“Lying” about perhaps yes. Being proven mistaken about or having the defendant found not guilty- certainly not. That’s a key point is what do we mean when we say “lying,” and what burden of proof needs met? The memories of trauma victims are often a mess- and even if someone accuses you of rape because they feel violated- they aren’t technically “lying...” when you believe what you’re saying but it isn’t supported by evidence that’s just being mistaken- not lying.
I hope it’s clear why we must establish both a clear definition of “lying about rape” and a clear and substantial burden of proof that it was the intent of the person- beyond any reasonable doubt- to knowingly accuse a person falsely. Not being litigious or “overreacting” but that they clearly and knowingly without basis in fact or through intentional abuse of fact accused another of a crime they were aware they didn’t commit.
This is CRITICAL in this debate because it is a justified fear that is one of the primary rational arguments against prosecuting false rape charges. A person who feels they were raped when an actual rape by legal terms didn’t occur- a person who is suffering trauma or was under the effects of a substance and make statements that can be proven false, a person who mistakes the identity of the perpetrator, and even a person who has a rape case go to trial and the accused is found innocent are not by default liars- and they did nothing wrong or malicious. They were or thought they were victims of a crime and acted how one would in such a case. They pursued justice for the crime and the justice system decided either a crime can’t be proven to have occurred or that the accused cannot he proven to have committed it to reasonable standards.
So any law that would potentially stop victims from reporting it for fear that if they cannot prove their case they will be punished doesn’t belong in our legal system. That’s thunderdome for goodness sakes. “2 enter, one goes home, one goes to jail...” can you imagine if it worked that way for every crime? That no matter what, the defendant or the accuser was going to go to jail? We also can’t open the door to where an accused and convicted rapist could take their victim to court instead of an appeal. That’s madness. If they get the appeal and they win- then perhaps there’d be a cause to try the accuser if the appeal revealed an actual lie- a bold faced lie. But not simply a mistake or a false memory. But we have to do our part too. It’s not just the legal system that fails the falsely accused. Society does as well. As soon as an accusation or an arrest is made the court of public opinion often finds a person “guilty without trial.”
So ok. Maybe in the case of a PROVABLE And actual intentional LIE this could make sense- but again- we must be VERY careful how we define lie and the proof of a lie because that also opens doors to defense attorneys simply trying to prove the defendant lied in some way versus trying to prove their client is innocent. It opens doors for attackers to silence victims by holding over their head that they could be jailed if they can’t win. And it also opens accusers up to liability or retaliation in cases where they didn’t do anything wrong, and had honest intentions but were for one reason or another mistaken or couldn’t prove a criminal case.
I believe if a woman is found guilty of lying about being raped, when the “raper” has been charged, the woman should go to prison and the “raper” reimbursed. Prison isn’t a place for innocent people
I agree. It’s better to let 100 guilty people of any crime walk free than lock up one innocent. In theory anyway. And I agree that if at any point it becomes known and is proven that an accuser of ANY CRIME knowingly LIED about the accusation or fabricated it- they should go to jail and the other be pardoned those applicable charges. But.... again the key is it must be PROVED and it must be a LIE, not a mistake or a mix up or anything. A flat out LIE which they KNEW they were committing.
As for reimbursement- in Star Trek world where we all have free healthcare and no disease and there’s no prejudice and we all get along and just try and better humanity... yeah. I’d like them to be reimbursed too. In the real world- I don’t see it happening or even a good idea to try at this point.
Firstly- you can’t reimburse time served. Even if we tack it to your sentence. And what difference does it make? Me spending more time in jail does nothing for you. And what is your time worth? For a friend mine is free, for someone I don’t like it’s much much more. But even if we bill at working rate- one guy makes $500 an hour another makes $8. And if your accuser makes $6 and is in jail- what money will you ever see? It gets complicated too- they may have kids etc who did nothing wrong. Gonna auction the house they live in to pay restitution? So now instead of one innocent person suffering another one is? It’s a mess.
