20.12.2001
Sarahà¢â¬â¢s law
Hysteria rekindled
The trial and conviction of Roy Whiting for the kidnap and murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne has, predictably, unleashed another wave of media hysteria. Heading the nauseating list of sensation-mongers is the News of the World, which is pulling out all the stops in its bid to win the tabloid circulation war.
Last Sunday the paper devoted its first 13 pages to its campaign for à¢â¬ËSarahà¢â¬â¢s lawà¢â¬â¢ - the legal requirement for the authorities to publish details of the whereabouts of convicted paedophiles. This is based on legislation in the United States, where it is known as à¢â¬ËMeganà¢â¬â¢s lawà¢â¬â¢ after the child who was killed in similar circumstances to Sarah Payne. At the top of each page and under the masthead the News of the World carries the phrase, à¢â¬ÅFor Sarahà¢â¬Â (December 16).
The paper, like the rest of the gutter press, is of course taking advantage of the entirely natural desire of parents to protect their children from the likes of Whiting. And the media have been only too willing to publicise the pleadings of Sarahà¢â¬â¢s mother, Sara Payne, immediately after the sentencing. She said: à¢â¬ÅPlease make sure that this stops happening time and time again. People are being let out of prison when everybody concerned knows that this is going to happen again.à¢â¬Â
The Paynes had a meeting with home secretary David Blunkett on December 18, calling on him to introduce new legislation to put à¢â¬ËSarahà¢â¬â¢s lawà¢â¬â¢ into effect. But the government is not that desperate to win over public opinion that it needs to implement such a foolish move - against the advice of most of its senior police officers, who know it will force potential offenders on their register into hiding and out of their control.
Instead Blunkett will increase sentences for sex offenders, including the possibility of indeterminate and more à¢â¬Ëwhole lifeà¢â¬â¢ tariffs. He knows he must do something to assuage public opinion, but, unlike the News of the World, he has an interest in ensuring that the legislation he enacts can actually be put into operation - or at least not turn out to be a disaster.
Earlier this year the newspaper had mounted its first à¢â¬Ëname and shameà¢â¬â¢ campaign, publishing the addresses of a batch of convicted paedophiles, which resulted in several people being forced out of their homes. Some attacks resulted from mistaken identity, as people on several working class estates decided they would have to à¢â¬Ëdo somethingà¢â¬â¢. In Portsmouth there were particularly ugly scenes (amazingly some socialists saw something progressive in this reactionary mobilisation à¢â¬Ëfrom belowà¢â¬â¢, despite its irrationality, despite the fact that it had been whipped up by the sensationalist press). The News of the World eventually felt obliged to abandon its campaign after it was criticised from all sides.
After the Whiting verdict it launched its à¢â¬ÅNamed, shamedà¢â¬Â mark two. This time it held back from printing the addresses of sex offenders - in fact the paper had been informed about four of the seven men whose photographs it reproduced by Scotland Yard, who à¢â¬Åasked us to publish the picturesà¢â¬Â as the four had gone missing. But the paper has threatened to resume its campaign proper unless Blunkett acts.
News of the World editor Rebekah Wade tried to scare us with talk of à¢â¬Å110,000 convicted paedophiles in England and Walesà¢â¬Â - a child-murderer round every corner, it seems. Her paper helpfully breaks these down into areas: in London, for instance, there are 710 in Barnet, 714 in Croydon, 650 in Ealing à¢â¬Â¦ But of course the term à¢â¬Ëpaedophileà¢â¬â¢ covers a wide variety of offences. For example, two of those identified in this weekà¢â¬â¢s paper are David Baron and Tuan Quang Ho. Baron, aged 62, was jailed for two months for à¢â¬Åpossessing indecent pictures of childrenà¢â¬Â and disappeared after his release. Tuan was sent to a young offenders institution at the age of 19 for à¢â¬Åindecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl after getting her drunkà¢â¬Â. He since left his address without informing the police.
Apart from sad old men who like to look at childrenà¢â¬â¢s photographs and teenagers who take up with girls under 16 (the à¢â¬Ëage of consentà¢â¬â¢), there is another group of people that come under the heading à¢â¬Ëpaedophileà¢â¬â¢ - the overwhelming majority are adults who have some kind of sexual relationship exclusively with children in their own family (father and daughter being the most common). Usually there is no violence and, rather obviously, the sexual murder of a child is thankfully very rare.
But for the News of the World the outing of all these people will help to make your children safe. It demands à¢â¬Åcontrolled accessà¢â¬Â to à¢â¬Åreal, meaningful information, enabling you to safeguard your kidsà¢â¬Â. Just what the residents of Barnet are supposed to do once they know the names and addresses of the 710 à¢â¬Åsex beastsà¢â¬Â in the borough is of course another question. With so many deadly threats to your children the best thing, surely, is to keep them permanently indoors.
I do not for a moment wish to make light of the real menace that people like Whiting pose. But what is just as sickening as his depraved acts is the abuse committed by so-called à¢â¬Ënewspapersà¢â¬â¢ that seek deliberately to whip up hysteria by scapegoating people who are in fact for the most part victims themselves. Everybody sympathises with a child mistreated for the sexual gratification of an adult. But the paedophile is regarded as the lowest of the low. However, so often the abuser and the abused are in fact one and the same person. The majority of people drawn sexually towards children are those who themselves were in the same type of relationship as a child.
Whiting is no exception. His father had sexually abused him and, although he was attracted to women, the pull of the adult-child liaison turned out to be stronger - and perverted beyond all recognition as any kind of genuinely human relation. Whiting had been jailed in 1995 after pleading guilty to abducting and sexually assaulting another young girl, and was released after two and a half years of a four-year sentence. He refused treatment and when he was released he was neither rehabilitated nor deterred.
Under capitalism all relationships between people, including sexual ones, are alienated to some degree, corrupted by the non-humanity of the system of capital and its production relations.
People are regarded as objects first and foremost. In the case of Roy Whiting we have an example of an extreme form of alienation (combined with a severe personality disorder). à¢â¬ËRehabilitationà¢â¬â¢ - enabling the individual to become a fully rounded human being - is therefore impossible in the complete sense, since current society does not permit that.
However, that does not prevent us from placing demands on that society. As part of our programme for a different, more human, order, we call on the state to take measures of a totally different kind from those demanded by the News of the World. While we recognise that the population must be protected from individuals suffering from dangerous disorders, we do not accept that such conditions are permanent - not in the majority of cases at any rate.
The truth is that prison is used not for à¢â¬Ërehabilitationà¢â¬â¢ or even primarily for deterrence, but simply as a way of temporarily taking anti-social elements and misfits out of circulation. At the end of their sentence they are dumped back in an alienating society, usually even worse equipped to cope.
People with disorders must be treated, not simply locked up then forgotten. And adults must not be criminalised simply because of a consenting sexual relationship with a partner who happens to be the wrong side of the arbitrary à¢â¬Ëage of consentà¢â¬â¢.
Peter Manson