In which I take an unpopular view...

[conuly]

In a community I'm in, somebody asked if you'd move if you knew you lived near a registered sex offender. And one of the replies was "No, I'd make them move".

*sighs*

Now, I in no way think highly of those who would harm children. We'll assume, for the purpose of this discussion, that the only people who are on those lists have either molested children or raped people - no Matthew Limons, no "Well, she told me she was 19!", nothing like that.

So, you do whatever it was, and you go to prison, and you get out... and you have to live somewhere, right? Where do you live? Where, that there are no children around, at all?

As far as I know, there are no lists of convicted burglars, or convicted murderers - or even convicted rapists, unless they raped a minor. So, it can't just be about protecting ourselves, it's got to be about punishing others...

And let's say it is all about protecting our kids. That's fair, nobody wants kids getting hurt. I can see keeping people from getting jobs as teachers, pediatricians, and so on.

The vast majority of children who are molested, it's by somebody in the family, or a family friend. The rest of them, it seems, are mostly victims of authority figures - priests, doctors, teachers, that sort of thing. While some kids certainly are taking candy from the nice man down the block, and others certainly are being snatched from the streets by men in ski masks, that doesn't seem to be very common.

And here's something else. If you're any good at your criminal activities, whatever they are, you don't get caught.

So you want to protect your kids? You won't do that by shutting off your neighborhood. In fact, the false sense of security this gives you may be more dangerous, I think, than not doing that. Best way to protect your kids is to educate them. That's the only way to protect them, not by trying to remove oh-so-dangerous elements from your world.

Besides. Harassment is a crime. You want to be a vigilante? Go put on a mask, and douse yourself with dangerous chemicals like everybody else.

Comments

[malantha.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on every point here.

[literalgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm with you...

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Leper colonies! We must reinstate leper colonies. And if not, then we must sew little bells into every felon's elbow skin and brand them with a scarlet letter. I mean, why stop at sex offenders! Don't we deserve to know if in our neighbourhood there live convicted murderers, burglars, thieves, drunk drivers, Enron executives, copyright violators or marijuana smokers? And why stop at only the felonious miscreants? I demand to be protected from jaywalkers, homosexuals, pagans, swingers, late-tax-filers and especially that demon-spawned perversity, people with autism! *hiss, boo*

err, that was sarcasm, for you literal types :)

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

*psst* Homosexuals convicted in the 1970's are still on the sex offender lists in many states.

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, thre is the slight difference that sex offenders (rapists, child molesters, etc.) typically have a mental illness that compels them to specifically act that way -- murder and theft are more often circumstantial offenses. (In the case of murder, it's usually a one-time offense; theft is typically the result of poverty, which obviously can be taken care of.)

That isn't to say I would want to live near a murderer or thief, but they are still less likely to repeat their crime than a sex offender is from what I understand. (That is, assuming the murderer didn't kill due to an untreated mental illness, and we're not all living in a situation that promotes murder/theft in the first place.)

[conuly]

True enough - but we don't all know when we're living near schizophrenics, or people who are bipolar.

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

Megan's Law, as well-intentioned as it is, is basically a way to continue to punish someone long, LONG after the crime was committed.

Sex offender lists aren't necessarily child rapists. They include all sex crimes-- a friend of mine almost ended up on the list for being stupid and putting a video camera in his girlfriend's bathroom.... when she had roommates. Stupid, yes. Worthy of some punishment, yes. Being put on the same list (the lists don't differentiate between crimes) as someone who snatches, rapes, and murders a five year old? Uh, no.

These lists have resulted in ex-cons being forced to move every six months, because as soon as they register, there are people standing out in front of their houses with signs telling them to move out of their school district (move where? I would LOVE to find a community without kids-- just show me the way!) Moving often just leads to a transitory lifestyle, disconnect from fellow humans, and puts them at even higher risk for predatory behaviors.

California has a voluntary castration program for extreme cases. After undergoing permanent castration as well as years of therapy and rehabilitation, these men get out and are repeatedly reminded of their crimes, villified, and told they can't move here. When is it enough? If you don't think the jail time and castration are enough, then you have to change the law to allow for capital punishment for sex offenses, because that's pretty much your only option.

I am a rape survivor, and I don't have a very rational view of proper punishment for rapists. I think they should be physically mutilated-- preferably castration, but I'll accept loss of an arm or leg, because that's essentially what it is like for a rape survivor. But we have cases of men who have actually voluntarily had that done-- they've taken the very extreme I personally think would be right-- beyond that, I don't think it's fair to keep on at them. It doesn't allow the rape survivor to heal, it doesn't allow anyone to heal, really.

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

Except that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder aren't harmful by nature. There's quite a difference between "this person hallucinates" and "this person attacks other people" IMHO. (Not that living with a schizophrenic with wild mood swings is fun...)

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

I have no problem at all with taking people who injure and exploit children and forcing them to live in some colony somewhere, perhaps the gobi desert.

No sarcasm, I mean it.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that.

I agree that we have to educate our children rather than being lulled into a false sense of security. And I educate my child.

But IMO, those people have no right to live near children, near women. Put them in cages, IMO.

I have a lot of other opinions on this, some extreme; I'm speaking as a survivor of child sexual abuse who is now a mother, and I am speaking as a rape survivor. Those people don't deserve to live, let alone to live in peace and anywhere near my kid.

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

yes.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

I'm of two minds about this, particularly because here in Canada our lists of criminal offenders aren't public. It's up to the local police departments to inform people where a specific offender is moving only if they think they may still be at risk to re-offend - and this includes child molesters, rapists, and murderers.

