"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it." - Bertrand Russell

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Singapore Sex News: Deterring sex fiends online

"Making 'sexual grooming' of those aged under 16 a new offence in the Penal Code adds early deterrence to any effort to render the virtual world as safe as, if not safer than, the real world for the young...

The new section makes it an offence for adults to intentionally meet or to travel with the intention of meeting their prey after getting in touch with them on two or more occasions. Predators will face up to three years in jail and/or be fined even if no sex took place...

Polytechnic student Melissa Leong, 19, received such propositions when she frequented chatrooms at the age of 13.

'It's impossible to have a normal platonic relationship with a guy you meet online because usually, people aren't looking just for friendship'...

THE phrase 'Want 2 meet up 4 some fun'' could be an invitation for sex or something innocuous.

Lawyers said that under the proposed changes to the Penal Code to catch Internet sexual predators before the sex act, it is vital to establish the context in which a remark is made.

Lawyer Amolat Singh said: 'We need to track the chat patterns, the age difference and the circumstances of the chats. A combination of all these could then reasonably show a predator's intent.'

Even if this proves difficult for prosecutors, he added, the law will definitely be valued for its deterrent effect...

Now, when a child or parent reports a possible grooming case to Childnet, a police officer steps in. The officer takes on the online identity of the child and continues chatting. E-mail messages and chat logs are kept as evidence.

Upon meeting, intention can be drawn if the person shows up with pornography, condoms or lubricants."

Also: SSN - Tougher child sex laws, activists say it's about time
"Under the new offence of sexual grooming, anyone 21 or older can be prosecuted if he or she has met or communicated with someone under 16 on at least two occasions even before the sexual act is committed."


Unfortunately, the remarks on the REACH forum are with but one exception along the lines of "castrate the bastards!"

It is good to protect children, but how will the police determine when to catch someone? Children nowadays are very precocious and sexually aware (many are also sexually active, which is a whole different kettle of fish).

The definition of "sexual grooming - in which an adult befriends and establishes emotional control over a child, paving the way for sexual abuse or rape" is also vague. We can all agree that befriending children to have sex with them is bad, but how will the line between this and normal befriending be operationalised? Indeed, befriending someone involves establishing some degree of emotional control over them. Are all relationships between adults and children then to be suspect?

Protecting children is something everyone can agree on. In jail, while sex offenders are at the bottom of the hierarchy, child sex offenders are the lowest of the low - even criminals hate child sex criminals. Consequently, it is too easy to fall prey to a moral panic about vulnerable children.

Megan's Laws in the US and similar laws in the UK require the public to be informed when former child sex offenders move into the community. Yet this leads to harassment of the new neighbors, when the rate of recidivism (commiting new crimes) for child sex offenders has been shown to be much lower than other criminals. With child sex offenders people get overprotective and shoot (metaphorically) first and ask questions later. This can make them permanent pariahs, or worse the target of vigilante action (though luckily the latter will likely not happen in Singapore).

Friend who was "sexually groomed" (and almost talked into having sex) when at the age of statutory rape: "come on, I've been through it, and still I think that law is ridiculous! like that then if a [21] year old boy asks a 14 yr old girl to meet him is that gonna be illegal... better not say anything funny [to underaged people]. even a joke might be misconstrued". Convicting people before they've touched anyone or done anything wrong comes close to a Minority Report situation - even if prediction is accurate (and we don't have psychic people floating in bathtubs in Singapore), what about the minority reports?

The long-held principle used in Law is that convicting an innocent person is worse than letting a guilty man go. As in the rest of Law, a Type I error (convicting an innocent person) is considered to be worse than a Type II error (letting a guilty man go). As William Blackstone famously intoned, "It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer". Then again, this is Singapore where we don't mind false positives, so...

The sole saving grace is that this only hits those aged 21 and above.


As an aside, why not apply the "When Harry Met Sally" principle and say it's impossible to have a normal platonic relationship with a guy, period?

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Addendum:

Interesting bits in the proposed Penal Code amendments:

- There's an age of consent for males, of sorts, now
- There's sexual penetration with corpse and there's sexual penetration with living animal, so presumably having sex with dead animals is alright
- Necrophilia carries 20 years?!
- If an underaged girl lies to you about her age before having sex with you, you still go to jail for it ("a reasonable mistake as to the age of a person shall not be a defence to any charge of an offence under section 376A(2), 376B or 376C." - so much for "reasonable")
- If you kill an animal you get up to 5 years jail