Legoland policy has some adults upset

[Alcibiades]

63. A bit of an occupational hazard

due to my wife's occupation. I agree with much of what you have to say, but I have had to become far more familiar with how the mind of a pedophile works than I would like.

My wife is a forensic psychologist at a federal prison. She got into this field because she enjoyed working with the chronically mentally ill, who do violate all sorts of federal laws as a result of their delusions. Several years ago, Congress passed a law providing for the indefinite civil committment of sex offenders, and now a good deal of her time is spent determining whether these persons are a danger.

Some of the folks she works with have become rather paranoid regarding their own children, generalizing their work experience to the population at large. It is important to keep perspective, to understand that the worst sexual predators are a very small percentage of the population.

Pedophiles and hebephiles (itself a somewhat controversial diagnosis) have certain traits, and it is possible to organize them into distinct types. I'll limit myself here to the worst sort. The worst sort preys on children to whom they are not related. They are "the worst" in the sense that they are the ones who have the greatest number of victims, but also because they have means of abusing children that are hard for parents to prevent, because of the seeming randomness of their crimes, and because they have a higher incidence of sexual sadism. Many of these sorts have tailored their entire lives around sexual abuse of children: their choice of occupation, where they travel, their family life, etc. Very often in treatment they have reported visiting places frequented by children in order to feed their fantasies, and sometimes this will lead to an opportunity to inflict themselves on another victim.

I really do wish this were a case like the myth of poisoned or booby trapped Halloween candy, but it's not. It's not the case that men who have children of their own don't do this, but they don't have to leave the house to victimize children. There are people out there who do see a pedophile around every corner, but this isn't a case of that: it's a case of a sensible precaution that does not really limit the freedom of most people. In our case, many of the offernders are being released into our own community, which is a concern.

Almost all of the people your children will interact with have no interest in abusing them, but it is sensible to understand what those who are sexual predators are like. Beware of strangers who give gifts to your children--hell, beware of anyone outside of your immediate family who gives gifts that seem a bit much or inappropriate. Obviously, beware of folks who offer your kids alcohol, drugs or pornography.

A man--and, certain middle-school teachers aside, that's who we are dealing with--who is in a place frequented by children with no appearance of having any reason to be there, who is interested in looking at the children rather than whatever else is going on, is suspicious. He will linger there, and gaze at them the way a normal man visiting a strip club might look at the strippers. And, no, I have not seen this myself, but it's basically what convicted sex offenders have described doing.

Of course this is not the only sort of pedophile, and not all of them do this. But some of them do, and are creepy enough that parents have alerted the authorities. Also, almost all of the people who become priest, youth ministers, coaches, doctors, teachers and birthday party clowns are not pedophiles, but it's a sad fact that a few of those have chosen these sorts of occupations simply because they can get access to children. I could relate dozens of anecdotes here, but won't, because we have all heard these stories already. Thankfully, it is possible for most of us to put them in the back of our minds.

I don't think I have become paranoid about this yet, but sometimes I do think my wife has. Once we were at the grocery store and she saw a fellow looking at our son for a little too long, and she said "Stop looking at him!" I don't know what she saw that I did not, or whether what she does has given her special insight or whether it's poisoned her trust.