I think overall it would depend on the sex offender's crimes (particularly since the prison terms for sex crimes are on average much shorter in Canada, and offenders have been released with acknowledgement that they may still be a danger to others.)

I agree that 1) quite a few registered sex offenders are on the registry for consensual statuatory rape, and 2) a child is far more at risk for abuse within the family/social community than by a stranger; street-proofing, a trusting relationship, and frank discussions can just about guarantee that your child won't become a victim out of ignorance or fear.

However, if an offender was released whose M.O. involved forcible abduction, and the opinion of Corrections Canada was that they were still a threat (i.e. no chemical castration, no specific mental illness treated,) I would quite likely seriously consider moving if the alternative was having my children walk past his/her house every day - just as I would consider the same if an unrehabilitated serial rapist of adult women moved in next door.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I really think it depends on the specifics. In many cases, I agree with you, but you toss people into that category that really deserve a second chance. And yes, I do think some people deserve a second chance after molesting a child. Many of them were molested or raped themselves and hadn't yet learned how to deal with that. When we punish sex offenders, we forget that we are also punishing the victims of sex offenders, as they are so often the same people. And no, that doesn't excuse what they did. I'm not saying anyone gets a free pass to molest or rape anyone, just that some people do change and do deserve a second chance.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

As an addition to this: Megan's Law, at least in NJ, applies to everyone who is convicted of a sex offense against a minor (someone under the age of 18, even though the definition of "minor" in the actual statutes is someone under 16) ... regardless of the age of the perpetrator.

This means that there are a heck of a lot of 16-year-old boys who touched the breasts of a 17-year-old girl at a party without her permission, who are now on sex offender lists. I think they can petition to be removed after 10 years, but they can never work as teachers, etc., ever. Now, I'm certainly not saying "boys will be boys" and I think that boys who touch girls' breasts without permission should be punished and I certainly despise people who molest children, but the aforementioned sixteen-year-old boy is certainly not a danger to the six-year-old next door. The girl in question was six weeks shy of 18 (and quite a bit older than the boy), by the way.

Of course, I'm using one specific case as an example—the NJ Appellate Division ruling that established this policy—but there are indeed many high schoolers who had inappropriate sexual contact with other high schoolers and are now on Megan's Law lists. Even though Megan's Law is supposed to protect children from child molesters.

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

I realize there are 18 year old boys who date 17 year old girls and mama gets upset and suddenly he's a sex offender.
My problem with giving sex offenders a second chance is jail has probably just made them meaner. Maybe if they had to do some residency in a half way house with intense psychiatric counseling I'd be more ready to believe they had learned something.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Apparently in Britain a similar plan to compile registries of sex offenders was in place about a month before someone was killed by a vigilante mob. The system has since been rethought.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would definitely support counseling. And I wasn't actually thinking of statutory rape in cases where it's really questionable that it should even be a crime, but true molestation. I just feel there is a big difference from case to case, and you don't want to treat everyone like an adult someone who snatches up 5 year olds and rapes them. Sure lock them up and throw away the key, no objections. But there are lots of fuzzier cases. The only person I know IRL who has sexually molested a minor was never tried for it, but he wasn't even 12 years old yet. Did that make it any easier for the victim? No. Did it make it less of a horrible thing? No. But would I want to totally destroy his life for one misjudgement as a confused child? No.

And I'm sure there are many other cases like this, and I have heard of other cases. Because many children who are abused end up abusing other children, because it's the model they have. Some of those people will have serious issues and may still be hurting others when they are older, but what they need is extensive psychological counselling. And when it is felt that they are no longer a danger to anyone, then why keep punishing them? They've often suffered so much to get to the point that they were abusing others anyway.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Well, in this state, there are levels--level 3 is the only one in which the neighborhood is automatically notified.

I had a "friend" with a five-year-old daughter. She let her daughter walk to the bus stop unaccompanied except by the twelve-year-old who lived down the block, and the bus stop was down a block, turn left, another block, turn right, two blocks of wooded road and wait on the corner. (Totally out of sight of ANY houses, much less her own, in other words, and no sidewalks anywhere on the route.) The five-year-old had slightly less traffic sense than my cat, too--wandering out in the middle of the road, not watching for cars, etc. (I babysat a couple times and was appalled at the "normal" routine.)

BUT when an offender moved into the neighborhood, THEN suddently it wasn't all right for the six-year-old to walk alone to the bus stop anymore. I said to my husband in some disgust that it must be nice to live in the "friend"'s world, where ALL the child molesters have been caught and convicted....

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

I feel for anyone who was abused, but we have to save the current children more than the adults who had abuse. I realize that may sound cold, but as a mom I simply have to think of my children and this generation of children first.

[literalgirl.livejournal.com]

Hee hee. I *do* want to know where the Enron executives live, so I can, I don't know, try to wheedle my cat into pissing on their lawns...

[conuly]

Yes, you do. And when somebody isn't considered a danger anymore...?

[conuly]

No, they're not. But we've gone through the list of "people who have proven themselves capable of harming others" and "people who have serious psychological problems" by now.

[conuly]

1. Sounds like your laws make more sense in that regard, then, if it's more than just one group of people on it.
2. Sounds like they make less sense in that regard. I don't see why you're releasing people who may still be a danger to people around them.

[conuly]

...

...


...

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

At what point are they not considered a danger? When they are armless, legless, toothless? Dead? I mean who knows when somone is cured or at the very least not a danger. I don't want to take the chance that sometime down the road they will snap and then a child is hurt again. And it's one child too many.