Jail time: Governor signs life-sentence law for pedophiles

Outstanding!!!

I think a bullet to the back of the head would be cheaper but this is a step in the right direction.

I think Governor Bob McDonnell could set a better example if he decided to be driven around in a more fuel efficient vehicle. And having one of my own, I know the terrible mileage that his Suburban gets both in city and highway driving.

As far as the life sentence law, good work!!!

The Governor deserves a huge pat on the back for this one!

If you have never encountered nor been involved with a predator pedophile; the damage is far worse for the child inflicted and the punishment goes on and and on for generations. These kids often times become pedophiles!

Get your facts straight or quit flinging stupidity all over this post!

And if so, may I question the motives for signing it?

Doesn't this set up a crazy situation where the criminal child molester might benefit by killing the child to cover up the molestation? After all, if he can get 2nd degree or less, his sentence would be a fraction of what it would have been for the molestation alone. That's messed up.

show me where child molesters have successfully received treatment and been released to the general public and not offended again.

This crime has one of the worst recidivist rates of all major crimes.

As for the supposed benefit of now killing the rape victim, using your logic, we should therefore remove all penalties for this crime. After all, if there is no punishment, then the molester would have no incentive to cover up the crime!

Criminal statutes are written to protect the public and mete out justice. They are not written to give incentives to perpetrators towards a certain behavior except to not commit a crime.

These people do not have a sickness. Indeed, there has not ever been a treatment that has cured them of their criminal activity. They are perpetrators of child rape. Society dictates that they be punished severely for their severe crime.

Those that seek to claim that this crime is not so bad could very well have an ulterior motive. Regardless, put your money where your mouth is and lobby our lawmakers to reduce the penalties for child rape. Do it publicly, if you have the courage of your convictions.

If Bob McDonnell cared as much about punishing child pedophiles as he wants us to believe, Dyncorp wouldn't be doing business in this state.

Let's clear some things up:

Child molestation only has a high recidivism rate on TV. In real life, it has a fairly low recidivism rate, and that was true before the sex offender registry was created and before we passed Meghan's law, and it will be no more or less true now that these laws were passed. Yes, some will offend again; most will not.

Second, regarding killing children to avoid prosecution, that is something that has already been observed as an effect of another knee-jerk reaction: the AMBER alert system. Yes, there have been cases of kidnappers killing their victims when they saw an AMBER alert. It is not true that modern forensic science is a magic bullet here, since according to the FBI, nearly 40% of homicides go unsolved each year. That might be a bit lower in the case of child molesters, since most child molesters are friends or relatives of their victims (and thus automatically on the list of suspects), but not by much. As a simple numbers game, it just makes sense for a child molester to commit murder in light of this law -- it reduces the likelihood of being caught, and even if he is caught, the punishment is no worse than it would have been in the first place.

This is a law signed shortly before an election -- it is just posturing, an attempt by the governor to show that he is "fighting back" against all those pedophiles out there (the media keeps telling us that they are hiding around every corner). This is worse than a knee-jerk reaction; this is an attempt to score some votes by leveraging public fear about a horrific crime happening to their children. These laws, like previous reactions to horrific crimes, are poorly thought out, are unlikely to actually protect children, and will almost certainly have unintended consequences years from now, when we have all forgotten why the laws were passed in the first place.

These people cannot be cured. Washington state and others pursue "civil commitment" to remove these predators from society for long periods after their criminal sentences are up. The reason for these civil commitments is that these states do not have laws like Virginia now does.

The unintended consequence of not removing these predators from society is more victims. Don't be fooled by D's attempt to denigrate this law. Bob McDonnell did right here.

People angry about punishing child molesters most likely have an ulterior motive.

Yet more:

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/rcd.html

"The vast majority of sex offenses are never reported. For instance, the National Women's Study surveyed a representative sample of over 4,000 adult women in the United States . Three hundred forty-one (8.5%) of these women were victims of at least one rape prior to the age of 18; however, only 11.9% of these women reported the rape to authorities (Hanson et al., 1990). And it must be remembered, of the few offenses reported, an even smaller number result in convictions.

The problem with using recidivism rates to determine the rate of reoffending is readily apparent when considering the following example. If 100% of released molesters reoffended, but the rate of reporting is only 12%, and the conviction rate is half of this, than the recidivism rate would be reported as only 6%!"

