In addition to the political suicide of trying to tone down enforcement of sex crime laws, there is also the rage and horror of any parent out there who reads about a little girl who was coaxed into a house with a puppy and then raped and beaten to death and dumped in a park. That is a collective emotional force that has little to equal it or counterbalance it.
It seems the only way to change these laws is to have more police departments speak up about the money and time involved in policing people who aren't actually sex offenders.
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.
Approaching it from a resources standpoint will just get the law enforcement budget increased. No one will ever win the argument against "think of the kids" because even if only one kid is saved by the sex offenders list, most people will consider that kid's safety to be more important than the rights of every sex offender that ever gets on the list until the end of time.
In addition to the political suicide of trying to tone down enforcement of sex crime laws, there is also the rage and horror of any parent out there who reads about a little girl who was coaxed into a house with a puppy and then raped and beaten to death and dumped in a park. That is a collective emotional force that has little to equal it or counterbalance it.
Except that all the 'tough on crime' bullshit is making those incidents more likely rather than less likely thanks to muddying the water.
Which is probably the only way to fix it. Being even more 'tough on crime' but managing to slip 'smart' in there at some point too. Or slip tweaks into the intermittent bills that lengthen the mandatory minimums further.
It seems the only way to change these laws is to have more police departments speak up about the money and time involved in policing people who aren't actually sex offenders.
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.
It would probably help a lot if we could come up for a new term for these sorts of "minor sex crimes" that doesn't have the word "sex crime" in it. Maybe something like "morality laws" could take the emotional sting out of it.
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.
Jeffrey Dahmer began experimenting with dissecting and dissolving dead animals around age 10. He exposed himself in front of his upstairs bedroom window to people on the street as a teenager.
While yeah, there's a difference between a kid curious about sex and a kid exhibiting behaviors that are going to lead to something far, far worse, lawmakers are stuck in the catch-22 of if they don't punish someone who then grows up to be a murdering cannibal everyone wants to know why they weren't caught sooner, but if they do punish the person everyone wants to know why they overreacted.
It seems the only way to change these laws is to have more police departments speak up about the money and time involved in policing people who aren't actually sex offenders.
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.
It would probably help a lot if we could come up for a new term for these sorts of "minor sex crimes" that doesn't have the word "sex crime" in it. Maybe something like "morality laws" could take the emotional sting out of it.
Honestly? Two 14 year olds having sex for the first time shouldn't be labeled a crime period. A mistake possibly but not a crime.
I do agree making these minor ( arguably inconsequential) offenses into a different type of offense would be helpful.
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
It seems the only way to change these laws is to have more police departments speak up about the money and time involved in policing people who aren't actually sex offenders.
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.
Approaching it from a resources standpoint will just get the law enforcement budget increased. No one will ever win the argument against "think of the kids" because even if only one kid is saved by the sex offenders list, most people will consider that kid's safety to be more important than the rights of every sex offender that ever gets on the list until the end of time.
Another problem with all of this is that many people equate "sex offender" and "pedophile"
I think if we are going to have a sex offender list, private or public, it should only have heinous criminals on it.
When you have sex offender lists and terrorist watch lists ballooning to half a million or more names you're not accomplishing anything.
If you have a good reason to suspect someone might commit a serious crime, be it rape or blowing up a subway, then put their name on a list, but make sure you're not wasting everyone's time and money.
I read this article this week, pretty horrible stuff. Especially, as the Economist reports, this concept of law/database etc is spreading - back home in NZ there is serious debate about bringing in a 3 strikes law, long after the concept has been proven to be badly flawed in the US and elsewhere. I have no faith that the parliament won't pull similar shit regarding sex offender databases.
Another scary thing we have in the UK is the "enhanced" CRB (Criminal Record) check for those who wish to work with children or vulnerable adults (say those in rest homes). It not only looks at your normal criminal record, like say convictions, it also can include other things that the Chief Constable (head of large police district) deems relevant to the area of work - but exactly what isn't codified, so it can include pretty random stuff which the person in question has very little ability to access or remedy if wrong or irrelevant. Things that have been included in such enhanced records are cautions or allegations lodged with that police force.
