Of molestation and justice

[weaktwos]

I came across this article this morning.

It discusses the death of John Geoghan in prison. It brought to mind thoughts of justice. What do you do with pedophiles who are just wired wrong, and have tortured many young minds?

"I did have that moment of thinking, `He got what he deserved,' " said Michael Linscott, 44, who said Mr. Geoghan had abused him from 1967 to 1972. "He got off easy. We get to live in our own prisons, and he didn't get a chance to serve out his."

I had the same thought as this fellow. This man was a burden, since special care had to be taken to incarcerate him. Convicted pedophiles are a waste of space in this society, unless you consider it a good thing. It creates jobs for therapists and law enforcement. However, something is severely messed up when we have to play $30,000 or more to keep this guy locked up while a child starves and does not receive a proper education somewhere in this country.
I don’t feel badly at all for this guy. Some folks interviewed commented on the irony of Geoghan, at one point wrongfully protected by the church due to their negligent and self-serving system, and then being put to death “prematurely” due to the negligence of the prison system. Somehow, I don’t think negligence was involved. I may sound ignorant, but I’ve seen too many Oz episodes to believe this was an accident. And, in this case, if negligence is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

I don’t, however, agree with Linscott when he says “he got off easy”. Revenge is very difficult for a whole society to take out. I have a hard time thinking that because we’re paying for a criminal to be a shiftless bastard in prison is a good form of revenge. And when it comes to molestation, there’s no payback here. You can’t molest him, he’ll like it. The best revenge is living well. Period. No amount of punishment of the priest is going to make Linscott feel whole again. He has to get past it himself. He has to realize that he is more than a victimized child. He is a human being who must overcome strife and find the beauty, goodness, spirituality that dwells on this earth.

Quotes from other related articles amused me:
"In the prison population, men who have killed or abused children are at the bottom of the totem poll," said Dr Jay Feierman, a psychiatry professor at the University of New Mexico's medical school, who served as psychiatric medical director for the state's prisons.
"The sociopaths somehow have this hierarchy about who is beneath them and child molesters are at great risk."

And

In interviews with The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald, Mr. Druce's father said his son was a Nazi sympathizer with a vendetta against homosexuals, African-Americans and Jews. The Boston Herald reported that his father said Mr. Druce had repeatedly been sexually abused by men as a boy.

I wonder why the Psych Prof from New Mexico didn’t venture a guess that perhaps the folks in prison treat pedophiles as the low-person on the totem pole because plenty of prisoners have been wronged by evil adults whether sexual or otherwise. These prisoners must be craving to re-write their script. They are finally strong enough to face off that adult who wronged them years ago. These pedophiles must look as deliriously delectable as a starving man who sees a roast turkey mirage.

Maybe I deserve some black marks for lack of humanity. However, I don’t want to consider molesting an innocent as a human trait. Further, I do not wish to treat pedophiles as humans.

Comments

[patricks.livejournal.com]

In The Hot House, a non-fiction book by Pete Earley about Leavenworth Prison, he says pedophiles are targets in prison for two reasons: First, a lot of inmates were abused as children. Second, many have families and children on the outside and, being locked up in prison, feel helpless to protect them against pedophiles. If the other prisoners discover an inmate is a child molester, he normally goes straight to solitary for his own protection.