Andrea, the figures you cited were shocking - even for such a large country.

You ask me to bring it to the personal level. I have long been against death sentences. I have several times been asked whether I would not agree to the judicial sacrifice of the life of a person who had murdered my own daughter. That is the hardest challenge, I guess. I have said, after considering my answer carefully, that I would still not want them slaughtered. "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind" I think Mahatma Gandhi said that. I cannot claim to be at the same high moral level as he was, but I think I could go that far.

We had a relative in my family who did develop an abnormal attraction to my then seven year old daughter. I spotted this, and banned him from the house, and had several severe talks with him. He was in the end so ashamed, he hung himself. I still sometimes feel partly to blame for his death, though the experts who councelled me assured me that it was not my doing and that he was full of guilt anyway. I still have a slight doubt about it though, and that branch of the family have disconnected from me completely. OK, Psychology was not my expertise, my interests were in the biochemistry of people. I am not a phsyician but a researcher, and my "bedside manner" is awful!

I think that we need a lot more research into sex offenders. We need to keep them away from possible victims and from would be revenge seekers, but to be able to study what goes on inside their heads. There are, from what I have been able to find out, early warning signs of someone going wrong like this. They do worse things as they progress further off the normal road, but can be trained to stop.

A lot of what happens inside peoples' heads is down to chemical imbalances. Many years ago i worked in a large, Victorian Asylum where we were studying the biochemistry of the insane. Many of them were wandering about like zombies, maintained on cocktails of drugs that the "Psychiatrists" freely prescribed, although no proper studies had ever been made on the effects of five or six different tranquilizers given all at once. I must explain that this was ages ago now - Electro-Convulsive-Therapy and even Lobotomy were still being used. We in our Lab found that many psychotics had weak enzymes in their brain metabolism, and could be completely normalized given massive enough doses of B vitamin complex, so that their Krebs Cycles in their brains would function properly. The result of this and many other similar researches resulted in the great Open Door (or as cynics called it the Revolving Door!) Policy Change, and eventual closure of these 10 000-patient asylums.

Now, if we were able to document the Early Warning Signs of aberrant behaviour and desire to try to copulate with children, for example, we could identify and develop tests for and preventive treatments, along with supervision in the community even. I'm pretty sure sex offenders dont WANT to ruin their lives or spend the rest of it in some dreadful prison, if they can be treated instead!

Where for us even closer situations are concerned, the treatment by society of the gender diverse minorities, we could, by teaching tolerance and appreciation of diversity, in society at large, at least greatly reduce the numbers of bigots. Certain religious organizations need banning IMHO because they oppose any such tolerance or appreciation of diversity. Other cultures, like the N American Indian First Nations for example, actually valued gender diverse individuals, as did the Polynesians. We live in times of change and rapid progress. Progress is seldom achieved by those who conform to some arbitrary norm, but rather comes from the abnormal people, the ones with different ideas. I have noticed that it is more often than not the people who do not feel that secure in their own sex orientation or gender identity that object to others the most!

The Canadians have done quite a bit with rehabilitation of released sex offenders. They involve the parents of molested children in this too.

In many advanced nations there are now "Lavender Quarters", where gender diverse people can assemble and treat each other with more respect and acceptance than they get outside. I guess in time we may well evolve to a situation where the Bigotted have their Red-Neck Reservation Safe Areas, where they can wind each other up and express their objections to us without fear of oppression! :)

Thank you for your stimulating response, it was a pleasure to discuss this with you.

Briar