The real question here is, how can you go about changing laws that it is politically impossible to be against?
It seems that this illustrates a serious flaw in the political system that there is no outlet for addressing these kinds of issues.
You might be able to make a constitutional challenge on many of these laws on a "cruel and unusual punishment" argument. A lifetime on a sexual offender registry for peeing in an alley seems to fit the criteria.
The real question here is, how can you go about changing laws that it is politically impossible to be against?
It seems that this illustrates a serious flaw in the political system that there is no outlet for addressing these kinds of issues.
You might be able to make a constitutional challenge on many of these laws on a "cruel and unusual punishment" argument. A lifetime on a sexual offender registry for peeing in an alley seems to fit the criteria.
I'm still not sure how that's a sexual offense. Public Lewdness yeah but unless they're reliveing themselves on a bound and gagged woman I fail to see the sexual nature of the crime.
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
The real question here is, how can you go about changing laws that it is politically impossible to be against?
It seems that this illustrates a serious flaw in the political system that there is no outlet for addressing these kinds of issues.
You might be able to make a constitutional challenge on many of these laws on a "cruel and unusual punishment" argument. A lifetime on a sexual offender registry for peeing in an alley seems to fit the criteria.
I think that some of the larger residence restrictions were challenged on those grounds (in Iowa maybe?) but didn't fly with one of the higher courts.
I read this article this week, pretty horrible stuff. Especially, as the Economist reports, this concept of law/database etc is spreading - back home in NZ there is serious debate about bringing in a 3 strikes law, long after the concept has been proven to be badly flawed in the US and elsewhere. I have no faith that the parliament won't pull similar shit regarding sex offender databases.
Another problem with all of this is that many people equate "sex offender" and "pedophile"
This is one thing which really bugs me.
Every single bit of sex offender enforcement is clearly geared towards keeping "pedophiles", even though there are likely a lot of people who just had sex with stupid teenagers, maybe while even a teenager him/herself, away from children. Even though most actual child molesters go after relatives, not random kids in the park.
So the entire concept is flawed but even ignoring that. There's still the weird fact that so many crimes that get you on the sex offender list aren't even sexual.
Why does public pissing put you on the pedo-list? Who's bright idea was that and where can I punch them?
The real question here is, how can you go about changing laws that it is politically impossible to be against?
It seems that this illustrates a serious flaw in the political system that there is no outlet for addressing these kinds of issues.
You might be able to make a constitutional challenge on many of these laws on a "cruel and unusual punishment" argument. A lifetime on a sexual offender registry for peeing in an alley seems to fit the criteria.
I'm still not sure how that's a sexual offense. Public Lewdness yeah but unless they're reliveing themselves on a bound and gagged woman I fail to see the sexual nature of the crime.
Another problem with all of this is that many people equate "sex offender" and "pedophile"
This is one thing which really bugs me.
Every single bit of sex offender enforcement is clearly geared towards keeping "pedophiles", even though there are likely a lot of people who just had sex with stupid teenagers, maybe while even a teenager him/herself, away from children. Even though most actual child molesters go after relatives, not random kids in the park.
So the entire concept is flawed but even ignoring that. There's still the weird fact that so many crimes that get you on the sex offender list aren't even sexual.
Why does public pissing put you on the pedo-list? Who's bright idea was that and where can I punch them?
It seems the only way to change these laws is to have more police departments speak up about the money and time involved in policing people who aren't actually sex offenders.
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.
It would probably help a lot if we could come up for a new term for these sorts of "minor sex crimes" that doesn't have the word "sex crime" in it. Maybe something like "morality laws" could take the emotional sting out of it.
I just came up with a pretty good phrase (at least I think so, feel free to knock me down a couple of pegs)
It seems the only way to change these laws is to have more police departments speak up about the money and time involved in policing people who aren't actually sex offenders.
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.
