Demonization of sex offenders

The people who get treated the worst in our society are the sex offenders. =
They get treated as not even human. This is wrong even in case they have co=
mmitted a crime.

I believe in proportional punishments. Being daily buggered and beaten in j=
ail is an inappropriate punishment even for rape. And what is also inapprop=
riate is these people being treated as less than human.

About half the people I know have been victims of rape or incest. The worst=
 situations were the hardest to prosecute, as the perpetrator was protected=
 within the family unit. Everyone howls for the blood of a pedophile who ra=
pes other people=E2=80=99s children; but incest, which carries worse effect=
s than pedophilia, is hidden by family and community loyalties and is very =
difficult to prosecute.

Do we then allow sex crime? By no means. But we need to do away with demoni=
zation of sex offenders. A person guilty of a sex crime is just that: a per=
son guilty of a crime. He is not subhuman, he is not incurably evil, and he=
 is not a fiend.

Being ugly to anything or anyone makes us worse people. This is even the ca=
se with people who are genuinely bad. Whether or not the offender is a bad =
human being, we are made worse human beings by treating him like he has coo=
ties. And we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct than is=
 practiced by the perpetrator and be better people doing better things.

At the heart of the matter is not what the offender is as a person. At the =
heart of the matter is what kind of people are we. Are we people who run wi=
tch hunts? Are we people who demonize people and treat as less than human? =
Or are we better than that?

The attitudes of dealing with sex crime should be reworked. Sex offenders a=
re not demons, they are people who have done something wrong. By all means =
hold perpetrators accountable, but do not treat them as less than human. Ho=
nor their humanity and in so doing affirm your own.