How do you even calculate what your reputation is worth? Ability to get a job, find a date, make friends or feel comfortable in public? What’s the fee for dealing with all the harassment from folks who still think you’re guilty? Are some years worth more than others? Like your early 20’s are full of memories and forming foundations- but your mid 30’s are where you find great opportunities to advance your career. Is missing a child’s first birthday or their birth worth more or less than missing their graduation or their first words? Who knows. It doesn’t work. That’s why in small claims you can’t sue a person for lost wages for coming to court. It gets really messy and how do you prove things that would have happened or could have like being discovered as the next Hollywood star or landing a job that would change your life?
This is literally exactly what is happening in the anime industry right now. Except the accused is actually pushing back, which clearly no one was actually expecting. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out
It's becoming alarmingly apparent to me just how rampant these disgusting, pathetic excuses for human beings are. Society went so extremely wrong somewhere
Not super related but there's an alarming trend of self-professed "maps" trying to integrate the LBTQ community and push for being allowed to work jobs around children because, according to their logic, children have more to fear from straight men than they do from people who want to sexually exploit them. Some are also arguing that child porn already produced should be viewable and not seen as a big deal because having access to OLD CP will discourage new CP from being made. Which, as we all know, is why pornhub never has to produce new content ever...
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It's a difficult situation. On the one hand I would like to see people who view children this way be able to get help - REAL help - without worrying about being flayed alive in the streets. On the other hand, there's ones who say things like this, who actively try to integrate and normalize abuse, and I'm half tempted to get Ramsay Bolton involved
There's actually very little hope of reforming child molesters. No cure and high probability they will reoffend. Prison, secure mental facility, or execution are the only way to stop them. I could have pitty for someone who sought help before they harmed a kid, but once it's done, nope.
@xvarnah I'd never heard of MAPs. Gross. How could someone profess to be attracted to minors and then insist on being around minors. That's insanity.
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As for legalizing old child porn, that'll be an uphill battle. I've said it before, but in the US, possession of any child pornography is seen as the same as actively victimizing that child and is punishable by a MANDATORY MINIMUM of 15 years in prison PER PICTURE. So yeah, I don't think anyone will take those folks seriously and they'll probably weed themselves out of society pretty quickly.
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@popsy You seem passionate about punishment for some people. That's good! There are some child molesters that can't be rehabilitated and there are some that can. The recidivism (reoffense) rate of molestation is 2-8%, which is about as low as it gets. So that's awesome! But that means "prison, secure mental facility, or execution" would be carried out on people who would have never reoffended in 92-98% of the cases.
Some people might say that's a small price to pay for a safe society.
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But it world cover untold billions of dollars to carry this out. I think we could get better mileage by focusing on investing a little bit of money on judgement-free education and counseling for people who don't understand how bad it would be to flash/peep on/touch/rape/etc. someone else. That'd at least have a shot at reducing the number of victims over time. To me, that feels a lot more productive than other alternatives.
I know it serves our moral righteousness and our inner sadist to cause suffering to those we see as wrong. I know that there is a primitive justice in the concept that suffering must be met with suffering- but there’s no ultimate good that comes of it. The principal is harmful to humanity- the idea that it’s perfectly alright to cause another human suffering because we decided it was deserved- and in practice it’s harmful to humanity as well. Child molestation is one of if not the grossest crimes in my book. It is sick and wrong and heinous. A true low of humanity.
But we must consider that not all pedophiles directly harm children. The person looking at pictures of a child lifted off the sears catalog is sick. The person staring in and producing child sex videos is an absolute fucking monster. So is it justice to say these two crimes are equal? What if the guy cyber chatting the 13yo who never meets them up but chats? Yes- they are a criminal. They deserve to face consequences. But does a 10 minute AOL chat merit the same punishment as kidnapping a 5 year old and raping them?
And what about a 16 year old? That’s still gross. To me the idea of dating a 26 year old seems creepy and gross. I’d feel like a freaking creeper- but in many states a 17yo is legal- and if they’re almost 17 but 16 and their 20yo or 19yo boyfriend cybers or requests pics- are they as bad as a person who rapes a 5yo? Does a 20yo deserve to have their life ruined or ended to exchange pics with their 16yo GF?