It would probably help a lot if we could come up for a new term for these sorts of "minor sex crimes" that doesn't have the word "sex crime" in it. Maybe something like "morality laws" could take the emotional sting out of it.
I just came up with a pretty good phrase (at least I think so, feel free to knock me down a couple of pegs)
Scarlet. Letter. Laws.
This presumes that A, people have read the Scarlet Letter and B, remember it and took it as meaning social stigma is bad.
I'm not sure if politicians, or even the population as a whole, would not be in favour of requiring people wear actual scarlet letters.
It seems the only way to change these laws is to have more police departments speak up about the money and time involved in policing people who aren't actually sex offenders.
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.
It would probably help a lot if we could come up for a new term for these sorts of "minor sex crimes" that doesn't have the word "sex crime" in it. Maybe something like "morality laws" could take the emotional sting out of it.
I just came up with a pretty good phrase (at least I think so, feel free to knock me down a couple of pegs)
Scarlet. Letter. Laws.
This presumes that A, people have read the Scarlet Letter and B, remember it and took it as meaning social stigma is bad.
I'm not sure if politicians, or even the population as a whole, would not be in favour of requiring people wear actual scarlet letters.
There were bills up for discussion in a few states to require sex offenders to have special license plates a couple of years back.
When you cant take pictures of your own kids because the photo might include other kids, yes, the law has gotten out of hand.
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.
I know EXACTLY the scene you are talking about.
Also, isn't that situation not helped by the fact that I'm pretty sure hes wearing a over/trench coat.
Megan's law is really dumb. How anybody can say it is constitutional is beyond me, let alone a good law.
I have a son. I worry about him like any other mother. But I know the guy down the block who visited a prostitute once is less dangerous to my son than a car ride to school. There are far too many people on the list, and I don't know why these people have to go on a list when even more dangerous criminals do not. Why not have a list of people who have committed manslaughter? Battery? Arson? Murder? Non-sex crimes against kids, adults,animals, particularly intelligent plants?
MulysaSempronius on
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
I'm still trying to rap my mind around a judge or jury or whoever that would actually convict a sixteen year old for having sex with a fifteen year old consensually and getting put on the list. Even if the person was eighteen or nineteen it still doesn't make much sense. Or two fourteen year olds. Or the stupid sexting thing in alot of cases. I mean, haven't these judges ever heard of intent of the law, instead of letter of the law?
The sex offender list in the US is an incredibly fucked up concept, architected deliberately to try and promote vigilante justice and rigidly enforce community standards over provide an actual public service. I mean what possible use does having a list that includes everything except what crime you were convicted of (and its context) serve?
There is no value in it, other then to let you put people on it for completely mundane crimes and ruin their lives. Its sole use as far as I can tell is not to inform and protect the community, but rather to ensure that teenage sexuality is aggressively discouraged thanks to wildly differing age of consent laws which have no leeway for relative age differences.
yeah, when I think of sex offender I used to think it meant rapists and pedos.
But it turns out if you don't take a plea bargain you could end up on the list for public nudity.
YA lifetime on a sexual offender registry for peeing in an alley seems to fit the criteria.
I'm still not sure how that's a sexual offense. Public Lewdness yeah but unless they're reliveing themselves on a bound and gagged woman I fail to see the sexual nature of the crime.
Exposed genitals. See above.
So if you're on a drive with your kid and they need to go now, you better find a restroom real quick or you're a pedophile for exposing your kid in public. That said, I can't decide if it's you or the kid (or both) who'd go on the sex offender list.
I'm still trying to rap my mind around a judge or jury or whoever that would actually convict a sixteen year old for having sex with a fifteen year old consensually and getting put on the list. Even if the person was eighteen or nineteen it still doesn't make much sense. Or two fourteen year olds. Or the stupid sexting thing in alot of cases. I mean, haven't these judges ever heard of intent of the law, instead of letter of the law?
