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In a maximum security mental health facility in Montreal is a "cave-like" virtual reality vault that's used to show images of child sexual abuse to sex offenders. Patients sit inside the vault with devices placed around their penises to measure signs of arousal as they are shown computer-generated animations of naked children.
"We do develop pornography, but these images and animations are not used for the pleasure of the patient but to assess them," said Patrice Renaud, who heads up the project at the Institut Philippe-Pinel. "It's a bit like using a polygraph but with other measurement techniques."
The system, combined with other psychological assessments, is used to build up a profile of the individual's sexual preferences that can be used by the court to determine the risk they pose to society and by mental health professionals to determine treatment.
[...] The patients sit on a stool inside the chamber wearing stereoscopic glasses which create the three-dimensional effect on the surrounding walls. The glasses are fitted with eye-tracking technology to ensure they aren't trying to trick the system by avoiding looking at the critical content.
Source: The Guardian
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tfried on Friday June 09 2017, @07:22AM
You assume that they will act on the results in a particular way. You assume they will keep those who do get aroused locked in forever (or something along these lines). Unfortunately, that assumption is not entirely baseless, but it is still an assumption.
Now consider for a minute that they could be trying to actually help. That they might think of themselves not just as highly educated prison guards, but are actually trying to help the inmates get out, eventually. That they could be trying to help the inmates to understand and control whatever got them into jail/hospital. Wouldn't that imply, very, very naturally trying to understand to what degree their patients have real paedophile tendencies, and to what degree they'll have to look elsewhere? Their job is to deal with those who were convicted - for good reasons or for bad. How exactly are they supposed to do their job?
This method is a tool. I'm not so sure it is a good tool, but a tool like this is definitely needed.
This method is a tool. A tool with a high potential for abuse, but that's because the topic is toxic, not the tool.