Greg Barnes is a highly respected barrister and former politician known for taking up unpopular causes:
(note-the 2 newspapers he refers to are owned by-yes you guessed right-the Sun King !)

what he has written equally applies to the UK:

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"According to Melbourne forensic psychologist Wendy Northey, Australia will only reduce the level of s-xual offending in the community if we move away from counter-productive punitive approaches and mindless stereotyping of offenders.

Northey, in a paper being delivered today at the Charles Sturt University School of Policing Studies in Goulburn, argues that we as a society need to treat s-x offending in the same way as we do eating disorders or other forms of mental illness, that is, as a public health issue.

The media and politicians are contributing to s-x offending in Australia because of their abject failure to understand the nature of the offence itself. Simply labeling individuals as ‘monsters’ or ‘perverts’ -- two of the favourite labels that newspapers such as the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph used to describe s-x offenders -- is simply exacerbating the problem."

www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090209-S-x-...ic-health-issue.html

Perfectly true. I wonder why they removed the 'e' from the word sex.

Interesting but misses out on the root cause of offending ( whatever that is )

What causes someone to want to abuse for instance ?

Is it the need to have a virgin ( This is a cultural thing which means virgins are highly prized ) and with the age of "losing it " getting younger every year these people are basically now having to break the law to satisfy this cultural brainwashing ?

Or is it mainly due to being a victim themselves - and just passing on received behaviour ?

or is it mental illness ( somehow this one I dont think rings true )

or just being evil ( this is the media view )

I believe it is a cultural problem caused by a media soaking everyone in sexual imagery where the average age of someone desirable ( both male and female ) is teenage. Add to that the desire to be first in any culture - more so because of the Free Market capitalism - and you have basically a "honey trap" for anyone with hormones when faced with sexual opportunity.

The idea that a 13 - 16 year old boy or girl is unable to have sexual feelings ( according to the law ) is also wrong. There are predatory teenagers out there trying to bed their teachers and elders down the local nightclub ( Mandy Smith was a famous example ).

So how is it dealt with ? Well the answer is - it is not. In most cases it is covered up. Which prolongs the problem and just passes it on generation to generation.

I would like to see some form of censorship on TV and in the Media about sex. Sex is fantastic but if we have decided to make it between consenting adults age 16+ then under that age kids should not have it shoved in their faces. How can we continue to basically "titilate" the average teenager and with peer pressure turning them into a "pressure cooker" situation ? In addition those that work with kids are often stalked and hassled by the over-hormonal kids. Nowadays the best threat being - if you dont then I will allege that you did and finish your career in any case !!!!!

Our society in my view has been undermined by elements of the Pop Culture - and I see many positive things from modern culture.....but not in this aspect.

I feel like Mary Whitehouse - and I expect the liberals amongst you and 60s gurus will think I am suggesting some repressed regime harking back to Victorian times......I am not. I am just suggesting that we protect the kids from sex - not from sex offenders. There are very few truly predatory sex offenders in society - the stats back this up. But society has sexualised children to the point where we are reaping the whirlwind of this supposed freedom.

Lets kids be free to be kids I say. Provide help to sex offenders and try and put clear water between the two - for both their sakes. We could start by getting the NotW and Sun to report news rather than titilate.

good question !..not for any puritan reason but because crikey.com.au is the most popular political website in Australia and they remove letters like "e" from sex so that it doesn't affect them on search boards like google.

Interesting story crikey..begun by a young financial journalist Stephen Mayne (fired from a Rupert Murdoch newspaper)..down to his last few dollars, he took out a small mortgage on his house 3 years ago-$10,000 and started crikey.

At the end of last year he sold the website to a publisher for $1Million..pretty good for 3 years work.

Now he buys small parcels of shares and goes to annual general mettings and gives the directors hell. Rupert Murdoch hates him as he always turns up to badger him like crazy.

you make sense..but what these people are saying which I agree with, is this rediculous placing of a whole range of people into one category which is what the sex offendor's registry does.

I can tell you one thing-having met a policeman who works in that area-and fortunately they are specifically chosen to be even-handed, he reports that policemen thinks it's a complete waste of time especially as anyone who has broken the law already has a record.

There can be a case for monitoring repeat and dangerous offendors but what this academic is saying that a "register" does absolutely nothing and is a poltician's invention to pander to tabloids.

Sarah's Law, Megan's Law-whilst one can only have great sympathy for the parents of these children it's actually a cruel joke on them by self-appointed victim's groups and politicians after a cheap headline.

Incidently-2 US states have now overturned these laws as there, they even prevent people from living in certain areas. Judges have agreed that the law interfers with a person's constitutional rights to freedom of movement including having to report monthly etc.

Judges accepted that it was a purely rediculous claim that by saying a person couldn't live within a 1000 yards of a school-when they could legally live 1001 yards from that school , that this achieved nothing and was nonsensical and on the basis it was an "emotional" law overturned it.

Remember-the UK hasn't yet gone down the road of the USA where there are around 20,000 children jailed who will be labelled offendors for life. Some boys have come out of jail and married the girl they supposedly sexually offended.

Many psychiatrists and pyscholgists say the majority should be treated as a health problem particularly as re-offending rates are around 5% world-wide-the least of all offending rates.

ps: I once complained bitterley to a doctor who was looking after an old aunt of mine-a real bitch. I was telling him how nasty she can be and it must be because of her age. He corrected me :"people's personalities don't change-she was probably a nasty little girl as well !"

The reasons for sexual abuse vary. I think one of the most common is probably the desire (or need) to control and dominate.

I think there is also genuine love for someone who happens to be below the legal limit. I wouldn't call this abuse, just ulawful sex.

There are very many grey areas, and so many mistakes made.

and if the reasons vary then it is not appropriate to bunch everything together like this.

My views are more extreme than our general liberal consensus on this board - but I think protection of children is vitally important.

I agree that Sarahs Law and other rules like that and even the register itself are pointless and dont change anything. A risk assessment is needed for each person - because in most cases there is no risk. By trying to "criminalise" everyone the REAL OFFENDERS escape through the net - because the system cant watch 60 milion people.

The media scares and Witch Hunts do more harm than good in the end and put more children at risk. But possibly this is intentional by those who control the media ? certainly conspiracy sites believe that those who control media and politics actually are the "organised" child sex industry......just read some of the books on the subject which are very compelling.