Dean's World

As I've said many times, my main objection to the "sexual offender" registries is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that in their current form they do any good. There are so many "registered sex offenders" in any major metropolitan area, and the descriptions of what the offenders did so vague, they simply are not useful for protecting kids.

Mind you, if the lists were very specific, targeting people with a repeat pattern of going after children, the might be useful. But in their current form? They're a joke, and the only reason people support them is because it makes them feel safer, despite an absolute lack of evidence that they actually are safer.

Jack Levin has his head screwed on pretty well on this issue, and has a good op-ed explaining why the current system doesn't help anybody--and some suggestions for what might actually help: Keeping Children Safe From Sex Crimes.

I'd only add that it would make sense if we kept the registries, if the registries were restricted to people with an actual pattern of behavior or who are known to have issues with children.

Funny me, actually asking for common sense.

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Mark Noonan (mail) (www):

Registries are useless - if they register real sex offenders, then all we're doing is making the eventual headline "registered sex offender A was accused of rape", while if there are people on it who aren't sex offenders, then we've marked them indellibly for life.

There is one thing I've learned about rapists and child molestors - something in their mental make-up impells them to their crimes; there seems to be zero chance of ever changing them, and until science comes up with a 100%, verifiable cure for it, we're just going to have to lock such up for the rest of their lives...we can, upon good behaviour, eventually make their prison regime pretty light, but we can't ever afford to allow them back into a social mix which includes their potential victimes. If they are properly locked up forever, then we don't need to register them.

7.19.2005 6:05am

Cybrludite (mail) (www):

They're also handy for showing just how ghod-awfully FUGLY most hookers are. Makes you wonder just how desperate the Johns must be. Oy! (Note, I ever get that hard up, just shoot me...)

7.19.2005 7:27am

Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

I agree with the editorial. I'm very harsh on rapists and child molesters. I say they deserve to be locked up for life, most certainly if they commit such a crime a second time. "Two strikes and you're out" is the minimum of punishment I would tolerate. In my opinion, rape is one of the most heinous crimes one can commit, second only to murder or treason, and rapists must be punished most stringently. That's one main reason I've always been for arming women with guns, so they can defend themselves against rapists. If a rapist gets shot, I have no pity for him.

I'm absolutely against listing prostitutes on any list with rapists. Whatever you may think of prostitutes or prostitution (and I'm against it myself on religious grounds), it's not in any sense remotely in the same category as rape. Legally, I think it should be permitted in sequestered "red-light" districts away from residential areas, as Dean once suggested.

7.19.2005 12:27pm

M. Scott Eiland (mail):

IMO, the only reason not to dispose of duly (and, by duly, I mean really, really beyond a reasonable doubt--falsely accusing someone of child molestation is worse, IMO, than accusing them of murder) tried and convicted child molesters by shooting them in the back of the head and dumping them in the nearest ditch to rot is that the knowledge that this is what awaited them if they were caught might make them more likely to murder their victims to remove potential witnesses. As things stand, the sentence for child molestation should be 25 years to life, with any release being dependent on a complete psychiatric bill of health and an iron-clad directive to stay at least five hundred feet away from any children--preferably enforced with a cortex bomb.

7.19.2005 1:47pm

Dean Esmay:

All very emotional, but let me tell you a story.

When I was 13, I had a man hit on me hard, numerous times, up to and including feeling me up a few times. Yet he never forced me to do anything and always took "no" for an answer.

At the age of 15 I had a woman in her 40s do practically the same thing to me.

So. Bullet to the head for those people? 25 years to life? Funny, I don't hate either of them that much, so why do you?

It's all well and good to angrily fulminate--that after all is what gave us these all-but-useless sexual offender registries--but if you're actually talking about sentencing guidelines, easy answers aren't as easy to come by as some people think.

7.19.2005 3:59pm

In both cases you were a teenager, Dean--and as you note they took "no" for an answer. The first adult was a chickenhawk in the classic sense of the term--the second one would fall into a gray area for me: probably not a good idea, but not something I'd morally condemn unless actual coercion was involved. I'm talking about people who use force on prepubescent children--the kind of scum who snigger to themselves "eight is too late." They're the ones for whom any "mercy" I would direct at them is strictly pragmatic: if it could be done without otherwise causing harm they would merit nothing better than a bullet and an anonymous grave. Once adolescents are involved, the issues are less clear cut, though there are good reasons to protect adolescents with strong legal barriers, IMO the moral offense is less, particularly when there is no actual coercion involved.

7.20.2005 12:15am