Incarceration vs Treatment

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, pedophilia is considered a mental disorder and not a crime. Furthermore, a mentally incompetent person is someone who is diagnosed as mentally ill or who is suffering from some other weakness that prevents them from managing their own affairs; thus it can be said that a mentally incompetent person is indeed incapable of fully understanding their actions. Also not all pedophiles are child molesters; Child molesters are defined by their acts and pedophiles are defined by their desires. Studies have shown that about half of all molesters are not sexually attracted to their victims. They often have personality disorders or violent streaks. A pedophile should be held responsible for their conduct without a doubt but not for the underlying attraction, and by treating the person it is not in no way giving a green light to commit the act again. The purpose of treating someone is to make sure that it doesn"t happen again, so how is treatment giving someone the green light to commit the act again if it"s meant to prevent it from happening? Also, when you mention money coming out of someone"s paycheck, don"t tax payers also pay for prisoners that are incarcerated? I do not see how money would be an issue in treatment where we have people that are serving life behind bars; that cost a lot of money as well. To address where you stated "Isolating them until their time is done is a form of punishment just like having them incarcerated", I am a little confused at this statement because isn"t that what happens when some is incarcerated? Aren"t they isolated? So, it can be assumed that when someone is incarcerated they are being punished but in no way are they actually receiving help for the act that was committed. Isolating someone from appropriate treatment only increases their risk of committing another crime. People are judged every day for every little thing they do, so to bring judgment into this is irrelevant. We are not concerned about how other people feel; our main concern is finding the best way to help someone to not commit certain acts again; the best way being treatment. When you say that people would be frightened of people because of this act, don"t we have some murderers that are let free after serving time? Shouldn"t people be afraid of them as well? I suppose that we can also assume that someone who was incarcerated may seek retribution after being let free from incarceration. If that person was treated instead, there is a higher chance that there would be a big difference in those persons actions. Many of the questions you have asked me seem subjective but we are not concerned about any "what ifs", it has nothing to do with how you or I feel. We are concerned about how to deal with an issue the best way possible. We have to be dispassionate as I said before to prevent these acts. If every solution was based on how someone feels, would we really be coming up with the best solution? If there is any choice in the situation, it is in how pedophiles manage their lives once they become fully aware of the direction of their sexual interests and the societal prohibitions against expressing them; treatment will assist with this. Just putting someone "away", is in no way helping them; I think people believe in incarceration because that has always seem like the best option but maybe it"s not; this is probably why we have so many overcrowded prisons. The fact that pedophilia is so despised is precisely why society response to it would be incarceration, but that doesn"t make it the best choice. Acknowledging that pedophiles have a mental disorder and removing the obstacles to their coming forward and seeking help/treatment, is not only the right thing to do but it would also advances efforts to lower pedophilic acts.