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wedrifid comments on Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Thomas 07 October 2013 02:52PM

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Comment author: JoshElders 12 October 2013 08:50:28PM -2 points [-]

all of your examples are tradeoffs, which was my entire point. ... you haven't actually made these arguments you say you have ...

Mandated reporter laws and the sex offender registry were intended to be trade-offs, but unexpected consequences have made them bad for kids too.

The discussion here doesn't even mention the effect on pedophiles. Pedophiles who are concerned they might offend against children with low probability know that if they tell a therapist about their attraction, they might be reported, if the therapist decides they are an imminent danger. Most pedophiles don't know what criteria their therapist would use, they don't want to risk it, so they do not seek help.

In some cases victims are discouraged from reporting too. Suppose a girl is being abused by her uncle. She doesn't experience it as terrible but she wants it to stop. But she doesn't want to face a formal investigation, which involves endless interrogations for her, embarrassing publicity, family strife, and perhaps sending her uncle to prison for 10 years. If she knew there could be a way of handling the situation privately in accord with her needs and wishes, she may be more likely to report it and get it to stop.

Sex offender registries often make it very difficult for an ex-offender to find a place to live. Here is Wikipedia's take on it. Here is a specific in-depth example. Once ex-offenders are breaking the law by going underground and feeling maltreated by society, there is less reason to obey other laws too, including ones against molesting children.

Comment author: wedrifid 13 October 2013 05:53:54AM 3 points [-]

Pedophiles who are concerned they might offend against children with low probability know that if they tell a therapist about their attraction, they might be reported, if the therapist decides they are an imminent danger. Most pedophiles don't know what criteria their therapist would use, they don't want to risk it, so they do not seek help.

Robin Hanson or Eliezer Yudkowsky made a post on this, with terrorism substituted for pedophilia. The benefit of having a therapist able to apply influence to the individual would come from the commitment to privacy. As with priests confessionals, etc.

If the choice is between a potential perpetrator talking to a therapist and having a chance of being influenced but not reported and a potential perpetrator speaking to no one then the consequences are in favour of mandated silence... unless most perpetrators are somehow stupid enough to effectively confess to their impulses to the police for the hell of it.