Most offenders I’ve interacted with have no specific attraction to children at all. They want to rape someone and children just happen to make ideal victims by being smaller and weaker and depending on age and upbringing may not even realize a crime had occurred or be able to advocate for themselves. Most of the offenders would have / often had also raped the elderly or disabled if given the chance. They would even attempt to prey on the smaller or weaker staff members if given the opportunity.

There were a few edge cases of profoundly psychotic / ID patients who genuinely just didn’t know any better but again it was rarely a specific attraction and more of an overall disinhibition, they would generally also have trespassing, petty theft, and property damage charges. Violent and sexual intrusive thoughts can be a part of some OCD presentations but they basically never offend and the thoughts usually go away when the underlying anxiety is treated with medication and behavioral therapy. I’m not saying attraction to children doesn’t exist, but when we’re taking about the actual issue of child sexual assault it’s just an unproductive line of discussion that relates very little to the actual core issues.

Now that said, we do have a huge issue as a society with allowing the high of righteous fury to interfere with victims actually receiving justice. Those accused have just as much of a right to due process as anyone accused of any other crime. Interfering with that right either creates massive overreach by the legal system or in individual cases damages evidence that would be used to fairly prosecute an offender. It also creates a social environment where people protect their offending loved ones out of fear for them, when they should feel secure in the knowledge that while they can’t stop living them, they can and will be safely separated from the rest of society for the rest of their natural life.