This is America, where the public outcry over the "Wardrobe Malfunction" at the super bowl lasted for months. These judges are most likely old, conservative and religious, and want to punish those committing the crime of pre-marital sex. Remember, this is the country where noone bleeds in comics/cartoons and exposed mammaries lands your movie a NC-17 rating, yet a movie depicting someome getting their head blasted to bits with a shotgun is fine for 12-year olds
I'm still trying to rap my mind around a judge or jury or whoever that would actually convict a sixteen year old for having sex with a fifteen year old consensually and getting put on the list. Even if the person was eighteen or nineteen it still doesn't make much sense. Or two fourteen year olds. Or the stupid sexting thing in alot of cases. I mean, haven't these judges ever heard of intent of the law, instead of letter of the law?
I'm sure the judges have heard of it. More and more the intent of the law does not matter. The judge does not get to determine what the prosecutor charges the defendant with, and because of thing like mandatory sentencing and addition to the list, they don't necessarily have a whole lot of say about what happens after a verdict is found.
Legislators, with the goal of appeasing frightened soccer-moms and security-dad, have tied the hands of judges. They are no longer trusted to make rational decision in a lot of cases and are strictly required to follow the letter of the law. We don't trust judges to judge anymore.
edit: also wrap
redx on
They moistly come out at night, moistly.
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
edited August 2009
The sex offender registry is a nightmare, a total farce
it is a good idea, but a decent team could come up with a far better alternative to teh current system within a day
The Black Hunter on
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
edited August 2009
My only hope for the future is that so many people will be on the sex offender register that it will be like it never existed and we can try again
The real question here is, how can you go about changing laws that it is politically impossible to be against?
It seems that this illustrates a serious flaw in the political system that there is no outlet for addressing these kinds of issues.
In a sane society, it'd be enough for a politician to clearly state that nobody likes a sex offender, but we need to be clearer on what makes person one, and we need to think out the laws regarding them more.
Unfortunately, America's politics are poisonous as fuck so questioning anything in current standing would likely get a politician labeled as being for having sex with little kids.
Maybe after the older generation helping plague our society in this way passes on, we'll be able to face this issue. Make the big changes. Public indecency isn't being a sex offender (unless you're like raping someone in public). Having sex with someone you know or were in highschool with isn't a qualifier if you're 18 and they're not (I thought this would be an easy one; it's fucking reasonable that people would know someone 1 or 2 years younger than them in this case). Establishing new or constantly changing guidelines for sex offenders isn't okay, especially if unreasonable even for scum. And as was said, the automatic connection of sex offender to pedophile needs to change. Though that's mostly because of the unfortunate circumstances people get labeled as a sex offender for.
yeah, when I think of sex offender I used to think it meant rapists and pedos.
But it turns out if you don't take a plea bargain you could end up on the list for public nudity.
Public nudity == Flashing == Sex Offender!
I'm under the impression that while public nudity is a sex offense, it is of Class 1 type. I believe only Class 2 and Class 3 land your name on The List.
That being said, I'm super unconfortable with the government keeping a public list of "undesirables" with addresses and photos. (Except, obviously, for fugitives. But those haven't served their time yet.)
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
The real question here is, how can you go about changing laws that it is politically impossible to be against?
It seems that this illustrates a serious flaw in the political system that there is no outlet for addressing these kinds of issues.
You might be able to make a constitutional challenge on many of these laws on a "cruel and unusual punishment" argument. A lifetime on a sexual offender registry for peeing in an alley seems to fit the criteria.
I had a discussion with a friend about these things a while back and we both agreed that an 8th Amendment challenge is the only viable way to get these things overturned and, even then, it isn't that viable.
The problem is that you either have to have an offender with VERY deep pockets (unlikely) or get a civil liberties organisation (like the ACLU) to support you, but since organisations like the ACLU depend on donations, they'd probably even be sort of wary of taking a case defending a "sexual predator".
But, barring those two obstacles, you need to find someone like the man in the OP who is on the list because he had sex with his high school sweetheart to whom he is no married and he needs to be arrested for something that is completely innocuous, like perhaps taking his kid to school.
If you get a guy like that who is arrested under these laws for taking his own kid to school whom he had with the very girl he committed a "sexual crime" against and is now happily married to, then you would have a damned good case for overturning it on the basis of it being "cruel and unusual" punishment.
yeah, when I think of sex offender I used to think it meant rapists and pedos.
