What a shame that the senior police officer in charge of combating child exploitation talked about "predators" when calling for a more constructive approach to working with men who are sexually attracted to children.
Elsewhere in his interview with the BBC Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) comes across as a sensible chap. And his suggestion that we deal with more paedophiles in the community rather than chucking them in jail and throwing away the key seems to make a lot of sense in view of the sheer numbers involved (and the fact that our jails are already full).
But to suggest that predatory paedophiles should remain "at large", as the tabloid press would put it, is surely pushing the argument too far. If, as is claimed, there are thousands of people in this country downloading child pornography every week then custody can't be the answer whatever Kidscape and others maintain. We already imprison more people than most other European nations - so we have to find an alternative to jail. But Jim Gamble has muddied the waters by using the language he did.
What he actually said was:
"In order to make a meaningful difference I am absolutely positive we need to engage with the predator in a way we haven't before."
The word predator means "an animal naturally preying on others". You don't have to be a Sun reader to believe that children need to be protected from those who want to prey on them. And men who pose a real danger to children should be behind bars.
A message on the Sun's discussion forum says "If these weirdos didn't exist then children would not be abducted." The trouble is they do exist and we have to deal with them and try and help them change their behaviour - with programmes in our jails and also in the community. But Mr Gamble could do with clarifying exactly who it is he is talking about when he says a police caution will suffice.
Comments (1)
Consider the children who spend so much time on the internet talking to strangers rather than their friends. Why do they do it?
As a school social worker I get to talk to loads of lonely or confused kids who are the most vulnerable to be preyed on by the paedophiles referred to in this blog.
So why do we persist in having detached children's services? or patchy voluntary organisations working with a few of the lucky children when there could be one of me in every school in the UK?
I'd really like someone to answer this one
Paedophiles can be anywhere, we know that so its impossible to try to patrol them with our current services. Also what about the relatives of paedophiles who don't like what they do and in fact hate it but know the family secrets about why they do it. How many were abused as children themselves and cried out for help in their behaviour at school but just got the label of the 'naughty children'
I have no sympathy with the 'acts' but also recognise that they are human beings.
The only way that we can protect children and treat paedophiles is through the grassroots.
I have spent about three mornings a week in my school for just over a year but I have learnt more about teenagers and why they get hooked to the internet than I did in years as an area social worker. These lonely kids want to be less lonely, they want to understand why they self harm and sometimes live near to a self destruct button. They want nice girlfriends and boyfriends. They don't want to attach themselves to the seedy paedo as they call them but sometimes they do because the paedo listens whereas other people never have the time to do that and the pressures that they feel from life can be unbearable.
Posted by Rachel Mulcahy | June 2, 2007 7:46 AM
Posted on June 2, 2007 07:46