Fury at the perpetrator of a sex crime is correct. The desire to avenge is natural. The impulse to protect the victim is humane. All help criminals to be caught and, hopefully, justice served.
But when anger only gets acted out, discharged, it ceases to be effective. Instead, it becomes a distraction. As an article in Personality of Social Psychology Review reports, “Angry rumination is perseverative thinking about a personally meaningful anger-inducing event and is a risk factor for aggression.”
The New York Times recently published a video by filmmaker Amanda Mustard. Her grandfather was a serial pedophile who went to prison for his crimes. In “My Grandfather Abused Countless Children. Here’s What I’ve Learned About Prevention,” Mustard pleads for psychological intervention for abusers. She states that, collectively, as a society, we are stuck in our rage at them—as though the rawness of it is enough. To be clear, she does not ask us to feel sympathy toward child abusers—or any abuser. (Nor do I.) Mustard notes that our stagnation in rage prevents us, as a society, from addressing the problem in a meaningful way to effect real change. Vigilante justice groups that find predators and suspected predators often do more harm to the victims because their tactics jeopardize legal cases. There is a difference between vigilance and vigilantism. Not understanding this ends up hurting victims—the children and teens who need protection.
A 2022 article in Frontiers in Psychiatry notes that “sex offenders tend not to take responsibility for their actions, have difficulties in emotion regulation and impulse control, paraphilias or other disorders, so they are a difficult group to treat.” These facts alone are enraging. However, in reviewing 319 studies regarding the treatment of predator, most of which had a cognitive-behavioral approach, researchers reported that “the interventions appear to be effective in reducing recidivism (reoffending) rates, and some of them led to improvements in other outcomes, such as cognitive distortions, accepting responsibility, victim awareness and empathy, emotional regulation, and offense supportive attitudes.”
It is correct to abhor sexual abuse and violence. Abhorrence, vitriol, and rage, however, are points on a continuum meant to stretch toward recovery and reparation. As I’ve seen in a clinical setting, the process gets stalled in rage and indignance—sometimes by the person who was victimized, but far more often by the collective voice surrounding them.