Q&A: Rutgers Law Prof Who Says Pedophilia Is Not a Crime

10-10-2014 National:

Margo Kaplan is not very popular today. In the Monday edition of the New York Times, the Rutgers-Camden law professor, an NYU and Harvard graduate, takes to the op-ed pages to argue that we’ve got it all wrong when it comes to pedophilia. She writes that pedophiles don’t necessarily turn out to be child molesters and that pedophilia is not a choice, i.e. a pedophile might be born that way. We reached her in her office in Camden to discuss.

You really lit up the comments section of the op-ed page today. Yes, but I have to be honest. I am getting more emails of support than I ever expected. I’m shocked. I expected to get maybe 95% negative emails, but I’ve gotten so many positive ones. The online comments, though, are pretty uniformly negative, and a lot of people haven’t even read the article.

I know your pain. Who are you getting these positive emails from? A lot of people I don't even know. There's a former prosecutor, a judge, a nurse. Individuals with family members who have pedophilia.

Pedophilia Deserves Civil Rights, Says New York Times’ Op-Ed

10-10-2014 National:

The nation’s tough anti-pedophilia laws are unfair to pedophiles, according to an op-ed published by The New York Times’ editors.

“One can live with pedophilia and not act on it,” says Margo Kaplan, an entrepreneurial assistant law professor at Rutgers University, and a former lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Tragically, the roughly 1 percent of “people who are sexually attracted to children] must hide their disorder from everyone they know — or risk losing educational and job opportunities, and face the prospect of harassment and even violence,” she wrote.

Kaplan is trying to make a legal career in the regulation of expanding sexual diversity, instead of routine and lower-status practice areas, such as torts, probate, crime or copyrights. She’s focused on “legal limitations on intimate decisions, particularly the use of criminal law in areas of health and sexuality,” according to her web page.

Kaplan says criminal law should be changed so that pedophiles are only stigmatized or denied jobs if law school graduates agree that they pose a “direct threat” to children.

That could be a bonanza for law school graduates, because they’d be paid to argue over whether the hiring of a particular pedophile for a particular job is a direct threat to particular children. “The direct-threat analysis rejects the idea that [prospective] employers can rely on generalizations; they must assess the specific case and rely on evidence, not presuppositions,” Kaplan writes.

We Need to Make It Easier for Pedophiles To Seek Help

10-10-2014 National:

All too often, our attention, resources and shock are focused on what happens after a crime is committed—we need to be asking how we can prevent child sex abuse

I don’t know Stephen Collins. Or his wife. Or their therapist.

All three are embroiled in a child sexual abuse investigation that has likely taken on added significance given the release of an audiotape in which Mr. Collins appears to admit to illegal sexual behavior against three girls. The revelation was shocking, and it leads to a familiar set of questions.

To me, one stands out: How could this have been prevented?

As a public, we’re always shocked to learn that an apparently upstanding citizen has molested children. The news flies in the face of our collective perception that sex offenders are monsters. But there are two problems with this perception.

NYT writer: Pedophilic attraction a ‘mental disability’ that should be protected in law

10-10-2014 National:

Pedophilia, in the sense of the persistent sexual attraction to children, is a disorder, not a crime, and deserves special protections in law. That’s the premise of a recent New York Times opinion piece by Rutgers law professor Margo Kaplan, who argues that “stigma” surrounding adults who are sexually attracted to children prevents them from seeking psychological help.

As a result, Kaplan asserts, pedophiles should be protected by the same anti-discrimination laws that require society to accommodate other “disabilities.”

“By some estimates, 1 percent of the male population continues, long after puberty, to find themselves attracted to prepubescent children. These people are living with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescents that often constitutes a mental illness,” Kaplan wrote. “Unfortunately, our laws are failing them and, consequently, ignoring opportunities to prevent child abuse.”

According to Kaplan, pedophilia should be covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, which, she says “prohibit discrimination against otherwise qualified individuals with mental disabilities, in areas such as employment, education and medical care.”

“Congress, however, explicitly excluded pedophilia from protection under these two crucial laws.”

It makes no sense to view pedophilia as a 'disability'

10-7-2014 National:

Should you have to hire pedophiles and rent them rooms?

Two days ago Margo Kaplan, an assistant professor at the Rutgers University School of Law, argued in the New York Times that pedophiles should be protected from job discrimination and other forms of discrimination, like racial minorities or people in wheelchairs.

Kaplan wrote that it makes sense to re-examine and potentially reverse the fact that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 specifically exclude pedophiles from claiming that they are disabled and merit special considerations in the workplace, or when checking into hotels or renting apartments.

Professor urges treatment for pedophilia

10-6-2014 National:

IT'S NOT A CRIME to be a pedophile.

Swallow that sentence and let it mingle with the stomach acid before you grab the pitchforks and head down to the comment section, because an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Law in Camden says that it's true and that pedophilia needs to be treated as the mental disorder it is.

It's important to know what Margo Kaplan wasn't saying, however, in her Sunday New York Times op-ed "Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime."

"I'm not saying that we should decriminalize child molestation. I think people who are sexually assaulting children are making a choice," Kaplan said yesterday from her office in Camden. "People who are sexually attracted to children did not choose to be sexually attracted to children."

Pedophilia is a mental disorder, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but it isn't recognized by the Americans with Disabilities Act, Kaplan said.

