Then again, I think the answer has to be no.
There are people out there who're supposed to chaste through their own choice (I'm mainly thinking of religious figures) but still find themselves fathering children...

You have just demonstrated my point perfectly. People hear when such things go wrong, and they get reported in papers, or by word of mouth etc. Is the reason you never hear of priests keeping to themselves because they don't, or because it is merely never reported? (I am not just talking about media reporting).
'Paedophile re-offends' is a headline. 'Paedophile never commits another crime' isn't. Which is why some sort of non-biased study that will take a good sample of all cases is needed, rather than just a warped opinion based on anecdote.

So, in the instance of a priest (or other self-avowed celibate) who's fathered children, the whole point is that it's happened. Not that 99% of the others out there appear to be quite capable of keeping it zipped up.
Were it par for the course that our speculative priest were to fall from celibacy, then it's not a news story, is it?
I'm not entirely sure what your point was, to be honest. How representative is the media of 'reality'? Impossible to say.



I've had a brief Google and found this -

"Paedophilia: Re-offenders

Mr. Jamie Reed: To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice what the re-offending rate is for convicted paedophiles. [138309]

Mr. Sutcliffe: The re-offending rates for men who sexually abuse children are not known, but we do have information on re-conviction rates for this group of offenders.

The most recent figures we have are for 2004.

Out of the adult offenders who were convicted of a sexual offence against a child, and were released from custody or who started a community penalty in the first quarter of 2004, 12.3 per cent. were reconvicted of a new offence of any kind.

These rates of re-conviction were over a period of two years.

For all adult male offenders convicted of a sexual offence (that is including those who offended against a child and those who offended against adults) and who were released from custody in 2001, 3 per cent. were reconvicted for a further sexual offence within two years."

Source.

So, it does seem likely that a certain percentage of that population will reoffend, and it has nothing to do with media headlines.

Surely if just one person did not re-offend then they should have the right to appeal to be taken off the register. So they have the right to appeal but that is it, an appeal. Let legal and psychological people determine if it is safe to do so.

It's called the sex offenders register. They were convicted of a sexual offence, therefore they are convicted sex offenders; even after they have served their time.

Society has deemed these types of crimes warrant a register of offenders, why? Due to the high nature of repeat offenders guilty of this type of crime? Perhaps the knowledge that we are keeping tabs on them is enough of a deterrent to prevent many of them from re-offending.

Take that away and what happens?

Yes it is only the right to appeal, but it's likely the first step down a very slippery slope.

Maybe we should have one for politicians? They seem to be complete recidivists.

How about an Expenses Offenders Register?

Very good idea.

My concern is those that are on it for odd reasons, such as an 18 year old with a consenting 15 year old. As well as miscarriages of justice.

I don't particularly trust our legal system, so to have no system of redress seems draconian to me. I really can't believe that the intention of this is to grant paedophiles anonymity just because it violates their rights to call them what they are.

I like this post because it covers the rational tension which makes the issue interesting.

You open with an instrumental argument (the register is useful as a deterrent and necessary because of the reoffending rate)

But I am interpreting your closing remarks about the slippery slope as a statement of principle (they should be on the register because they are bad, rather than because it is instrumentally useful).

I'm not technically opposed to either of these reasons for having a register - although I don't sympathise with Mr Rogers' predictable blood lust - but I think it's fair to say that the purpose of the list in law is instrumental as are most aspects of sensible law in practice.

It is quite clear though that the register, as an instrument to protect against re-offence can be redundant in some cases...

Say for instance that of a man who has a terrible car accident and now occupies a wheel chair which he controls with a stick attached to his head. In such a case, it is absurd to argue that he remains a danger, and therefore we run a risk of being judged unfair by making him undertake a difficult journey to a police station where he must sign a register by crudely mashing his face onto a piece of paper.

I don't think the principle of allowing these appeals to be heard is so much of a threat as it is a waste of time. The instrumental case for the register is strong, and it's logic, though harsh, is accurate: any person who has proven themselves capable on a single occasion of continuing to have sex ,even though the other person involved is begging them to stop, cannot be trusted.

The basic fact is that a person's past behaviour is usually a good indicator of their future deeds. Mr Rogers will continue to wish death upon all and sundry, and randomly 'insert' quote marks into his text; and I will always be the snide little man that mocks him for it.

In sexual matters, we are equally predictable (in statistical terms) and we can say two things with relative certainty; rapists on the whole are liable to re-offend, and the impact of each offence is incalculably traumatic. This leads to an unavoidable conclusion (still intrumental), that it is advisable to make re-offending difficult even if this is injurious to liberty.

So the only way to get off the register is to prove somehow that you are a statistical outlier - somebody who is so unlikely to re-offend that the grave consequences of doing so are not a factor in the equation. A claim that you've found God, and a pinky swear not to do it again is not really going to suffice.

Society has also decided that the courts should have the say in these matters, not Jim at 49 and certainly not The Sun.

My closing remark was borne of fear, pretty much. Fear that our often perverse legal system will bend and sway in the face of an appeals process, and the wrong people will be free from the beady eye of the law.

A plausible possibility, but is entry onto the register viewed as a further part of their sentence, such as any other type of supervision order/probation/whatever?

Should a purse snatcher be exempt from probation and the end of his sentence because he was crippled in a car accident, and can no longer run?

That is the other slippery slope and another fear. Justification for curtailing an individual's liberty and the possibility that, through our often perverse legal system, the criteria can be expanded, and expanded, to justify curtailing a wider and wider group. That's where this develops into a circular argument - Clamp down on the kiddie fiddlers, but don't restrict individual liberties. Clearly, I don't have an answer.

Wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice do happen, but can we really tailor these "supervision orders" to cater for the people that shouldn't be subject to them in the first place? It's as well we don't have the death penalty anymore.

Yes, on one hand, I'd happily campaign for these people to be executed but then I stop and ask myself how I would feel if, after a succesful campaign, that the individual was later found to be a victim of a miscarriage of justice? Can you really console yourself with "I thought we were doing the right thing"?

Okay, save the death penalty for those we are really sure that they did it. But then you're back to the death row system, with endless appeals and hand-ringing; for fear that the wrong person is put to death.

You also have to consider what the probation services are doing. If these people are still supervised it might alter their behaviour. It might make sense to keep them on it for a period after they have stopped using the probation service, before removing the entry.

when you have had the misfortune of knocking on a families home, in the early hours of the morning, to inform them that their 7 year daughter has been found dead and then find after further investigation that this child's death was a result of a sexual assault and see the misery and grieve it causes a family, please come back and talk

i will always side with the victim in these cases and stand by my personal belief that the only good convicted 'nonce' is a dead convicted 'nonce'

up until then i will except and take all (with or without quotes) 'snide' remarks in my stride ...

Shouldn't that be the only safe nonce is a dead nonce, no nonce can be good?