The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Megan's Laws - Out of Control?
galenblade
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, this was kind of a thought provoking article in the Economist this week. Basically, it posits that due to political and societal pressure, so-called "Megan's Laws" across the country have careened out of control, and are unjustly applied to people that it was never meant to apply to. The social stigma associated with it, and the repressive laws that then govern your life afterwards can be devastating to your social and financial well-being.
And the rub is that there's no real way for a representative to take on this system, as defending "sex offenders" is pretty much political suicide.
Some choice bits from the article:
674,000 registered sex offenders in the US - More than the population of Wyoming, Vermont, or North Dakota.
So what do you think? Are these laws too harsh? And what (if anything) can be done to make them more fair, given the political climate?
And the rub is that there's no real way for a representative to take on this system, as defending "sex offenders" is pretty much political suicide.
Some choice bits from the article:
674,000 registered sex offenders in the US - More than the population of Wyoming, Vermont, or North Dakota.
According to Human Rights Watch, at least five states require registration for people who visit prostitutes, 29 require it for consensual sex between young teenagers and 32 require it for indecent exposure. Some prosecutors are now stretching the definition of “distributing child pornography†to include teens who text half-naked photos of themselves to their friends.
Budgets are tight. Georgia’s sheriffs complain that they have been given no extra money or manpower to help them keep the huge and swelling sex-offenders’ registry up to date or to police its confusing mass of rules. Terry Norris of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association cites a man who was convicted of statutory rape two decades ago for having consensual sex with his high-school sweetheart, to whom he is now married. “It doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make him a threat to anybody,†says Mr Norris. “We spend the same amount of time on that guy as on someone who’s done something heinous.â€
Publicising sex offenders’ addresses makes them vulnerable to vigilantism. In April 2006, for example, a vigilante shot and killed two sex offenders in Maine after finding their addresses on the registry. One of the victims had been convicted of having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 19.
Several studies suggest that making it harder for sex offenders to find a home or a job makes them more likely to reoffend. Gwenda Willis and Randolph Grace of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, for example, found that the lack of a place to live was “significantly related to sexual recidivismâ€.
So what do you think? Are these laws too harsh? And what (if anything) can be done to make them more fair, given the political climate?
galenblade on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Man, am I lucky that my then girlfriend's parent's liked me, or this could have been me.
Consensual sex between two 14 year olds, while gross, should not completely ruin both kids lives (unless they get pregnant of course) just because they "had sex with a minor."
I'm not really sure how great an idea the sex offender registery was. I know they are sex offenders and that makes me as angry as anyone else, but after they've served their time (if they even make it through prison without being shived) they do deserve to be given their privacy back. People knowing where they live is just putting gas on a fire.
I think ultimately technology is moving faster than lawmakers can keep up. I imagine there is going to be some pretty big shift in many laws, not just sex offender ones, and that right now we are feeling the growing pains of that.
A lot of it strikes me like 3-strikes laws. It makes sense politically, but in practice it's rather inane.
Suffice to say that it isn't going to change anytime soon though, yeah. The only way I could see it happening is if it gets lumped into some other huge prison reform bill or something like that.
Duh! iPhone app.
God knows, we aren't scared enough in this country.
Megan's Laws force sex offenders to live in remote locations, outside urban boundaries, far away from police departments and medical/psychiatric services. They make it difficult or impossible for the parolee to get a job.
Basically, they drive these people to live out in trailers and cabins, squat in shacks, get apartments with assumed names, and otherwise disappear off of the social radar. This makes it more likely that they'll reoffend, not less.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This is exactly right. These databases basically have no information about what kind of crime was committed, so how do you know who are the real bad people and who gave somebody a BJ when they were 17?
There should definitely also be some kind of time-limit on these databases - if you don't commit another crime in 5 years or whatever then you're taken off the list.
This seems pretty reasonable:
Every word of this is excellent.
Piling social ostracization on top of the exile from one's family and friends won't help a sick individual the help he or she needs.
Anyway, she recently found out that he never followed his dream of becoming a teacher. Why? Because he was once busted for soliciting homosexual sex from another adult during a police raid of a gay bar in the 1960s.
Gay men who were busted under homophobic anti-sodomy laws in California are exempt from registration under California state law, but not all states are quite so tolerant of homosexuality. Since the bust happened in another state, he had to register there in the 1980s. Consequently, he came up as a Megan's Law registree in criminal background checks.
