Registering Sex Offenders - What's the Point?

[Greenday]

The registries themselves are an open invitation to target someone and make their life hell after they have paid the price for the crimes they have committed. They need to be shut down.

It happens a lot too. Once listed, they get continually harassed by society, whether they are a threat or not. It has even led to people getting murdered for being listed. The states don't even bother keeping track of their lists for accuracy. People have moved into new homes, only to get harassed for living at the previous location of a sex offender. And when they called the local and state agencies to get something done about it, they get blown off. So this is now even becoming a problem for completely innocent people.

Here's an interesting little story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n1501271.shtml

One of the men murdered was on the list because when he was a teenager, he had sex with his girlfriend two weeks before the legal age.

[blas87]

No one's criminal records are private. There's always CCAP. Even if all you ever did was blow a stop sign, if someone wants to see it, they can!

My opinion is, if you don't want the humilation and the shame and the inability to live a normal life after serving your time, DON'T DO THE CRIME IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Forgive my anger, but dear sweet Jesus am I sick and tired of people feeling SOOO sorry for rapists and especially child molesters. Ok fine, a 19 year old guy having sex with an underage girl isn't really a monster, but a guy like my cousin who molested several children under the age of 10? WHO THE FUCK CARES if he has a hard time getting a job and moving on with his life? He made the choice to hurt people. His victims were SMALL CHILDREN, they are probably going to have a very, very difficult adolescence and early adulthood. They may NEVER grow up to trust anyone or have meaningful relationships because of what my sick fuck cousin did to them.

Quite frankly, I don't give two fucking shits about what a child molestor or a rapist has to go through when he gets out of jail. They SHOULDN'T get out of jail. I agree totally with AdminAssistant. If they can't deal with the consequences of their actions, and that SPECIFICALLY INCLUDES what they have to deal with when they get out, MAYBE JUST MAYBE THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!

I don't want people to see me on CCAP...maybe I shouldn't have blown that stop sign or rear ended that guy!

[AdminAssistant]

Exactly, Blas.

Besides, I don't care how 'reformed' someone is or if they found Jesus in jail or whatever, I don't want a known pedophile to get a job as a janitor at an elementary school or a serial rapist to get a job as campus security.

One of the Westside shooters was complaining the testimony for the civil case about not being able to get a job, having to move out of state, and blah blah blah and wah wah wah. Sorry, you should've thought of that before getting a bunch of rifles with your buddy and killing five of your classmates. (He tried to claim he wasn't 'trying' to shoot anybody, one of the attorneys pointed out he had a 30 ought 6 with a freakin' SCOPE). I mean, those two brats committed premeditated murder and got off scot free when they turned 18. I don't give two flying f*cks if they can't get jobs.

Sorry for the slight thread jack, but there are certain things that one can't be rehabbed from.

[Seshat]

And we wonder why people repeat their offences.

Geez. Can't get a job, can't get a place to live, can't develop friends. Are we surprised these people feel like outsiders?

We - as societies - need to make a choice here.

1. Prisons are rehab places, and we keep people in until we're confident they can rejoin society and behave normally, then we monitor and support them until their risk of reoffending is equal or lower than the 'normal' person's risk. Then we let them get on with their lives.

2. Prisons are warehouses, where we put people who aren't safe to be among the rest of us. In which case, a registry is irrelevent, 'cause people likely to reoffend wouldn't be let out anyway.

3. Prisons are places of punishment, and we don't care about risk of reoffending. We just shove people there for X amount of time.


Okay, this is overly simplistic. But I think the multiple facets of prisons in most of our societies is actually what the -real- problem is, here. We should pick one.

Or maybe we should channel people into different prisons for different purposes. People unlikely to ever get well go into a warehouse-prison for life. People who are rehabbable go into a rehab prison until cured. People who commit a minor crime for the first and probably-only time in their life can get slapped with a fine or given a period of time in a punishment prison.


OP: what does your criminal justice professor think of this idea? It can't be new.

[powerboy]

I say let the punishment fit the crime. But then again, what about the innocent ones, that are on it? Why should they suffer, for crimes that they did not comment?

[blas87]

Forgive me if it offends you, but I cannot find it in my heart to forgive or forget someone who has done extreme mental/physical pain to another person. Whether it be molesting children, killing their girlfriend, beating up a random person for no reason, stalking an ex to the point of that person having to move away and being afraid of going outside, it doesn't matter. People like that are useless trash.

I have no desire WHATSOEVER to ever forgive or forget the guy who killed my cousin. Since we cannot put him to death, I want him in prison for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, because of the (in)justice system, he has the possibility of parole in the next 15 years or so. If he gets out (and I know he will, because of "good behavior" or whatever bullshit reason because by then the justice system in Wisconsin will completely be taken over by extremist hippy liberals) I don't want him to have a good time and enjoy his life. He needs to feel the pain and agony that he caused the family of his victims. He took TWO LIVES AWAY in cold blood. He hid my cousin's body under a fucking bed and ran away.

