As a general rule, I try to make allowances for human failings. That’s because, more often than not, they do no lasting harm. On top of which, they’re usually pretty darn funny.

But there’s one subject which simply has no amusing aspects. If you thought I was going to say child molesters, you’re only partly right. For as vile as pederasts, pedophiles, bottom-feeding scum-suckers, are, there are others who are even worse, if only because they are far more numerous.

For openers, there are the lawyers who use all their guile to con juries into letting these freaks run loose. I have no idea how these shysters sleep at night, knowing full well that their children and grandchildren could be the creep’s next prey.

Next we have the judges, the parole boards, the ACLU and the legislatures, who are all in cahoots to pretend that these perverts are just like other criminals. It’s just not so. Sentence a burglar or a thief to a few years in jail, and there’s always a chance he’ll come out a changed man. He may not be a saint, but it’s just possible he’ll decide it’s not worth knocking over a 7/11 for a few hundred bucks if it’s going to land his sorry butt back in the clink.

But there is no group of evildoers with a higher rate of recidivism than those who brutalize children. In order to live out their sick fantasies, they would risk being drawn- and-quartered. There is a very good reason that parents don’t want them moving into the neighborhood once they’re out of jail. Parents instinctively know the truth about them, but unfortunately parents do not make the laws or determine the sentences.

The question with these devils isn’t whether they’ll strike again, but only when. I hear some of you demurring. What about those, you ask, who somehow see the light? Is it fair that they don’t get to prove they’ve had an epiphany? Is it fair that they don’t get to prove they’re rehabilitated? Yes, it is fair and just and moral. For one thing, if they fool us, the price of their freedom is far too high. Far better for them to rot in jail than for one child to be at risk. Besides, how many chances should anyone have to brutalize a three-year-old?

Some years ago, a man abducted a young girl, raped her, and then, just for the hell of it, chopped off both her arms. I wonder how many other people, like me, were amazed when a few years later we read that he had served his sentence, moved to Florida, and been arrested for murdering a woman. For God’s sake, what the hell does a guy have to do in order to spend the rest of his miserable life in jail?

Recently, we all heard about the monster who snatched the little 11-year-old at the carwash, murdered her and left her body in the church parking lot. Although he had already been imprisoned for molesting a child and then, upon being released, violated his parole, the judge had refused to send him back to jail. Had the D.A. had his way, the man would have been serving an additional 15 years in the pen, and the child would have arrived home safely.

Finally, we have Kenneth Parnell, who first achieved fame as the ogre who kidnapped little Steven Stayner, molesting and torturing him for seven long years, and then abducted a five-year-old before being captured. After all that, he served a five year term in Soledad. Five years! In other words, his sentence was shorter than Steven’s! At the age of 72, lest you think the freaks out-grow their dementia, Parnell was arrested for attempting to buy a four-year-old boy for $500.

What does it say about a society when it takes such a casual attitude towards crimes against children? I believe that sexual perverts really can’t control their obscene urges. That’s why I think they should be locked up once and for all in asylums for the criminally insane.

Some of you, knowing that I am a big proponent of capital punishment, are probably surprised that I’m willing to let these abominations live.

But, then, you haven’t asked me what I’d do to their lawyers.