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"Redemption for Rapists: a how-to guide for predators, abusers, and churches"

Started by Sandra Craft, September 09, 2018, 10:26:47 PM

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Sandra Craft

I found this blog post interesting.  Tho it was written by and for Xtians, I think several things the author writes about can be applied to secular situations of sexual abuse and forgiveness. 

Redemption for Rapists: a how-to guide for predators, abusers, and churches

Even among secular people, the insistence on forgiving a rapist can be relentless, and it's often packaged as being "for the victim's own good".  Well, maybe -- if she or he is ready to forgive, freely and for their own reasons and without being pressured into it.  Otherwise forgiving someone one would much rather set fire to isn't going to be helpful at all and will probably make things worse.

Another thing I think is as common in secular as religious circles is allowing the abuser to get away with the apology/non-apology ("I'm sorry if I hurt you", "Please forgive whatever I did that was wrong"), and criticizing the victim for being too demanding if they don't accept that.

As Samantha Field points out:

QuoteDepending on the community, this acknowledgement has no need to be specific, and can often incorporate a measure of blame and fault on the person they're ostensibly apologizing to.  This is not repentance. This is Apology Theater. It's public relations. It's image management.
(emphasis mine)

I also like Field's idea of making punishment and redemption fit the totality of the crime, tho I also think it's too impractical to be applied.  But certainly punishment for sexual abuse needs to be far more comprehensive than it is now.


Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

xSilverPhinx

It's another instance of childish behaviour in religious circles, isn't it? It's like religion puts a brake on people to keep them child-like in their mental processes...

Young children do that. 'Sorry' is some magic word that will wipe the slate clean until you do the same thing again, but then you'll have that word to pull you from a bad situation or even avoid punishment. Eventually, you learn you can't sorry your way out of everything, and neither should you.

My niece, who just turned 9 does that.

Now here's the kicker: my youngest sister, who is 29, does that as well. She has antisocial personality disorder so besides being a pathological liar she lives in some fantasy world in which just saying sorry to the victims she cons and uses will wipe the slate clean and allow her to keep doing more of the same. There is no empathy for her victims there.

Interacting with an empty shell like that can be difficult, it drains your life energy, but it's also interesting in some ways. Her neurological condition/makeup caused me to question some fundamental beliefs I had regarding justice and what kind of justice should be served to such people. While the behaviour deeply disgusts me, psychopaths and sociopaths have little control over it. There's no point in wanting them to truly feel sorry for their victims, they are incapable of feeling sorry.

They will definitely learn to manipulate others, whether that manipulation involves confessing to the congregation and getting a standing ovation or even saying sorry to the victim, but they are so emotionally detached from others that it isn't real. I think Samantha Field has it right, it's all down to image management. It's not about forgiveness. 

So how do you forgive someone who isn't actually looking to be forgiven by the victim? I don't know. I always thought of forgiveness (in some form) as a way to protect one's one psyche and a way to ameliorate personal suffering, not clean the slate for offenders. Forgiving the perpetrator when the victim isn't ready to forgive can definitely make things worse, as the emotional support the victim should be getting is compromised.

(Please don't misconstrue what I'm saying to mean I'm defending these nasty people, only that the justice system seems to not take into account that punishment might not work for everybody. How can it if the offender is incapable of evaluating the consequences of their actions?)
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Sandra Craft

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on September 09, 2018, 11:50:58 PM

So how do you forgive someone who isn't actually looking to be forgiven by the victim? I don't know. I always thought of forgiveness (in some form) as a way to protect one's one psyche and a way to ameliorate personal suffering, not clean the slate for offenders. Forgiving the perpetrator when the victim isn't ready to forgive can definitely make things worse, as the emotional support the victim should be getting is compromised.

(Please don't misconstrue what I'm saying to mean I'm defending these nasty people, only that the justice system seems to not take into account that punishment might not work for everybody. How can it if the offender is incapable of evaluating the consequences of their actions?)

