Paul Leroux believes there are better uses for our energy than vigilante justice.
Society is quick to label porn addicts, rapists, child molesters. Especially the latter, perhaps the most feared, reviled pariahs among us. Even prison inmates loathe them. They risk becoming victims themselves, unless kept in a well-guarded cell, away from harm.
We stereotype these sexual anomalies, depicting them as the candy-bearing stranger to whom children must not speak, the proverbial man in a trenchcoat, waiting to expose himself to our averted, offended eyes.
Yet how often would be able to identify them in broad daylight? Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy in the United States, Paul Bernardo in Canada—all were handsome and personable young men, boys next door, seemingly no different from upstanding, respectable citizens like you and me. But even a winning smile and a chiseled chin can mask loneliness, shyness, isolation and frustration—breeding grounds for porn addiction, rape, and sexual abuse.
How many of us unwittingly live under the same roof, ride the same bus or subway car, work in the same office, worship at the same church, mosque or synagogue? How many of us eagerly invite them into our homes, allow them to coach our children’s sports teams or scout troops, perhaps buy their music, watch them at the movies or on TV?
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I have had my own brush, my own close encounter, with such a person. One day when I was still a pre-schooler, riding my tricycle into a neighborhood playground, a stranger approached me and slid his hand under the cuff of my shorts. His fumbling made me uncomfortable, and I said “no” when he asked if I wanted him to do it again. He walked away, glancing backward as if he hoped I might tag along, but I remained rooted to the spot.
I remember he wore glasses and spoke in a low-pitched, virtually unintelligible mumble. I can’t help thinking now that he was probably a shy introvert, utterly lacking in social skills, trying to relate in the only way he knew how.
When I was 11, I spent a year as a Wolf Cub. I walked to and from meetings alone at night (unthinkable 45 years later). One evening, the troop leader offered to drive me home. Naively, I declined, saying it was okay, I could walk. His invitation might have been entirely innocent—or not. To this day, I wonder what might otherwise have transpired.
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Later, as a teenager, I read a book called Recommendation for Mercy, by Isabelle LeBourdais. She eloquently pleaded the case of Steven Truscott, from Ontario, Canada, sentenced to hang for the rape-murder of a 12-year-old girl, when he was only two years her senior. (Steven Truscott always maintained his innocence and was finally released after spending his adult life behind bars.)
I do not propose that we should forgive heinous sexual offences against innocent women and children, or indeed men. I do not even advocate pity for the offenders.
I am suggesting, however, that there are better uses for our energy than vigilante justice, than hounding and harassing those found guilty of such acts. We would be wiser to channel our efforts into preventing men, once children themselves, from transmogrifying into monsters no longer recognizable as human.
Neighborhood watch programs are an excellent way to protect ourselves from rapists and predators. But there are other things we should be watching for. Loneliness. Isolation. Bullying. Social exclusion.
Instead of teaching children to shun interaction with adults, or to feel shame and guilt about their nascent sexuality, we should teach them when it is proper to say “yes” and when to say “no.”
Instead of instilling fear in teachers and pastors, causing them to stifle a very natural love for children, and denying children the benefits of healthy physical affection, we should establish safeguards and create spaces where that love and affection can be freely and rightly expressed.
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photo: rutlo / flickr
You make a fair point, Paul, but the big money’s in hysteria and fear-mongering. Prevention, rehabilitation, or any measure of sanity has no place in a discussion of sex crimes. Not in America, anyway.