But it turns out if you don't take a plea bargain you could end up on the list for public nudity.
Public nudity == Flashing == Sex Offender!
I'm under the impression that while public nudity is a sex offense, it is of Class 1 type. I believe only Class 2 and Class 3 land your name on The List.
That being said, I'm super unconfortable with the government keeping a public list of "undesirables" with addresses and photos. (Except, obviously, for fugitives. But those haven't served their time yet.)
Depends on the state. In Boulder, there's an annual tradition called the Pumpkin Run, where people streak down Pearl Street Mall (where Mork and Mindy took place!) naked except for a pumpkin on their head on Halloween night at around midnight. Last Halloween, the Boulder police were waiting at the traditional end point of the run and basically arrested a dozen or so of the participants. The crime they were charged with was Public Indecency and a conviction would land them on the sex offenders lists.
yeah, when I think of sex offender I used to think it meant rapists and pedos.
But it turns out if you don't take a plea bargain you could end up on the list for public nudity.
Public nudity == Flashing == Sex Offender!
I'm under the impression that while public nudity is a sex offense, it is of Class 1 type. I believe only Class 2 and Class 3 land your name on The List.
That being said, I'm super unconfortable with the government keeping a public list of "undesirables" with addresses and photos. (Except, obviously, for fugitives. But those haven't served their time yet.)
Depends on the state. In Boulder, there's an annual tradition called the Pumpkin Run, where people streak down Pearl Street Mall (where Mork and Mindy took place!) naked except for a pumpkin on their head on Halloween night at around midnight. Last Halloween, the Boulder police were waiting at the traditional end point of the run and basically arrested a dozen or so of the participants. The crime they were charged with was Public Indecency and a conviction would land them on the sex offenders lists.
They also gave them ample warning. I belive the PD gave a public statement saying "yeah we know the run is going to happen and its fine, but if we see any junk/vag your getting arrested" Gstrings are cool though.
They also gave them ample warning. I belive the PD gave a public statement saying "yeah we know the run is going to happen and its fine, but if we see any junk/vag your getting arrested" Gstrings are cool though.
That doesn't make it right. If i the police warn you that eating wheat on a sunday is a crime, that doesn't absolve them of the sin arresting you for it.
They also gave them ample warning. I belive the PD gave a public statement saying "yeah we know the run is going to happen and its fine, but if we see any junk/vag your getting arrested" Gstrings are cool though.
That doesn't make it right. If i the police warn you that eating wheat on a sunday is a crime, that doesn't absolve them of the sin arresting you for it.
They also gave them ample warning. I belive the PD gave a public statement saying "yeah we know the run is going to happen and its fine, but if we see any junk/vag your getting arrested" Gstrings are cool though.
That doesn't make it right. If i the police warn you that eating wheat on a sunday is a crime, that doesn't absolve them of the sin arresting you for it.
Does breaking the law being a tradition make it less criminal?
Legal and illegal don't always correspond with right and wrong, respectively.
I love America! Nowhere else can public urination be construed as sexual. I thought that was strictly the realm of ze Germans.
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Approaching it from a resources standpoint will just get the law enforcement budget increased. No one will ever win the argument against "think of the kids" because even if only one kid is saved by the sex offenders list, most people will consider that kid's safety to be more important than the rights of every sex offender that ever gets on the list until the end of time.
Except that all the 'tough on crime' bullshit is making those incidents more likely rather than less likely thanks to muddying the water.
Which is probably the only way to fix it. Being even more 'tough on crime' but managing to slip 'smart' in there at some point too. Or slip tweaks into the intermittent bills that lengthen the mandatory minimums further.
While yeah, there's a difference between a kid curious about sex and a kid exhibiting behaviors that are going to lead to something far, far worse, lawmakers are stuck in the catch-22 of if they don't punish someone who then grows up to be a murdering cannibal everyone wants to know why they weren't caught sooner, but if they do punish the person everyone wants to know why they overreacted.