Go ahead, wish him the best and forgive what he has done. I sure as hell ever won't.

I don't care to treat anyone who has committed disgusting crimes like rape, molestation, murder, etc etc etc like a normal person or let them have a second chance at life. People like that are sick and should ideally be tortured the same way they did to their victims, if not killed by a needle or an electric chair.

They don't deserve to be treated like humans if they do things that are so morally reprehensable. They don't re-offend because we are "mean" to them and treat them like the scum that they are......they re-offend because they are SICK and not human! They re-offend because they were obviously let go before they were "rehabilitated" or "cleansed".

[McDreidel09]

I agree with the registry, except for the people who really shouldn't be on there (the people who urinated and a kid saw them, two teens having sex, a guy who was 19, having sex with his girlfriend who was just a bit underage.) We have taken it too far.

When my mom was raped, the guy was put away and then let back out. He had a wife, who hated my mother for helping put him away. About a year ago, it was on the news that he was allowed on a field trip as a chaperone for his kids' school.

No-one really watches these offenders. I live on a block that has an elementary school and right down the street is a sex offender, who raped LITTLE KIDS.

WTF?

[Lace Neil Singer]

As far as I can see, Greeday isn't talking about taking extreme sex offenders off the radar, he's talking about the minor ones, the ones who slept with their jailbait girlfs or peed in public. Don't immedately have a kneejerk reaction and jump to conclusions; ironically, that is why the whole registration thing has serious flaws. There are far too many people who'd consider firebombing a pedophile's house to be their duty in protecting their kids, regardless of whether the person living there was actually a child molester or not. In fact, I once read about a pedatrition (sp?) or child doctor who's house was set on fire, cuz the ignorant mob who committed the crime thought that child doctor meant child molestor; they saw the word "pedo" and drew their own conclusions.

When 90% of sexual assaults come from either a family member/relative or an acquaintance of some sort, what good is having all sex offenders register? These aren't the people that you'd avoid.

Kiwi said that he/she (sorry I don't know what gender you are!) would avoid his/her sex offender relative and used this as a means of debunking what Greenday said. I'm not speaking for Greenday and Greenday is welcome to correct me, but I believe the meaning of that quote was that you don't know if someone in your family is a sex offender. This does not mean a family member convicted of a crime or even accused of one; it means that it's a fact that most children who are sexually abused suffer at the hands of their parents or relatives. Being abducted by a complete stranger is far rarer than the media insinuate. Therefore teaching children what's right and wrong as far as touching goes, seems far more important than putting every single person who's committed any sex related crime on a register regardless of the severity of said crime.

I certainly believe that anyone who abuses children in any way should either be locked up or at least monitored to stop it happening again, and anyone who commits a horrific sex crime should be locked up. The public deserve to be protected, and to my mind, the victim's rights are far more important than any rights the rapist/child molestor has.

[Greenday]

Lace, you are pretty accurate in summing up what I've meant.

Here's some interesting notes from class today:

According to the United States Department of Justice, in 1994, 9,691 sex offenders were released in 15 various states. Within 3 years, 5.3% of them for a new sex crime. Comparing them to people who committed other crimes and were released the same year, 67.5% of them recommitted crimes of similar nature.

So let's recap, compared to other criminals, sex offenders are MUCH less likely to recommit their crimes. But because of the exaggeration placed on sex offenders by society and the media, we believe the complete opposite.

Which really reinforces my point about the pointlessness of the public sex offenders list. Since most are one time offenders, they will not be labeled as sex offenders until it's too late and no longer matters (for most cases). So yea, if most reoffended, then I'd say it'd be worth it, but they don't so it's not. I think the police should keep tabs on them anyway, but I don't think it's so necessary to make it public, when other criminals who recommit crimes the majority of the time don't get a public stank list.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

One point my teacher made that I wonder about, and which I'm sure is true, is that with all these insane list of penalties that are given post-prison, these people who are committing crimes are probably holding it over the victim's head, telling them how by reporting it, the person doing the assault will have no rights the rest of their life, etc. etc., guilting the victim into not reporting it, thereby increasing the problem.

With respect, in my opinion that is an insane point.

They're holding it over the victim's head anyways. They are threatening to kill the kid's parents. They are strangling, say for instance, the kid's kitten in front of them as a way to scare them into silence. Yeah. That actually happened to a friend of mine when she was a child, being molested by an uncle. Nobody knew. Except the little girls in the family. Saying that a stiffer penalty will only give the perp something else to threaten the victim with is crazy talk.