And that’s the thing- there are all these picket cases where people who are straight up innocent of an actual crime- since malice or intent aren’t present in sex crime laws- circumstances don’t really matter. If your friend downloads child porn on your laptop and you can’t prove it wasn’t you- that’s it for you. If you get drunk and chat up some girl and miss the part where she says she’s in high school or what not- that’s it for you.
If you ARE guilty but you aren’t guilty of actually abusing a child but just if being a party to such abuse- first offense or not- wether you’ve had these thoughts or whatever and fought them and then you agreed to meet some guy to buy some pictures and he’s a cop- that’s it for you.
And that’s very un civilized and un American- the idea that you’d get one single mistake and it would all be over. No second chances no consideration of context or severity.
I understand emotionally. In my head when I hear about any sick child related shit- sometimes even adults pretending to be children as a loophole type shit- in my head my first thought is just rage. I want them to disappear from the earth. I want them to suffer and be beaten down to nothing. But then- if I breathe- and I remember that as sick and fundamentally disturbing a mistake it may be- it’s still a mistake. That there is a world of details and that no person can just be distilled to “good” or “evil” and if any of ya were only judged on our worst thoughts or deeds we’d all be condemned.
I DO see a case for @popsys system for those convicted of touching a child, harming a child, being a kidnapper or a guardian who would willingly allow or turn a blind eye to such things happening to a child. But I also have to remember that we convict beyond reasonable doubt- and often times there wasn’t doubt when we convicted- but in time doubt can arise, and even wrongful conviction can be proven.
And what do we do then? After we’ve beaten and hurt and abused and traumatized and locked up- or killed this person? Do we let them or their surviving relatives exact punishment on those involved in the conviction? The judge? Jury? Attorneys? Police? Witnesses? If we say “what they did was wrong and caused harm that can’t be taken back or made up for...” what happens if we exact our pound of flesh and then we are wrong- and have done harm that can’t be undone or made up for?
That’s no way for a society to function. Pedophiles are sick. No mentally sound person wakes up one day and decides raping kids sounds like it would be a neat new experience. They succumb to a weakness in a moment or in completely- and they do real and severe harm. We owe it to society and to our kids to watch out, be vigilant, and take those who show they cannot be trusted to control themselves and put them where they can’t harm others.
But the very second we begin to punish people to exercise our feelings of anger and outrage- the moment we apply irreversible and enduring punishments on anyone we aren’t sure with omnipotent clarity is guilty- we become the bad guys. When dealing with criminals and enemies and the like an important question is wether our behavior makes us any better than those we’d punish. This is an emotional issue and justice should be with reason and without passion- but tempered by empathy and compassion for all humanity.
Sex offenders are people who messed up. Big-time. And they're put on a registry that is absolutely an irreversible and enduring punishment, unlike anything we've seen in human history. Their lives are intentionally destroyed by the government to make sure they have long-lasting repercussions, no matter how minor their original conviction.
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But they also usually have family and friends who love them and support their recovery. To kill the offenders or incarcerate them all forever no matter what would have a devastating impact on these loved ones. I don't think people realize just how many sex offenders there are. The ripple effect of a mass-murder like that could have a destabilizing effect on our entire society.
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Also, I'll just note that the penalty for straight-up murder is usually 15-30 years, with no further repercussions beyond having a felony on their record.
I agree. When we do harm to others, we don’t just harm the victim. Peeing in public will make you a sex offender if there happens to be a school or kids nearby. Having sex in the park or any number of things not related to pedophilia. What’s more- a great number of sexy offenders (and I’m not defending pedophiles or rapists here)- are just people besides one very black mark on their pasts. We don’t generally make lists of other criminals for the public- and much of the technology and medicine we enjoy today is through war criminals who rape and did far more massive and horrific things but were deemed too valuable to kill. Is that right? I don’t know that it is- but I don’t see how we can justify selling out our principals for technology if we aren’t willing to uphold very human principals for ethics. At that point- we’d just have to admit ethics aren’t a concern and it’s all just to satisfy our wants.