Honestly? Two 14 year olds having sex for the first time shouldn't be labeled a crime period. A mistake possibly but not a crime.
I do agree making these minor ( arguably inconsequential) offenses into a different type of offense would be helpful.
Another problem with all of this is that many people equate "sex offender" and "pedophile"
But it turns out if you don't take a plea bargain you could end up on the list for public nudity.
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/05/11/aclu-fights-for-public-nudity/
I think if we are going to have a sex offender list, private or public, it should only have heinous criminals on it.
When you have sex offender lists and terrorist watch lists ballooning to half a million or more names you're not accomplishing anything.
If you have a good reason to suspect someone might commit a serious crime, be it rape or blowing up a subway, then put their name on a list, but make sure you're not wasting everyone's time and money.
Another scary thing we have in the UK is the "enhanced" CRB (Criminal Record) check for those who wish to work with children or vulnerable adults (say those in rest homes). It not only looks at your normal criminal record, like say convictions, it also can include other things that the Chief Constable (head of large police district) deems relevant to the area of work - but exactly what isn't codified, so it can include pretty random stuff which the person in question has very little ability to access or remedy if wrong or irrelevant. Things that have been included in such enhanced records are cautions or allegations lodged with that police force.
You might be able to make a constitutional challenge on many of these laws on a "cruel and unusual punishment" argument. A lifetime on a sexual offender registry for peeing in an alley seems to fit the criteria.
I'm still not sure how that's a sexual offense. Public Lewdness yeah but unless they're reliveing themselves on a bound and gagged woman I fail to see the sexual nature of the crime.
I think that some of the larger residence restrictions were challenged on those grounds (in Iowa maybe?) but didn't fly with one of the higher courts.
Ah, Rodney... Blasted tactical voting.
This is one thing which really bugs me.
Every single bit of sex offender enforcement is clearly geared towards keeping "pedophiles", even though there are likely a lot of people who just had sex with stupid teenagers, maybe while even a teenager him/herself, away from children. Even though most actual child molesters go after relatives, not random kids in the park.
So the entire concept is flawed but even ignoring that. There's still the weird fact that so many crimes that get you on the sex offender list aren't even sexual.
Why does public pissing put you on the pedo-list? Who's bright idea was that and where can I punch them?
Because of where the urine comes out of.
What Pata said made sense but ... SEX OFFENDER!!!
Crazy folks with a million lewd pics rile the public up into a frenzy.
I just came up with a pretty good phrase (at least I think so, feel free to knock me down a couple of pegs)
Scarlet. Letter. Laws.
This presumes that A, people have read the Scarlet Letter and B, remember it and took it as meaning social stigma is bad.
I'm not sure if politicians, or even the population as a whole, would not be in favour of requiring people wear actual scarlet letters.
I know EXACTLY the scene you are talking about.
Also, isn't that situation not helped by the fact that I'm pretty sure hes wearing a over/trench coat.
I have a son. I worry about him like any other mother. But I know the guy down the block who visited a prostitute once is less dangerous to my son than a car ride to school. There are far too many people on the list, and I don't know why these people have to go on a list when even more dangerous criminals do not. Why not have a list of people who have committed manslaughter? Battery? Arson? Murder? Non-sex crimes against kids, adults,animals, particularly intelligent plants?
There is no value in it, other then to let you put people on it for completely mundane crimes and ruin their lives. Its sole use as far as I can tell is not to inform and protect the community, but rather to ensure that teenage sexuality is aggressively discouraged thanks to wildly differing age of consent laws which have no leeway for relative age differences.
Exposed genitals. See above.
So if you're on a drive with your kid and they need to go now, you better find a restroom real quick or you're a pedophile for exposing your kid in public. That said, I can't decide if it's you or the kid (or both) who'd go on the sex offender list.