I would never think you were defending rapists or psychopaths -- even if I didn't understand you, I would consider the source and your source is very good.

I've always thought of forgiveness of any kind as being the same as forgiving a debt -- the debt, or wrong-doing, goes away and we treat it as if it never happened at all.  Needless to say, that does not sit well with me.

You've discussed your sister here before and I can't help thinking how terrible it must have been growing up dealing with that.   I think the only thing that can be done there (assuming nothing legally actionable has happened) is just separating from that person, saying "have a nice life" and moving on.  Altho, of course, I know not everyone will be able to do that for any number of reasons.

When it's a legal thing that's been done wrong, I don't think the intent or emotions (or lack of them) matters so much in punishment.

Anyway I think people who don't want to be forgiven are easier than people who do want forgiveness without admitting to anything wrong.  They just want you to get over being mad so your emotions won't inconvenience them anymore.  I'm guessing that's a basic difference between a sociopathic and narcissistic personality disorder. 
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

xSilverPhinx

This is going to be a bit long, I apologise. :P

Quote from: Sandra Craft on September 14, 2018, 09:41:38 PM
I've always thought of forgiveness of any kind as being the same as forgiving a debt -- the debt, or wrong-doing, goes away and we treat it as if it never happened at all.  Needless to say, that does not sit well with me.

I tend to agree, it doesn't sit well with me either, forgiving a monster will only accomplish one thing in my view: they will learn that there are no serious consequences for their crimes. Sociopaths are already inconsequential as it is, society shouldn't reinforce the idea that nothing will happen if they step out of line.

I think it's more difficult to forgive for an atheist than for someone who believes divine justice will be served in the end. We don't get that sense of future closure in many cases.

QuoteYou've discussed your sister here before and I can't help thinking how terrible it must have been growing up dealing with that.   I think the only thing that can be done there (assuming nothing legally actionable has happened) is just separating from that person, saying "have a nice life" and moving on.  Altho, of course, I know not everyone will be able to do that for any number of reasons.

Yes, my father did that, he basically washed his hands of her after paying to put her through law school and her not making anything of it. My mother won't detach herself from the "parasite", even though that "parasite" has nothing but contempt for her. After my sister was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for depression and substance abuse problems, she became more difficult to deal with. Now she's living off my mother. What enrages me is how she treats my mother like a punching bag but still expects to have all her expenses paid for. I try to protect my mother but mothers can be extremely biased and in denial of such disorders, even though they are serious. My mother is the type who blames herself way too much.

Anyway, I'm just ranting. ;) This is going somewhere, I promise...

Sociopaths and psychopaths (I use these terms interchangeably, but many don't) are on a spectrum. Their brains aren't like a "normal" person's brain. It's funny, but a lot of what our brain does is inhibit behaviours and emotions, and one part that is really important in doing this is the frontal cortex (behind our foreheads). The prefrontal cortex is an evolutionarily new area and is involved in, among other things, impulse control and regulating the more ancient parts of the brain. The new is the thinking and planning part, the old is way more reactionary, it feels.

A few brain areas are implicated in the sociopath's brain -- they have a frontal cortex that doesn't communicate all that well with other parts of the brain, such as the limbic system, which controls a lot of the emotions we feel. In an fMRI scanner they show no emotional response when shown images of things that will elicit emotions in normal people, such as images of crime scenes, starving children, etc. They are fearless because the main brain structure responsible for fear, the amygdala, is underactivated, Unlike normal people, the fear center of their brains does not activate when shown pictures of fearful people. Because they are fearless, they are also reckless. Because they are so emotionally challenged they see other people in a different way -- they know on an intellectual level that other people have feelings and are capable of suffering, but they don't care. They themselves have shallow emotions at best, and emotions are absent at worst.

So they treat others as objects, in many cases objects that exist to be used by them.

When one of these monsters rapes another person, and are caught, they aren't sorry because they hurt someone. They're "sorry" because they were caught. They'll never be sorry for hurting another person.