Compare and contrast those numbers with the number from my previous comment. It is nothing more than a lie to say that child molestation does not have a high recidivism rate.

Thanks D for the most insightful comment posted here on this topic. To be sure child abuse and molestation are serious crimes, not to be taken lightly. However, they are, in fact, not as prevalent as conservative commenter "meanwhile" suggests, nor is recidivism as serious a problem as he portrays it.

According to the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM), the source cited by "meanwhile" (where he cherry-picked his information), "sex offenses represent under 1% of all arrests." Moreover, CDOM reports that "overall the data tells us that between 12% and 24%" of offenders "have repeated their crimes." To say that another way, between 76 and 88 percent of sex offenders have NOT "repeated their crimes." I'd guess that most people would sink some cash into the lottery if they were 88 percent sure they'd win.

"Meanwhile" invokes fear and misinformation when he says that sex offenders (i.e. "predators") "cannot be cured." The CSOM says "Specialized treatment can help sex offenders to develop important skills that can help them manage their behavior over time, which can reduce their chances of sexually abusing in the future." The COM continues:

"Adult sex offenders who receive treatment have lower rates of recidivism than offenders who do not
receive such treatment (Aos, Miller, & Drake, 2006; Lösel & Schmucker, 2005). This also holds true
for juveniles who have committed sex offenses (Reitzel & Carbonell, 2006)."

But, of course, Lil Bob McDonnell and pathetic Rob Bell would rather lock these offenders away forever and take the "tough cop" approach. Naturally, they'll oppose any measure to actually pay for their mandate.

The Center for Sex Offender Management points out the treatment program for sex offenders in Vermont for its work. Notes the CSOM: "Research on Vermont Treatment Program for Sexual Abusers programs indicates that sex offenders who complete either prison- or community-based treatment recidivate sexually at significantly lower rates than those who did not receive or failed to complete such treatment (McGrath, Cumming, Livingston, & Hoke, 2003;McGrath, Hoke, & Vojtisek, 1998)." In other words, treatment works.

The CSOM also makes this important policy, and political, point: "criminal justice practitioners must avoid reactionary responses that are based on public fear of this population. Instead, they must strive to make management decisions that are based on the careful assessment of the likelihood of recidivism."

This is a caution thrown into the rhetoric-stoked conservative political winds by McDonnell And Bell. As "D" comments, this is merely "posturing, an attempt by the governor to show that he is" seriously tough on "all those pedophiles out there... this is an attempt to score some votes by leveraging public fear." Yep.

And like the "three strikes and you're out" laws pushed by conservatives in the not-so-distant past, as "D" warns us, these Bell-backed bills "will almost certainly have unintended consequences years from now." Think about it. Other conservative-initiated and implemented policies have been utter fiascoes. Supply-side tax subsidies for corporations and the rich that piled up deficits and debt, and increased poverty, especially child poverty. Laissez-faire deregulation that aided and abetted massive fraud and corruption on Wall Street, transferred huge sums of public treasury funds into private bank accounts, and broke the economy leaving "an estimated 2 million children directly impacted by the mortgage crisis as their families lose their homes due to foreclosures." A $2 trillion-plus unfunded war in Iraq over mythical weapons of mass destruction that's led to a huge death toll, including tens of thousands of Iraqi children. McDonnell and Bell supported all of it.

Now those are really "some numbers" for meanwhile to "compare and contrast."

Meanwhile, I never said child molestation was "not so bad" and I didn't express anger at child molesters being punished, and the ulterior motive you see is simply a different perspective - a perspective that takes into account the grandstanding and hypocrisy - and is repulsed by it.

Meanwhile,

If I was reading the statistics right from the study you posted it talked about the difference between same sex offenders and oppositive sex offenders in relation to sex of the victim. It also said that they had the highest recidivism rates of sex crimes study not overhall highest recidivism rates of ALL crimes committed. I suppose I could of read it wrong though.

I think D posted a lot of valid points. I feel that most new laws created are generally knee jerk reactions though.

Democacy says:
According to the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM), the source cited by "meanwhile" (where he cherry-picked his information), "sex offenses represent under 1% of all arrests."

but that is one percent of all ARRESTS not all CRIMES. That does not mean that crimes don't occur it means that they are either undereported or unable to be proven enough to arrest and prosecute. muders are 1 percent so what is your point? We should not deal with that?