"If you have bipolar disorder, you can't be fired for bipolar disorder. We exclude pedophilia from that," she said.

More important, pedophilia doesn't become a crime unless the urge is acted upon with a sexual assault, child endangerment or download of child pornography, Kaplan said.

"One can live with pedophilia and not act on it," she wrote in the op-ed.

Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime

10-6-2014 National:

THINK back to your first childhood crush. Maybe it was a classmate or a friend next door. Most likely, through school and into adulthood, your affections continued to focus on others in your approximate age group. But imagine if they did not.

By some estimates, 1 percent of the male population continues, long after puberty, to find themselves attracted to prepubescent children. These people are living with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescents that often constitutes a mental illness. Unfortunately, our laws are failing them and, consequently, ignoring opportunities to prevent child abuse.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines pedophilia as an intense and recurrent sexual interest in prepubescent children, and a disorder if it causes a person “marked distress or interpersonal difficulty” or if the person acts on his interests. Yet our laws ignore pedophilia until after the commission of a sexual offense, emphasizing punishment, not prevention.

Part of this failure stems from the misconception that pedophilia is the same as child molestation. One can live with pedophilia and not act on it. Sites like Virtuous Pedophiles provide support for pedophiles who do not molest children and believe that sex with children is wrong. It is not that these individuals are “inactive” or “nonpracticing” pedophiles, but rather that pedophilia is a status and not an act. In fact, research shows, about half of all child molesters are not sexually attracted to their victims.

Six Misconceptions About Pedophiles

12-9-2011 National:

Experts say it's a treatable condition and that understanding it may help prevent abuse.

THE GIST

Researchers are looking into the idea that there may differences in the brains of pedophiles that could be linked to brain injuries stemming from trauma or abuse.

Pedophilia is a diagnosable medical and psychological condition.

Researchers are using depo-provera, a drug used to treat prostate cancer in elderly men, to lower the testosterone levels of pedophiles.

The arrest of former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and new allegations against a Syracuse University basketball coach has led to hand-wringing, soul-searching and a discussion about something most of us have trouble thinking, let alone talking, about.

If you take away the anger and emotion surrounding Sandusky's alleged crimes, experts say there are some persistent myths about pedophiles that can sometimes make detecting and diagnosing them difficult. Demystifying pedophilia could go a long way toward preventing similar abuse in the future, according to the experts. Here are a few misconceptions:

• Pedophilia is a moral failure.

Like drug addiction, alcohol abuse and other bad behaviors, medical experts say pedophilia is a diagnosable medical and psychological condition. Researchers are investigating the idea that there may differences in the brains of pedophiles that could be linked to brain injuries stemming from trauma or alcohol abuse.

"It makes sense," said Thomas Plante, professor of psychiatry at Santa Clara University who treats pedophiles. "If someone has a head injury, they have impulse control troubles to begin with. With diminished executive functioning they will make all sorts of bad decisions."

Plante cautioned that not all victims of head injuries are pedophiles.

• Pedophiles cruise local playgrounds or the Internet for victims.

The vast majority of the abuse against minors is from either a family member, or someone they know such as a coach, teacher or church leader, according to Dr. Fred Berlin, founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic in Baltimore.

"This notion of the creepy stranger," Berlin said. "That's a rarity."

Several experts interviewed by Discovery News said accurate data on the incidence of child molesters or pedophiles in the general population is hard to come by since it relies on self-reporting or hypothetical questions. However, a 2009 study by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center of 4,500 children and caregivers nationwide found that 21.7 percent of girls and 3.3 percent of boys reported some form of unwanted sexual contact.

• Gay men are more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexual men.

While that myth was proved wrong by the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other professional medical groups, it persists. The state of Florida cited this myth in banning gay adoptions, until the law was stricken down by a federal court in 2010.

• Victims of child sexual abuse are "damaged goods" forever.

Many victims can recover with proper treatment and live productive lives, according to Berlin and Plante. A controversial 1998 study that showed the ability of victims of child sexual abuse to recover was pilloried by Congress as a defense of pedophilia. The study was subject to great criticism over the next several years. At the same time, both Berlin and Plante said that many of their patients who are adult pedophiles were abused themselves as children.

"I've been treating patients long enough to see victims become aggressors," Berlin said.

• Pedophiles can't help themselves any time they see a child.

"Some do want relationships," Plante said. "Some have a specific target. Often they will have a certain age group that is narrow, either just boys or just girls. Some are situational generalists and will abuse whoever is handy. But this notion they abuse hundreds of victims is not true."

• There's no cure except prison.

Researchers are using depo-provera, a drug used to treat prostate cancer in elderly men, to lower the testosterone levels of pedophiles. This chemical castration can help reduce the urge to abuse children, Berlin said. Other physicians are using cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as aversion therapy in which ammonia capsules are broken under the noses of pedophiles when they feel sexual urges toward children. The ammonia produces violent nausea, a scenario that was played out in the 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange."

"It works pretty well," Plante said. "But you have to have booster sessions.”

Both experts say they hope the Penn State developments lead to some changes in how society views child molesters, how they can be prevented from operating and perhaps cured.

"Penn State and every university will re-evaluate their policies and procedures about suspicion of child sexual abuse and that's a good thing," said Plante, who has treated Catholic priests convicted of child abuse. "It's tragic for the victims and the community, but if we can be more mindful about who is an offender, how they operate, than a lot of good will come." ..Source.. by Eric Niiler