QuoteWhen it's a legal thing that's been done wrong, I don't think the intent or emotions (or lack of them) matters so much in punishment.

Anyway I think people who don't want to be forgiven are easier than people who do want forgiveness without admitting to anything wrong.  They just want you to get over being mad so your emotions won't inconvenience them anymore.  I'm guessing that's a basic difference between a sociopathic and narcissistic personality disorder.

I don't mean to be so deterministic, just throwing some thoughts out there.

If a sociopath cannot control their impulses because the thinking part of their brain which plays a huge role in controlling impulses is faulty, or they are incapable of feeling empathy for others, then shouldn't it be a form of legal insanity? Just how accountable are they? 

Consider the following:

1)Children and adolescents. Their brain is still maturing. The frontal region of their brains are the last to mature (matures at around 23-27-ish and takes longer in men, which explains a lot, heh) so they also have difficulty controlling their impulses. Adolescents can have problems with emotional regulation, recklessness and impulse control as well, but it's completely normal given the maturational stages their brains are in. It's for this reason that antisocial personality disorder is not diagnosed in people under 18. Should children and adolescents ever be tried as adults?

2)Crimes of passion, in which there is a failure to control violent impulses, is another case in which the thinking part of the brain which inhibits impulses has failed. Should such crimes be tried in the same way as a coldly premeditated crime is? (I don't think they are, but I don't know. Maybe if Bruce reads this he can answer whether this is the case in the US).

So, tl;dr: Just how responsible are people for actions they have no control over?
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Dave

^

Excellent, Silver, learned a lot from that.

Now, we come to the effects of things like porn, especially on the teenage brain. This might also apply to experienced violence, as in physicsl abuse to war situations. One wonders if the behavioural consequencies of certain kinds of experience on the re--developing teenage brain has structural implications - 'hard programming' - or more reversible "habit formation'.

Are socio/psychopaths only born that way or, assuming no other physical brain damage, can they 'learn'/'unlearn' that behaviour? It seems evident from anecdotal evidence that some unlearn bad behaviour. But, it has just occured to me, the ''-path" part of the name implies  a physical rather than behavioural condition. Though the border between must be difficult to define in some caees - any change in brain function must have a physical component, in cellular detail if not in gross structure.

Though, and still anecdotal, there seems to be a state of being inured that closely mimics psychopathy, even if it is temporary. I think of child soldiers here but know nothing of the psychiatric/psychological analysis. And though we hear of child soldiers being returned to childhood, under supervision and positive stimulation, what the longer term development one wonders? There are also stories of the male children of abused mothers becoming abusers themselves, and the female children seeking abusive partners, but, without doing research, no percentages or indications of inherited genes or learned behaviour. Or a combination - a 'triggered propsensity'.

Later: in my edit for typos I see thst I seem to have, effectively, posed the same question about three times!
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Dave on September 18, 2018, 02:59:34 AM
Now, we come to the effects of things like porn, especially on the teenage brain.

Are you thinking about addiction to porn? :notsure:

Quote
This might also apply to experienced violence, as in physicsl abuse to war situations. One wonders if the behavioural consequencies of certain kinds of experience on the re--developing teenage brain has structural implications - 'hard programming' - or more reversible "habit formation'.

Well, the teenage brain is more plastic than a fully mature one, so it may be easier to reverse those effects, but I don't know. A lot of behavioural memory research is involved with trying to figure out what's going on in anxiety disorders such as PTSD and Generalised Anxiety disorder, in which pathological and robust memories can pop up even in safe environments and be triggered by neutral things and events. Such memories are more difficult to manipulate in therapy or with medication.

I think it depends a lot on how people emotionally process an experience, and on the experience itself, of course. Whether the sufferer is a woman or a man also counts...women have a higher propensity to develop anxiety disorders, though I'm not sure if that's because of hormonal differences or because women are more likely to seek psychiatric treatment and thus get diagnosed more.

