by Cris Italia
Just a few weeks ago I was hunting down child predators on the Internet with investigator Paul Hamilton of the Child Abuse Unit. I remember champing at the bit, hoping we could arrest someone on the spot.
Now here I was, face to face with someone I had learned so much about. All that I have read and heard, the sad stories, the childhood traumas, could never make me feel sorry for someone who has done something so horrific. To take the innocence of a child, in my mind, has to be the worst crime of all.
At times during the hour-long interview I wanted to lunge at this man from my seat. While I wanted people to read about him and what he was thinking, I couldn't help wonder why on earth he would agree to tell me about the darkest period of his life. He described in detail how he took advantage of a 12-year-old girl.
I couldn't understand why this man would give up his life, a great job and a family, all to satisfy his sickness. Why is he in therapy now instead of before the incidents? Perhaps he could have prevented this from happening. A part of me wanted to believe that he was actually sorry for what he had done, since he had admitted sexually abusing only one child. From all the statistics I've read and heard, a pedophile may remain unincarcerated long enough to victimize more than 100 children.
He told me he still had urges. Sometimes the temptation was uncontrollable and, he said, that's when he would think of suicide. There is a part of me that wanted to stand up and beat him so maybe he could for a minute or two know how it feels to be abused, if in a much different way.
But this pedophile has suffered. He spent five years behind bars, taking the abuse of convicts who despise his kind and regard his crime as the lowest of the low. Despite the rigors of prison life, this man has to live with himself. Each day he will fight stronger and stronger urges, knowing full well now that he is a "bad" man.
He has nothing more to look forward to than getting back on his feet. His family has left him, he will never regain the career he once had, and other friends and loved ones have abandoned him -- leaving him alone with his perverted thoughts.
At home later, after the interview, I thought of how this might affect me. What if his victim had been someone in my family? I know I would have lost control -- maybe even done something unthinkable.
Those thoughts only reinforce my support for the Long Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children's Child Abuse Unit. These are men and women who protect not only children, but parents, from ever having to experience what this man's victim, a 12-year-old girl, and her family have experienced. For more information about the unit, about child-abuse prevention, and to find out how you can help, log onto www.childabuseunit.com.
