working in the mandatory-participation parole out-patient services: “I’ve been asked to facilitate a therapy group for our high-risk sex offenders. Any advice?” “Were you ever trained to work with sex offenders?” “No, but they asked because I’m licensed.”

2) Relying on the single criterion of recidivism, Mr. Banescu’s concern that any laxity in current laws would unleash a deluge of those “who previously suppressed their lusts for fear of incarceration, societal rebuke, and sexual predator registration laws” strikes me as melodramatic in the sense that these three factors are poor deterrents now. Toss in high-tech satellite GPS tracking (CA is considering “lifetime” electronic monitoring of convicted sex offenders), “high-risk” supervisory protocol, and intensive out-patient treatment, and the recidivism rate remains dismal.

Nevertheless, someone has to be practical (in the sense of direct contact with offenders) and I would note that if you have ever wondered what the full extent of base, horrifying, irresistible, inconceivable, animalistic drives & passion might look like in the flesh, I would direct you to child sexual perpetrators. I have written elsewhere about sitting with a man of intense affect & demeanor, who told me he his first act upon release from “super max” seclusion directly to the street was to purchase a set of handcuffs; should he be “tempted” by a child, he would cuff himself to the first inanimate object and yell for someone to call the police or his parole agent. He was not returning to prison for the fifth time. Or, walking into a “super max” unit & being immediately approached by officers asking “permission” to remove pictures of children – not nude or “suggestive,” just children taken from magazines – which the offender had pasted up under the top bunk, visible to him as he lay in bed. He was placed in segregation because he had been beaten senseless, for the 2nd time, because someone found out his crimes. Or the man for whom Parole could find no acceptable (in this case, he presence was not acceptable to any community) housing, so he was placed in a small trailer outside the perimeter of the prison in the desert, surrounded by cyclone fence and 2 massive overhead light, and TV crews who attempted to film I don’t know what. Or the man who sat before me, uncontrollably sobbing, first contact of any kind with the legal system, who as a result of his crime lost everything; whose elderly father accepted one collect call to say, “You are dead to us,” and hung up. This man weakly smiled for his photo that is displayed in the CA on-line sexual offender database. And ironically enough, “B4-UACT” is the message I give to every child sexual perpetrator I see: Before you even consider acting, call your clinician, walk into the ED of a hospital, call a crisis hotline, whatever. Don’t wait until the roof falls in to seek help. You can’t be arrested for asking for help!” Using the sole criterion of recidivism, I am ineffective.

Personally, I conclude that serial child sexual predators are best served – and ultimately we are best served – in a combination of compassion tempered by justice, that removes them from a society to which they cannot conform, until “they no longer pose a threat to society”. This does not preclude their repentance or redemption, but it protects us from them, and them from themselves.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Silence in the face of creeping evil is what Martin Niemoeller was talking about. The problem with this creeping evil is that if these academics tip the scales as they have in the past, not only will pedophilia be accepted, but it will become a protected class and those of us who stand against it could quite well find ourselves being accused of ‘hate crimes’ and ‘discrimination.’ This started in S.F. with a new law barring ‘discrimination’ against convicted criminals. The line is on the move (again), and we must be careful.

It is precisely this kind of thing that has led me to believe that unless all fornication of whatever type is illegal, no perverted or immoral sexual behavior can be restricted for long.

The Church must take the lead on this by no longer acquiesing to the sexual laxity of the society. Anyone who is engaged in sexual activity outside of marriage and refuses to repent should be banned from the cup. Anyone who supports abortion too.

We must bring these types of temptations to confession early.