QuoteAre socio/psychopaths only born that way or, assuming no other physical brain damage, can they 'learn'/'unlearn' that behaviour? It seems evident from anecdotal evidence that some unlearn bad behaviour. But, it has just occured to me, the ''-path" part of the name implies  a physical rather than behavioural condition. Though the border between must be difficult to define in some caees - any change in brain function must have a physical component, in cellular detail if not in gross structure.

Psychopathy results from an interplay between genes and environment or upbringing, so they are both born with certain propensities and learn others. There are conflicting results in the literature -- some more optimistic sources say that a psychopath can be "cured" while others say that they can't. Some say that they should take medication for symptoms such as aggression, others say there is no point. Some say that there is some chance of success with younger people than with older. So, yeah... ::)

QuoteThough, and still anecdotal, there seems to be a state of being inured that closely mimics psychopathy, even if it is temporary. I think of child soldiers here but know nothing of the psychiatric/psychological analysis. And though we hear of child soldiers being returned to childhood, under supervision and positive stimulation, what the longer term development one wonders? There are also stories of the male children of abused mothers becoming abusers themselves, and the female children seeking abusive partners, but, without doing research, no percentages or indications of inherited genes or learned behaviour. Or a combination - a 'triggered propsensity'.

There have been cases of people with brain tumours in certain areas who lost the capacity to inhibit the 'predator module' and have harmed others. Children are not diagnosed with antisocial (DSM) or dissocial (CID) personality until they're 18 but many do have conduct or oppositional defiant disorders when growing up, as a prelude to full-blown psychopathy. If I'm not mistaken the DSM requires that children have serious behavioural problems from 15 to 18 to be diagnosed whereas the CID doesn't. Depends on which manual the psychiatrist uses.

As for child soldiers, there is the cultural aspect to consider. Not all of them will go on to develop psychopathy in adulthood.
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Dave

^

Thanks for that, Silver.

As a lay person I don't know but am going to guess that the curability/non-curability proponents could both be right, that there are so many possible combinations of variables that each case is close to being unique in the smallest detail.

And, right-on with the reactions to bad (and maybe suppressed) memories being triggered by "neutral things"! Seemingly totally out of context to observers.

And I had forgotten the story of the neurologist (or surgeon) who had "psychopathic brain structures" but whoes life environment and experience mitigated against his expressing the behaviour.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Dave on September 19, 2018, 07:55:48 AM
As a lay person I don't know but am going to guess that the curability/non-curability proponents could both be right, that there are so many possible combinations of variables that each case is close to being unique in the smallest detail.

I think you're right, Dave.  :thumbsup:

Quote
And, right-on with the reactions to bad (and maybe suppressed) memories being triggered by "neutral things"! Seemingly totally out of context to observers.

Yes. The subject is so interesting I did my end of course work on it, specifically this kind of memory in adolescent males and females. I could write a huge wall of text on the subject but will refrain from doing so.  :snicker:

QuoteAnd I had forgotten the story of the neurologist (or surgeon) who had "psychopathic brain structures" but whoes life environment and experience mitigated against his expressing the behaviour.

You may be thinking about the neuroscientist Jim Fallon.



I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Dave

Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Ecurb Noselrub

Forgiveness is a tricky subject.  In my view, it's more for the forgiver than the forgiven. It's basically saying "you are not going to control my life by your evil deed - I'm wiping the slate clean and moving on with my life. I'm not demanding anything. It's as though it never happened."   The justice system can do what it does, but forgiveness means that the bad actor and the bad act are not going to be the focus of my life.

Sandra Craft

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on September 21, 2018, 02:02:34 AM
Forgiveness is a tricky subject.  In my view, it's more for the forgiver than the forgiven. It's basically saying "you are not going to control my life by your evil deed - I'm wiping the slate clean and moving on with my life. I'm not demanding anything. It's as though it never happened."   The justice system can do what it does, but forgiveness means that the bad actor and the bad act are not going to be the focus of my life.