This is America, where the public outcry over the "Wardrobe Malfunction" at the super bowl lasted for months. These judges are most likely old, conservative and religious, and want to punish those committing the crime of pre-marital sex. Remember, this is the country where noone bleeds in comics/cartoons and exposed mammaries lands your movie a NC-17 rating, yet a movie depicting someome getting their head blasted to bits with a shotgun is fine for 12-year olds
I'm sure the judges have heard of it. More and more the intent of the law does not matter. The judge does not get to determine what the prosecutor charges the defendant with, and because of thing like mandatory sentencing and addition to the list, they don't necessarily have a whole lot of say about what happens after a verdict is found.
Legislators, with the goal of appeasing frightened soccer-moms and security-dad, have tied the hands of judges. They are no longer trusted to make rational decision in a lot of cases and are strictly required to follow the letter of the law. We don't trust judges to judge anymore.
edit: also wrap
it is a good idea, but a decent team could come up with a far better alternative to teh current system within a day
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
In a sane society, it'd be enough for a politician to clearly state that nobody likes a sex offender, but we need to be clearer on what makes person one, and we need to think out the laws regarding them more.
Unfortunately, America's politics are poisonous as fuck so questioning anything in current standing would likely get a politician labeled as being for having sex with little kids.
Maybe after the older generation helping plague our society in this way passes on, we'll be able to face this issue. Make the big changes. Public indecency isn't being a sex offender (unless you're like raping someone in public). Having sex with someone you know or were in highschool with isn't a qualifier if you're 18 and they're not (I thought this would be an easy one; it's fucking reasonable that people would know someone 1 or 2 years younger than them in this case). Establishing new or constantly changing guidelines for sex offenders isn't okay, especially if unreasonable even for scum. And as was said, the automatic connection of sex offender to pedophile needs to change. Though that's mostly because of the unfortunate circumstances people get labeled as a sex offender for.
I'm under the impression that while public nudity is a sex offense, it is of Class 1 type. I believe only Class 2 and Class 3 land your name on The List.
That being said, I'm super unconfortable with the government keeping a public list of "undesirables" with addresses and photos. (Except, obviously, for fugitives. But those haven't served their time yet.)
Yeah, this
Child predators, straight up rapists and so on
through and through sexual offenders
But Peeing in a bush?
I had a discussion with a friend about these things a while back and we both agreed that an 8th Amendment challenge is the only viable way to get these things overturned and, even then, it isn't that viable.
The problem is that you either have to have an offender with VERY deep pockets (unlikely) or get a civil liberties organisation (like the ACLU) to support you, but since organisations like the ACLU depend on donations, they'd probably even be sort of wary of taking a case defending a "sexual predator".
But, barring those two obstacles, you need to find someone like the man in the OP who is on the list because he had sex with his high school sweetheart to whom he is no married and he needs to be arrested for something that is completely innocuous, like perhaps taking his kid to school.
If you get a guy like that who is arrested under these laws for taking his own kid to school whom he had with the very girl he committed a "sexual crime" against and is now happily married to, then you would have a damned good case for overturning it on the basis of it being "cruel and unusual" punishment.
Depends on the state. In Boulder, there's an annual tradition called the Pumpkin Run, where people streak down Pearl Street Mall (where Mork and Mindy took place!) naked except for a pumpkin on their head on Halloween night at around midnight. Last Halloween, the Boulder police were waiting at the traditional end point of the run and basically arrested a dozen or so of the participants. The crime they were charged with was Public Indecency and a conviction would land them on the sex offenders lists.
I think you misread me. Even if the registry was composed of only real sex offenders, it still would be a bad idea.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
That poor bush is going to be traumatized for life!
They also gave them ample warning. I belive the PD gave a public statement saying "yeah we know the run is going to happen and its fine, but if we see any junk/vag your getting arrested" Gstrings are cool though.
That doesn't make it right. If i the police warn you that eating wheat on a sunday is a crime, that doesn't absolve them of the sin arresting you for it.
Does breaking the law being a tradition make it less criminal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzjXRreGTAo
Legal and illegal don't always correspond with right and wrong, respectively.
I love America! Nowhere else can public urination be construed as sexual. I thought that was strictly the realm of ze Germans.