At the very least, there should be exemptions in all states for gay men who were busted under archaic anti-sodomy laws, as well as minors were were busted for statutory rape for having sex with other minors.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
For anyone who watches Scrubs, theres an episode where Janitor follows Dr Cox to the park to photograph him not taking brilliant care of his son. During this he takes photos of a young girl. I can't help but think every time I see that scene that Janitor would be in jail and/or beaten up by parents at the park who think hes a pervert.
So yes, myspace is totally out of control.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
The US recidivism rate is about that, but this passage implies that it could be higher. If true, worrying.
This all day long.
The US justice system claims that incarceration is both rehabilitation and a warning for people considering criminal activities. If the terms of sentence for a sex offense are really rehabilitating then there is no logical need for a registry. The existence of the registry, then, is either a legalized witch hunt or an admission that the system does not work. If it's a witch hunt then it needs to be stopped; if it's an admission of a broken system then the system needs to change.
In South Carolina public indecency is a sufficient crime to warrant placement on the sex offender registry. Urinating in public is considered public indecency. So if you get drunk and pee in an alley on your way home or you go behind a tree in your back yard and you get caught, sex offender town for you. It's ridiculous. And it's a horrible quagmire because, as other posters have said, there is no way to get back out of this rabbit hole once you've jumped down it. As soon as a sex offense law is passed it may as well be graven into the foundation of city hall for all that any politician is ever going to come within a country mile of challenging it.
There was a big, long, occasionally heated thread on here a while back about a girl who was potentially going to be sentenced for child pornography after posting pictures of herself on myspace. Whether you think that's right or not, I can't think of any possible justification for the punishment to follow her for the rest of her life as a dot on an iPhone app saying "PREDATOR HERE! FLEE!"
Just this passage alone is awfully vague though. What were their offenses and situations? A serial rapist reoffending is quite a bit different from a guy who had sex with his girlfriend in highschool and then 12 years later got drunk and pissed behind a tree.
Even someone who actually did do something terrible but didn't have a proper support system in place is much different.
And even at 24%, isn't that still way lower than the recidivism rate for other crimes? (This is one of those "I thought I read it somewhere" things, so I could be wrong on that)
The LA Weekly did an article on this subject awhile back. The statute that was used to convict gay men pre-1975 still exists, but it now only applies to child molesation and rape. Gay men convicted under those old laws are still winding up on the sex offender registry here in California, and as the article notes, getting off the registry is "a nightmare".
Which raises questions of double jeopardy.
It would be nice if someone managed to get all the various politicians who keep ratcheting up sex offender laws on the registry because they pissed in an alley after a ball game or got caught with a prostitute. You'd figure that might change some of their views toward actually solving the criminal justice system.
Not much.
Considering she was murdered after being brutally raped, I'm thinking we will never know.
*edit*
SO SLOWWWWWWWW!
For that matter, how many of them were virgins on their 18th birthday?
Statisticly, damn near everyone is a sex offender. They just haven't been prosecuted yet.
Well. apparently roughly half of highschoolers report having had sex. That's self-reported though, I bet the real figure is higher.
Have no fear, Judgement is here!
And I brought Candy!
For anyone who suffers from the TL;DR bug, the basic story is that 2 boys were put on the sex offender registery...when they were 10 and 12. They've grown up now, and the one they sexually assualted(their sister...EWW!) says she forgave them. But they are still registered sex offenders.
I'm not justifying their actions, but they were 10 and 12. I don't think it was nessecary to put them on a list with rapists and child molesters.
Or lower, if you wanted to be cool.
Also, not to sure polls are the most reliable sources of information becuase you can lie pretty easily on one(depending on how its done, that is).
It seems that this illustrates a serious flaw in the political system that there is no outlet for addressing these kinds of issues.
This sounds like a job for an activist judge.
most needed superhero evar
But conservative judges are the only ones that get to be activist without being lambasted for it, and no conservative judge is going to want to do anything sensible with "tough on crime" legislation.
I mean you can't realistically have a guy come up and admit he got slapped with a statutory because his girlfriend was 17 and he was 18. People will lynch him. The lack of a public face for these individuals is what's hurting them. Police officals coming up and saying "Monitoring these people is wasting your money and preventing us from watching the truly dangerous individuals" would be a massive boon to them.