Yes it would. If I knew someone is thinking about murder and someone else is doing the murder, and I could choose, I would definitely take the one thinking about murder.

Now it would be great if no one was thinking about murder in the first place but the world is complex, and because we are able to choose to some degree, let's do that instead of saying "IDC, both is bad, I'll take any of them".

History shows us pedophiles exist. Some have thoughts, some commit crimes.

If we imprison all of them, that just means people will never tell you about it and they resort more to repression and crimes. But if we only imprison the ones who act on it, we open the rest of them up to the possibility that everyone accepts they won't "go away" and we could focus on making sure they don't act on it.

And there's potential: a combination of different therapies helping them learn to live with it in a safe way could go a long way.

If we help them, we help us.

But if we criminalize their thoughts, they will resort to crime, because that's all they know.