For me, moving on and forgiving someone are two very different things.  And acting as if something never happened is not something I have enough imagination to do.  With me it's more like "It was done, it can't be undone and I can't forgive it or forget it.  Because of that I can't have you in my life anymore.  I'm going to move on and learn how to live without you.  You do whatever you want, if you can do that forgetting thing then forget me entirely.  Goodbye." 

One interesting thing I've noticed when reading other articles about forgiveness is that there seems to be a general assumption that if one doesn't forgive that means one is obsessed with the desire for revenge.  That's not necessarily true.  I've never wanted revenge on anyone for anything because revenge has always seemed to me a particularly useless and even self-defeating behavior.  My overwhelming desire when someone's done something to me that can't be worked out is to put as much distance, both physical and psychological, as possible between us.  Revenge would make that impossible.  Because I feel that way I've assumed it was a common enough reaction, but perhaps I'm wrong.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Sandra Craft

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on September 17, 2018, 10:49:46 PM
After my sister was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for depression and substance abuse problems, she became more difficult to deal with. Now she's living off my mother. What enrages me is how she treats my mother like a punching bag but still expects to have all her expenses paid for.

I've read some interviews with psychopaths/sociopaths (not many, but some) and they confirm what you've written -- esp. in how much contempt they have for their victims.  They openly despise their victims for either not seeing thru them, or for letting them get away with it.  They have no compunction about abusing their victims as long as they can since as far as they were concerned anybody who lets themselves be used as a punching bag isn't worth any more than that.  And of course they'd think that since the concepts of pity, compassion, tenderness and guilt are entirely outside their mental scope.

QuoteI don't mean to be so deterministic, just throwing some thoughts out there.

If a sociopath cannot control their impulses because the thinking part of their brain which plays a huge role in controlling impulses is faulty, or they are incapable of feeling empathy for others, then shouldn't it be a form of legal insanity? Just how accountable are they? 

Consider the following:

1)Children and adolescents. Their brain is still maturing. The frontal region of their brains are the last to mature (matures at around 23-27-ish and takes longer in men, which explains a lot, heh) so they also have difficulty controlling their impulses. Adolescents can have problems with emotional regulation, recklessness and impulse control as well, but it's completely normal given the maturational stages their brains are in. It's for this reason that antisocial personality disorder is not diagnosed in people under 18. Should children and adolescents ever be tried as adults?

2)Crimes of passion, in which there is a failure to control violent impulses, is another case in which the thinking part of the brain which inhibits impulses has failed. Should such crimes be tried in the same way as a coldly premeditated crime is? (I don't think they are, but I don't know. Maybe if Bruce reads this he can answer whether this is the case in the US).

So, tl;dr: Just how responsible are people for actions they have no control over?

In the case of children, I know that's why kids are treated differently in trial, conviction and imprisonment than adults, and have their slates wiped clean at legal adulthood.  Altho, if what we've been finding out about how long it take the brain to truly mature, it seems the age of legal adulthood should probably be raised to mid-20s, at least.  Something guaranteed to please no one.  Altho it might be better than the trend, popular with conservatives, of trying children accused of "adult crimes" as adults. 

As for people who experience temporary insanity in a crime of passion, I always feel a squint coming on since I'm not sure how well we can tell, from one individual to the next, whether it was truly "couldn't control myself" or just "didn't bother to control myself".  Would a slight change of circumstances have made a difference in how much control the passionate criminal had?  In the classic scenerio, for instance:  man comes home and finds his wife in bed with another man.  Would the man who couldn't control himself with a rival his own size who was taken completely by surprise have been able to exert self-control if the rival was much bigger than him, or prepared for his entrance (possibly with a gun), or was someone with a lot of power over him in another area of his life?

And with people who truly can't control themselves because their minds don't work right, people who aren't guilty by reason of insanity but are too dangerous to others to allow them to run loose, that's what hospitals for the criminally insane are for, tho Google tells me those are now called forensic institutes or hospitals.  From what I've read so far, they're the same snake pits they always were and crazy people might well be better off in regular prisons (tho not sure if the other prisoners or staff would be).
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany