Monsters.

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 3:20 AM

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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
No, Kwick.

This is about a group of (and forgive me for not being able to call them human) PREDATORS/ANIMALS/NONHUMANS, raping a girl for HOURS. While some of the same evil animals stood by and watched.

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Quote:

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Criminals are abused children, lost as adults

The perpetrators of crime are victims too, says author John Marsden.

These days we have all the sympathy in the world for abused children. We weep for their loss of innocence. We understand how it is that many (in some cases all) of the pillars of their lives have been knocked out from under them. We support them with counselling and care. That's how it's supposed to work anyway. In many cases it does work like this.

Almost in the same breath we denounce child abusers. We call them scum, filth, animals, monsters. We talk about how they should be castrated, locked up for life, executed. "If I could get my hands on those mongrels. . ."

At the extreme are those terrible scenes ofhysterical adults surrounding a police wagon containing a child molester and rocking it backwards and forwards, or the mob attacking the house of a child molester who has been released from prison.

One of the ways we justify this rage is by telling ourselves and each other that we are showing our solidarity with the abused children. But one of the truths about this complex issue is that the abused child for whom we show such support, and the child abuser for whom we show such hatred and contempt, are the same person.

We claim to feel love for the abused child but when, inevitably, some abused children grow up and start acting out the consequences of their abuse, we react to them with rage and hatred.

That abused child who has had the pillars of his life knocked out from under him will, without support and understanding, grow up continuing to feel frightened and lost. To allay these feelings, he may try to recreate any situation in which he felt "held", and these may include encounters where he was literally held, as he was beaten, or seduced into a sexual encounter.
It is impossible for a loved, secure person to commit a serious crime.

At those times, the adult created a little world that just the two of them inhabited, where all other concerns ceased to exist, and where the child, no matter how bizarrely, felt something like security. If, as an adult, that same child finds himself in a world that is frightening and insecure, a world in which he has no real connections with anyone, he may try to recreate those moments of illusionary security.

It's a difficult process to understand. And it's not an inevitable process. Many, perhaps most, people who are abused as children go on to lead secure and well-balanced lives, often because the abuse took place out of context.

In her book Banished Knowledge, Alice Miller referred to a survey of American prisoners that showed that about 90 per cent had been abused as children. She commented that the other 10 per cent would have been abused too - it was just that they had not yet been able to admit it.

The prisons of Australia are also full of abused children. Those same children whom we profess to care about when they are 10 or 12, but whom we stop caring about when they are 16 or 18.

All crime is illness. All those who commit serious crimes are ill. The more horrifying the crime, the greater the illness of the perpetrator. It is impossible for a loved, secure, happy person to commit a serious crime.

Shame on politicians who use "getting tough on law and order" as an election slogan. They are exploiting these abused children to gain power.

It would dramatically alter our society if we treated criminals as people with serious illnesses. We could do better by them, and we could do better fo

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