@jasonmon we'll see. There's a big push to recognize pedophilia as a sexuality and while it hasn't gained much ground yet, it's still dangerous territory. And yeah MAPs is what they're calling themselves now it seems
No one made a comment on the "splish splash your opinion is trash" saying. I thought it was funny. It s a very difficult situation . Rape destroys people , emotionally , if liars get too much punishment , it can stop real victims from coming forward . There has to be justice for those that were falsely accused. Just the accusation is devastating to a persons life. How does society compensate someone for 20 years of their life ? The money they usually get seems about ten times to low for even starters. I wish there was an easy answer, but the legal balancing act is pretty crazy.
I by and large agree with you popsy- I cover it in depth above. But I do just want to sum up a part of my lengthy diatribe by saying that it’s CRITICAL that there both be a very hard and steep line between an accusation where the accuser Is KNOWN to be innocent and where the accuser made a mistake. I know it’s a damn costly mistake- but mistakes happen especially where trauma, booze, and drugs can be involved- and we can’t penalize someone for making what they BELIEVED was a true accusation or had no reason to believe it was false- only one where they PROVABLY knew it was false- and the weight of that proof must be damn high as well- otherwise we’ve stacked an otherwise already stacked deck.
Now- IF the justice system works as it should- and while not perfect offered a fair trial to the accused- we could assume that any conviction for rape couldn’t be a lie. It doesn’t work that way and we should really look at that. But for all the people who have or could have their lives ruined by false accusations- they need protection. We also have to be mindful of even the burden of proof required to bring such a suit for false accusations though so that they not become a punitive or preventative tool for actual rapists. Otherwise we just introduce the same problem we are trying to fix.
If some kid from Nebraska flies out west and Bill Cosby decides they look J-E-L-L-O good... simply threatening with a counter suit could silence victims of powerful people who already have an uphill fight. A rich person could easily tie an accuser up in court and burry them in legal fees they can’t afford as a punitive measure- especially in retaliation say if they went to trial but there wasn’t evidence enough to convict. That could hurt men too as juries became aware that a rape case either ended up with the accused going to jail or the defendant- and as you said- simply being accused often builds bias and who will most people emotionally side with- the crying doe eyed corn shucker or the “skeevy accused rapist...” if they have to choose one over the other- they man is probably going to jail.
You’ll get no argument from me there. If it’s a slam dunk- clear as day bragging in the streets about it case- we need to apply justice. Hopefully in a way that imparts upon them the severity of what they did and prevents them from doing it again- but honestly at the point we are trying to teach an adult that lying is bad there is a solid case that purely punitive punishment may have merit and justification.
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It's a difficult situation. On the one hand I would like to see people who view children this way be able to get help - REAL help - without worrying about being flayed alive in the streets. On the other hand, there's ones who say things like this, who actively try to integrate and normalize abuse, and I'm half tempted to get Ramsay Bolton involved
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As for legalizing old child porn, that'll be an uphill battle. I've said it before, but in the US, possession of any child pornography is seen as the same as actively victimizing that child and is punishable by a MANDATORY MINIMUM of 15 years in prison PER PICTURE. So yeah, I don't think anyone will take those folks seriously and they'll probably weed themselves out of society pretty quickly.
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@popsy You seem passionate about punishment for some people. That's good! There are some child molesters that can't be rehabilitated and there are some that can. The recidivism (reoffense) rate of molestation is 2-8%, which is about as low as it gets. So that's awesome! But that means "prison, secure mental facility, or execution" would be carried out on people who would have never reoffended in 92-98% of the cases.
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But it world cover untold billions of dollars to carry this out. I think we could get better mileage by focusing on investing a little bit of money on judgement-free education and counseling for people who don't understand how bad it would be to flash/peep on/touch/rape/etc. someone else. That'd at least have a shot at reducing the number of victims over time. To me, that feels a lot more productive than other alternatives.
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But they also usually have family and friends who love them and support their recovery. To kill the offenders or incarcerate them all forever no matter what would have a devastating impact on these loved ones. I don't think people realize just how many sex offenders there are. The ripple effect of a mass-murder like that could have a destabilizing effect on our entire society.
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Also, I'll just note that the penalty for straight-up murder is usually 15-30 years, with no further repercussions beyond having a felony on their record.