Australia plans to ban pedophiles from traveling overseas

Great move by the Australian government.

Great move by the Australian government.

Agreed. Here's hoping more countries follow suit. While they're at it, maybe they could set up an international penal colony somewhere where we could ship all pedophiles. Perhaps an uninhabited island in the Philippines. Let's give Duterte a worthy target.

Let's give Duterte a worthy target.

Meh. Don't believe muder solves anything, be it by state or criminal. But yes, great move by Australia.

Child sex tourism is beyond disgusting. I'm glad someone's doing something about it.

Great move, so happy to hear that. I'm glad the Aussies are taking a hard stand against these filth. We need this implemented everywhere.

We need this implemented everywhere.

Agreed. How did this one get such a light punishment?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-jeffrey-epstien-alexander-acosta-sex-abuse-case-20170321-story.html

First they have to catch them before the event then castrate those that have done it

Ron Barnes

If you castrate someone who's a pedophile, wouldn't they move onto something even more depraved half the time out of anger, spite, or revenge

What if they become mass murders?

One sensible timely law.

Excellent move! U.S? Japan?

I expect to get a million down votes and be called a pedo by the lynch mob, but this sort of thing makes me a bit uneasy.

These sex offender registries turn people into second-class citizens long after they have supposedly paid their debt to society and they have just continued to grow and grow exponentially in some countries. More and more crimes result in people being put on them. In America we see people who urinate in public after a night out drinking getting arrested for public indecency and ending up on the child sex offender registry because it happened within a few miles of a school.

In the case of Australia, how can the government deem these people safe enough to walk Australian streets with Australian children but be too dangerous to travel overseas? It doesn't make sense. If they are a danger then pass laws to lock them up, but it seems like a slippery slope to turn one of the most despised groups in society into a permanent underclass with fewer rights than full citizens. How would be next? As horrible as child sex offenders are, should we erode the principles of equality under the law that our free societies are built on? I know there is a huge debate about whether rehabilitation is possible and whether there can be some alternative to locking eveyone up, but it seems like nobody is willing to have a rational debate about it for fear of being called a pedo-sympathiser. It's also interesting that these registries only exist in English speaking countries. It suggests that the fears that have led to their creation is a symptom of cultural rather than rational policy.

Practically speaking, wouldn't it be more productive for Australia to provide these poor countries with the resources to shut down the child sex trade for people of all nationalities? How about instead of denying passports they provide access to a database of passport numbers that would give these countries the ability to deny entry to these people if they happen to show up?

Hopefully other countries will follow suit.   This is an effective way to prevent sex "tourism" and assault of young children overseas by convicted pedophiles.   My heart feels just a little better about the human societies ability to improve.

Australia plans to ban pedophiles from traveling overseas

The fact that there are convicted pedophiles that aren't in prison already boggles my mind.

I expect to get a million down votes and be called a pedo by the lynch mob, but this sort of thing makes me a bit uneasy.

I won't vote you down. You've addressed issues that people are often too fearful to contemplate. For precisedly the reasons you've given.

It's a highly emotive and contentious subject and one that can turn ordinary and reasonable people into a frenzied and angry mob. And it's understandable. Child abuse is unspeakable and almost impossible to engage in a reasoned debate as to how to deal/rehabilitate offenders.

How to prevent (what is often but not always a cycle of) abuse? Should funding be spent on discovering where these vile thoughts and actions come from? Should predators be given a second chance?

I don't have the answers. I do know that in the UK, plenty of tabloid red tops reaped financial gain from endless front pages regarding high profile offenders/murderers. And at the same time, running salacious stories and pics of young female celebs. The Sun's countdown to Charlotte (She's a big girl now) Church reaching her age of consent was particularly uncomfortable, to say the least.

There's a lot of mixed messages out there. And abbertant behaviour seems to trigger abberant responses.

I found it tragically ironic that mobs would bring their young kids along to shriek abuse at paedophiles and suspected paedophiles homes. How damaging is that to the kids?

It's a tough subject and one that will be discussed/argued for a long time to come, no doubt.

I foresee this going to the supreme court. On a related issue, why not create a registry for company ceos and board members who prey on their employees and squeeze as much profit funnelling it up to them, then paying their workers less and making them work longer? Take away their passports.

M3M3

Your suggestion is good in theory. But the notion that Australia should help poor countries shut down their sex trades instead of simply tagging their offenders, is a great thought, but ultimately completely unrealistic.