Q&A: Reporting a Pedophile or Someone Who Sexually Harasses Women to the Police
Reporting a Pedophile or Someone Who Sexually Harasses Women to the Police
Question
Hello and blessings.
I would like to ask, following an actual incident, about reporting a pedophile or someone who sexually harasses women to the police.
Sometimes, when he is turned in, he suffers severe harm simply from the matter becoming public, and sometimes his innocent relatives are also harmed as well (for example, if he is imprisoned and cannot support his family, or if his Haredi daughters are unable to find marriage matches).
From a moral standpoint, is there a need to take these things into account?
From a halakhic standpoint, likewise, is there a need to take these things into account? And who is supposed to decide?
And does this involve one of the seven conditions in the Chafetz Chaim regarding relating derogatory speech for a constructive purpose—”that the account should not cause the wrongdoer more harm than would be imposed on him if a religious court were to rule against him”?
Thank you very much!
Answer
It is completely clear that none of these considerations should be taken into account. He has the status of a pursuer, and a pursuer must be dealt with in that way (not killed, of course, if it can be avoided). The indirect damages are a necessary evil, and if it is possible to help with them, then of course that is desirable. But not at the expense of the victims (potential and actual). Their blood is no less red than the blood of the pedophile or of his family.
Discussion on Answer
What is there here to ground? I didn’t say to kill him. He is pursuing in order to harm, and that is how he should be dealt with.
Can the determination that he is a “pursuer,” and that this is the proper way to deal with and prevent it, be grounded halakhically, or is it only intuitive?
For the sake of discussion, we are talking about a man who put out his hand and stroked a woman in the seat in front of him on a bus, in a way that is not defined as forbidden sexual relations in the full halakhic sense, especially since the contact was over clothing.