What can be done to stop predators?

Chris Hansen Correspondent • Profile

Chris Hansen spoke to Dr. Fred Berlin, a  professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Berlin has over 25 years of experience working with sexual offenders.

Hansen asks Dr. Berlin, whether or not pedophilia can be solved with more severe punishment and better legislation. Can these men even be successfully treated?

Below, is a transcript of more of their interview.

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: We had recently had 50 men come into a house, hoping to meet a 12 to 13-year-old child... Is it fair to call each one of these men a predator?
Dr. Fred Berlin: I don't think so.  I think we're so quick now to use the term "predator."  We have to talk in terms of, as far as I'm concerned, that have everyday meaning tied to them.  Clearly, every one of these men is doing something that's terribly wrong.  But there may be tremendous differences between them, and it's important to understand the differences as it is to understand the similarities.

Hansen: When you read the computer chat logs of the conversations between the men and the decoy, you see a grooming process.  And it almost follows a pattern.
Dr. Berlin: Well, clearly, these are by definition men who have an interest in becoming involved sexually with children of that age.  There is clearly something different about these individuals. They are trying to persuade these youngsters because they're attracted to them sexually to become involved in an intimate way.  So what they're doing is wrong.  But the fact that they're trying to pursue the kinds of desires they experience is not necessarily in and of itself surprising.

Hansen: Does it surprise you that so many men would show up to meet a child?
Dr. Berlin: Well, one of the things that we're learning about the Internet or through the Internet is the incredible diversity of the sexual makeup of human beings.  These are very private matters.  We don't tend to talk about it publicly.

And yet, if you go to the Internet, there are attractions of sorts that we wouldn't begin to imagine: people who are interested in looking at sites involving animals having sex with human beings, people who are interested in looking at sadomasochistic involvements, people who are interested in looking at very young children engaged in sexual activity, even infants.  Obviously we don't want people to act on those attractions. 

But we can't simply dismiss it as though we have no need to understand how many people have these kinds of desires. What can we do to help make sure they don't give into these temptations? The point I'm making is that we're learning that as much a public health problem as it is a criminal justice matter and that we need to address it from both perspectives.

Hansen: What makes a man go from visiting inappropriate Web sites and fantasizing on the Internet, maybe even in conversation, to actually showing up to meet a 12 or 13-year-old child?
Dr. Berlin:  How do we go from fantasy to reality?  Lots of people have private fantasies that give them some sort of pleasure and maybe even trouble them, but they don't act on them.  I think one of the contributory facts-- it's not the only one-- is the insidious nature of the internet itself.

Hansen: The 24 hour a day, seven day a week access.
Dr. Berlin: I think there are three things that are problematic about the Internet, or at least three things.  One is the easy accessibility.  You don't, in the beginning at least, have to go anywhere.  You just push a button that's sitting there next to you.

Secondly, there's this illusion of anonymity, which can be very disinhibiting.  You feel as though you're there in the privacy of your bedroom.  It's not that private, but you don't sense that at the time. 

And thirdly, there is a distortion of reality and fantasy to some extent.  That people feel as though they're playing a game. They're making up who they are.  They wonder if someone else is giving a false persona.  They begin to do things that in the light of day they might never have done and then, ultimately and sadly, sometimes cross a line that they might not otherwise have crossed.

Hansen: Does it surprise you that so many men would show up?
Dr. Berlin: Well, doing the work that I do, I wish I could say it surprises me but it doesn't.  It is very clear that there are significant numbers of individuals who have sexual cravings about becoming involved intimately with children.  We want to understand more about how that develops.

It's not that they sat down themselves as little children and decided to have these abnormal cravings.  They discover in growing up that they're there.  It's then their responsibility, in my judgment, to deal with that in a healthy and law-abiding fashion.  But as with some drug addicts and alcoholics, the cravings for some of these men are so intense that they're not able to walk away from them simply through their own resources.

Hansen: What makes these men tick?  Do we even know?
Dr. Berlin: Well, let me be careful when we say "these men."  Because that's like asking me what makes drunk drivers tick.  In other words, there's a tremendous spectrum from the alcoholic on the one end to the guy who had one too many at the Christmas party to everyone in between.

But there are a subgroup of individuals who commit sex offenses who are sexually disordered in the same way that there is a subgroup of drunk drivers who have alcoholism.  When it comes to sexual disorders, what we're talking about in the simple layman's terms is that an individual experiences recurrent abnormal sexual cravings.  In some instances, those are cravings that become involved actually with children.

In terms of why this can be so problematic, God or nature put the sex drive into each and every one of us for a very important reason, and that is literally the preservation of the human race.  And so all of us have a sex drive that recurrently wants to be satisfied.  When that drive becomes aimed, if I can put it in that way, in the wrong direction, towards children for example, it still recurrently wants to be satisfied.  And it doesn't take a mental health expert to appreciate what a problematic circumstance that can become.

Hansen: Can these men, in most cases, be successfully treated?
Dr. Berlin: Many of these men can be successfully treated, many can't.  Again, I'll come back to the analogy of working with alcoholics.  Some can be easily treated. Some can't be treated.  And you've got the whole group in between.

One point I do want to make, though, is that we're not, in my judgment, going to solve the problem only through a criminal justice approach.  I very much support that, let me make it clear.  But think about it for a moment, if the only thing we do with a person who's having sexual cravings about children is to send them to prison, there's nothing about prison alone that will either erase those cravings or enhance their capacity to successfully resist acting upon them.

Sooner or later, like it or not, most of these men are going to be back out there in the community.  So unless we have both a strong criminal justice component and a strong public health component, in my judgment, we are doing society a tremendous disservice.

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