There is a problem with the law in that even victims which are often family memebers or close enough and would be afraid to send their mothers brother or boyfriend or 2nd husband away for life when all they really want is for it to stop.

Retribution is fine with me if there were no unintended consequences, but imagine the misplaced guilt an 11 year old would feel to send away the love of the mothers life and breadwinner of the famly for what was a one time event that the child mistakeny believes will have no long lasting effect (make sure you jerks out there see the word "mistakenly" please)

They need to revisit this and figure out a more intellectual and effective way to deal with this issue. Hopefully in the meantime the prosecutors will make sure they have their perp and not a disgruntled Ex who brainwashed a child...

The best way to deal with this is prevention, parents should not assume that people are above this behavior and keep closed doors to a minimum. They should also make sure they are not allowing or encouraging oversexualized behavior as has been promoted by hollywood for the last few decades. It may reduce the total number of incidents, will make sure that those who do perpetrate the crimes have to take more chances which will lead to stronger prosecutions.

It is too bad that public hangings are politically incorrect, that seems to me a good way to spread the word for deterrent purposes....

Must the crimes be proven by evidence? Is he sai d she said enough to persecute? The accused is always presumed guilty whether they are or not. If only guilty people were punished, I wouldn't have any problem with the law. Since innocent people are presumed guilty on accusation, I have a huge problem with it.

The same source commenter "meanwhile" cited –– the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM) –– provides a wealth of data that undermines his argument, as I noted in my comments above.

Again, as I pointed out, child abuse and molestation are serious crimes, not to be taken lightly. However, contrary to the claim that sex offender scan never be rehabilitated, the CSOM says "Specialized treatment can help sex offenders to develop important skills that can help them manage their behavior over time, which can reduce their chances of sexually abusing in the future." The COM continues:

"Adult sex offenders who receive treatment have lower rates of recidivism than offenders who do not
receive such treatment (Aos, Miller, & Drake, 2006; Lösel & Schmucker, 2005). This also holds true
for juveniles who have committed sex offenses (Reitzel & Carbonell, 2006)."

Moreover, The CSOM makes this important policy –– and political –– point: "criminal justice practitioners must avoid reactionary responses that are based on public fear of this population. Instead, they must strive to make management decisions that are based on the careful assessment of the likelihood of recidivism."

What Lil Bob McDonnell and Rob Bell and "meanwhile" do is to try and stoke "reactionary responses based on fear" and misinformation, and yes, this does seem to be a hallmark of conservatives (death panels? weapons of mass destruction?).

"Meanwhile" makes the fatuous claim that "Those that disagree can keep on simply asserting otherwise based on absolutely nothing at all." Huh? His own cited source refutes the claims he makes. So, we're left with the fact that it is "meanwhile" who has "absolutely nothing" that's thoughtful or accurate to impart.

Note to Bill Marshall: the death penalty is not a deterrent...when the British were publicly hanging pickpockets, pickpockets worked the crowds picking pockets. As the scholars John Donohue and Justin Wolfers point out, "The view that the death penalty deters is still the product of belief, not evidence....when one considers
all the evidence the empirical support for the proposition that the death penalty deters is at best weak and inconclusive."

@ Bill Marshall

The quote I cited came from research (note the citations)"

"Adult sex offenders who receive treatment have lower rates of recidivism than offenders who do not
receive such treatment (Aos, Miller, & Drake, 2006; Lösel & Schmucker, 2005). This also holds true
for juveniles who have committed sex offenses (Reitzel & Carbonell, 2006)."

The Center for Sex Offender Management points out the treatment program for sex offenders in Vermont for its work. Noted the CSOM: "Research on Vermont Treatment Program for Sexual Abusers programs indicates that sex offenders who complete either prison- or community-based treatment recidivate sexually at significantly lower rates than those who did not receive or failed to complete such treatment (McGrath, Cumming, Livingston, & Hoke, 2003;McGrath, Hoke, & Vojtisek, 1998)." In other words, treatment works.

Moreover, The CSOM makes this important policy –– and political –– point: "criminal justice practitioners must avoid reactionary responses that are based on public fear of this population. Instead, they must strive to make management decisions that are based on the careful assessment of the likelihood of recidivism."

Now I know you are impervious to what contradicts your dogma, but the facts are the facts.