It doesn't work that way. That's assuming that, say, the kid wouldn't just love to see the kid toucher dead.

That's also operating under the assumption that a kid toucher would not lie to a child to buy silence. I mean, what is he thinking, "Gee, I just fucked an 8 year old, but I can't tell her that I'll be put away for 20 years if she tells. They'll only put me away for 18, so I can't tell her a lie." (btw, I pulled those numbers out of my ass. I don't know what pedophiles get as far as sentencing goes. )

This make come as a huge shock to your teacher, but perverts tend to be perfectly okay with lying to their victims.

My friend reported wanting Uncle Kid Toucher to die. I seriously dont' think she would have been put off by his risk of a tougher jail sentence.

You are starting to agree with this teacher because I am betting the teacher is going on and on and is maybe someone who's opinion you respect. That's fine, just consider what this person is saying with a critical and logical mind. Do not be sold simply on the person's charisma and conversational skills.

[Greenday]

I agree with him that it's quite possible that sex offenders might try to do such a thing. They already do anyway with other stuff. I'm pretty sure he didn't mean it as a reason to get rid of it. I think he was just pointing it out as a side-effect we didn't expect to come from it.

I don't agree with everything my teacher says. I've openly called out some of his bullshit on other subjects. This is just one topic that I thought would be an interesting debate here and I figured I'd post anything interesting pointed out in class.

[Lace Neil Singer]

It depends on who the pervert is in relation to the child. I once read in a magazine a true story about a boy who was being abused by his stepfather. The stepfather managed to turn everything around and say that if his victim told anyone, he would ruin everything; break up his stepfather and mother's marriage, wreck his sister's life cuz of it, cause his mother untold pain and send his stepfather to prison. Basically, that it would be all his fault and everyone would blame him. So I can see an abuser using that as a threat, as in "If you tell, I'll go to prison and then the family will be broken up and it'll be all your fault".

[kiwi]

Kiwi said that she would avoid her sex offender relative and used this as a means of debunking what Greenday said.

no actually that wasn't my point, I was agreeing with Greendays comment that these people aren't who you avoid, but my argument is that the registry is more important because of that fact.

I said that my entire family avoid this man to point out to Greenday that once known these ARE people you would avoid but the new woman he targets have no way of knowing about his past EXCEPT for the register. They have no way to know to avoid him, the registry is their only means of finding out about his past. My family has been told by the authorities that if we alert this mans new girlf...victims about his past WE could get in trouble as he deserved a second/third/forth chance. The only way people can find out about him is through the registry.

The reason the registry even exists is because these people are usually the kind uncle or aunt that no one would think to distrust. Once these people are found out, they can move on the to next unsuspecting bunch because they are usually charming, charismatic people. Unless the public is notified that a predator is now in their community.

It enables people to know that their pastor or new girlfriend are not what they present to the world. It gives people information to keep their children and themselves safe. I don't think any one could ever convince me to give someone who has violated a child a second chance no matter how reformed they claim to be. There are some crimes I find unforgivable.

I don't however think that all people convicted of a sex crime should be punished forever, some people have mentioned under-age sex between teenagers who are just about of legal age or some guy who pees in a bush. Should they be punished for their mistake, yes. Should they be held in the same category of a serial rapist or child molester... no, thats a completely different league.

[Pedersen]

The only way people can find out about him is through the registry.

I'm terribly sorry for the justice system where you live, Kiwi, since all proceedings are apparently private. As well as penal records. I mean, since the only way someone can be discovered is through that registry, that means there's no records elsewhere that could be used. I really am sorry that your courts are that closed off.

Oh, wait, they're not? You mean that people can go look through those records? People can actually request that sort of information and get it? They can even find out what the person did, when they did it, how long they served prison time for, all without ever once referring to the sex offenders registry?

Then what is the point of the sex offenders registry? Add in the unusually high recidivism rates for other crimes (especially in comparison to sex crimes), and I would be more interested to know about and murderers and thieves who move into my neighborhood. Why don't they have to notify everybody of their past, too?

That's the part that doesn't make sense to me. Methods already exist to allow people to find out about crimes committed by others. Why don't we use them, instead of setting up yet something else which can be ignored?

[Boozy]

As for the punishment? Either the criminal has paid the price for their crimes, or they haven't. If they haven't, keep them locked up. If they have, they should be free to go.

Actually, I could probably get behind this point. My argument for sex registries has always been that the rate of recidivism for these crimes - even for those who took advantage of counselling and rehabilitation programs - is ludicrously high. Much higher than the recidivism rates for murder and burglary, for example. And often, their crimes escalate.

So perhaps just keeping child molestors in prison for life is not such a bad idea.