It may be best if I cringe away into a corner and stay silent.
See I am no intellectual, but I have lived a whole life among a class of people who seem to have more victims than most.
In remote country towns that exist only for one industry then die, that bring heavy drinkers and poor family's together.
Strange just how much faith a first level boss, just a leading hand,can have placed on him by those who work with him.
And union delegate? nearly as much as I get now as a union official.
You share the pain, feel the grief, understand it will never be alright again for the victim.
And bad as it may seem you form an understanding that crime and punishment go together.
Often ,mostly the victim gets a life sentence, while a reference was made to 20 years? wonder how that came about?, most offenders serve no time?
Red neck? maybe I am but if we can not stop it we must punish those we catch.
I will leave you to debate but remember those victims they will never be released from memory's they do not want.

Belly,

-- Yes, it is harder in country, rural, towns or closed communities (like mining communities) where everyone knows everyone else’s business and this often results in a culture of compliance and secrecy.

-- It’s interesting to note that there is a higher level of suicide (proportionally) for young boys in rural areas and I wonder if there is a connection with abuse.

-- I'll have a look around and see if there are demographic studies of abuse to boys and location.

-- Given our appalling public health system in the bush the counselling and education programs would simply not exist.

-- As you say, conviction (or no conviction) the need for greater support, awareness raising and counselling for family and communities is required urgently.

-- The level of trust is important in any service and from my experience people often feel safer speaking to others where they work or trust.

Belly, I apologise for my dummy spit. I guess I just thought the report itself asked difficult questions and I thought they were getting sidelined by other discussions.

But I was out of line and I apologise. I hope you will continue to post.

Vanilla Rainer

He’s got a point really shouldn’t everybody be pushing for big sentences.
Isn’t that the best way with a lot of help available to young boys.

I saw the President of Iran speak of this and he said they didn’t have any offenders in his country at all while laughing.

He added that sort of stuff only happened in the West. I smiled. I thought to myself yeh because you shoot or hang them.

It got me thinking = Well if it works it works despite the country.

From my very limited experience the churches are a place where this thrives.
I once gave a chap accommodation along with his four horses.

When he arrived he had a fourteen year old boy in toe wit him.
He was a Church Nut.
Long story but it tuned out that homeless and their own kids just got cared for by `brother whoever.
The man himself had been abused that had the boy. I found out some time later he had also been charged earlier for offenses against his step kids.
The problem then is the the abused becomes the abuser.

I don’t know that I could shoot someone who was a victim themselves.

It’s hard to draw the line.

Still as belly said how can we discuss the treatment if not the laws and punishment?

I also hear what you are saying Vanilla that the boy protects the abuser.

That in fact turned out to be the biggest [problem] when trying to help the young boy.

This man also was very intelligent a good business man very handsome and you would never have picked him in a million years.

I think it would be fair to say Churches need special attention= after saying that I would have zero ideas on how you could put that into practice.
I think it takes Guts to speak out even on the net. Good on you Guys!

The issue of punishment may be a side issue (depends on how much you believe in the deterent value).

The things that stick out to me about calls for harsher penalties are
- The high incidence of perpetrators having themselves been victims of abuse. The abuse does not excuse their later choices but it does lead me to think of them as people needing help more than people needing punishment.
- If the penalties are too severe it increases the pressure on kids to keep quiet. Imagine the emotional pressure on a child who knew that reporting abuse could lead to the execution of the perpetrator (especially if the perp was a family member). The temptation for adults close to the perpetrator who may be the first told about the abuse to try and hide it if the consequences of exposure are extreme.
- If the penalties are too harsh the perpetrators may find that they have little to lose by killing victims rather than trying to gain their silence.

My impression is that focussing on punishment rather than other strategies is likely to further entrench a culture of silence and increase the level of harm done. We do need to find ways to protect children but also need to ensure that our outrage at the evil of the abuse does not overwhelm what we are trying to achieve.

There is no magic bullet to this.

R0bert

This is hard.

A most interesting thread, and thoughtful comments.

I am prepared to take any comment of redneck etc.,

The abuse of children is the cold blooded murder of childhood. I take no prisoners on this one. I am on the Ultra-Right of punishment and substantially find myself agreeing with ColRouge.

I take on board JamesH' reference to female abusers. How to deal with them? Because I know what should be done with males. I accept that it IS more difficult for a male to talk about such abuse, but ANY abused child suffers immensely. Male or female. We have a poster on OLO who is so clearly damaged by his? abuse.

It is CRITICAL that guilt is established. When it is, I would like to see chemical castration on a FIRST offence for a period of five years. A repeating offender should be castrated. I mean that. If it is possible to then re offend, then I have no problem AT ALL with the death penalty.

It will never happen of course, but it should. We can talk and talk and talk, and intellectualize (with respect..), all we want.
It is LONG past overdue to DO SOMETHING.

I rate this type of offence as THE worst crime of any in our society, including murder.