The law of unintended consequences
... or the unintended consequence of law.
A young man, only 24, is put on one of the sex offender registries for "sexually abusing a minor, which apparently stemmed from having sex with his teenage girlfriend". No mention of how old the conviction is, because these registries are for life. His name gets published, and ...some guy with a mad on ( Read more... )
A young man, only 24, is put on one of the sex offender registries for "sexually abusing a minor, which apparently stemmed from having sex with his teenage girlfriend". No mention of how old the conviction is, because these registries are for life. His name gets published, and ...some guy with a mad on ( Read more... )
I've watched CourtTV where they had specials about neighborhoods "coping" with sex offenders living near them, and these people all sound like paranoid, dillusional freaks. They won't let their kids play outside, and if they live in the house next to the offender, they'll cardboard up their windows so he can't see in.
Granted, this -is- TV we're talking about, so they're going to find extreme cases, but c'mon. This is just uncalled for. All court proceedings are a matter of public record, so if someone moves into your neighborhood it's the responsibility of anyone who is concerned to look up anything on these people. The information shouldn't be broadcast since it's already available to anyone who's curious. All the sex offender list does is get's parents off the backs of the authorities when something happens to children, and it should not be a tool to pass blame when people are being assaulted, harassed and evidently killed due to a crime they commited and already did their time over.
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Anyway, like sexual perdators, "time served" is NOT the same as "rehabilitated" You can castrate a rapist, and this will not always change their behavior. It's not the testes or the penis that cause rape, it's the brain. Judging by what I've heard and read, the same is true for child molestering.
Ideally, Parents should get a packet in the mail upon conception: "Important numbers for you. page 36, how to spot the child molesters" But we're not there yet.. Hell, IDEALLY, people should have to get a license to breed, but no dice. Or, Televisions could do what thei do in the military and run constant public service announcements.. "For a list of sexual offenders in your neighborhood, go to www.whobangedmykids.com ... . net" But public service anouncements don't pay NEARLY as much as Coca Cola ads..
The world does the best it can, which isn't entirely good just yet, but we're tryin'. should a post adolescent transgression haunt someone till the end of their days? Naaaah. there should be a system of evaluation in place to let us know if criminals are TRULY rehabilitated, and I'd like to think we're working toward that.. Until we get there, though, all we can do is fall back on our most backic nature:
If it's dangerous, don't do it, or accept the consequences.
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