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 don't know where I stand on this matter. I honestly don't. On the one hand, though, if I had kids, sure, I'd damn well wanna know who the child molesters are. On the other hand, though, I can't say that I obstained since I was 19, cause I didn't, and I sure as heck didn't want my parents knowing.. Of course, I was messing around with kids my own age up until then, so.. moot point..
Back on the first hand.. if a fully grown adult either can't get his rock off or has no opportunity to other than in some adolescent.. then something's wrong, imho. Some will say, "Love is love," But I've always wondered if nine times out of ten, love is much more than blinding hormones. sure, love exists.. it's what can make a couple wait until one partner is legal before the 2x as old senior takes the prostate plunge (I guess), but so many people use "love" as an excuse for a hard cock. Furthermore, in a society where, what 2/3's of marriages end in divorce, what the hell does love mean at all?
No, I think I'ma have to side with the status quo for the time being. I can't dictate love, I don't entirely believe that love knows bounds, but I DO believe that blood family, at LEAST until your psyche is fully developed, is (in the vast majority of cases) more important than flippant, adolescent romances. I do believe in the parents' right and responsibility to protect their offspring as they see fit, untill said offsprings' psyches are fully developed. or at VERY least they can competantly judge the potential effects of their actions. (What child REALLY understands the risk of STD's? And if a 37-year-old- is gonna poke a 16-year-old virgin, do you honestly think he's gonna be enclined to condom up? and really, when we were 16, gettin ready to trade salami.. were comdoms our first thought?)
I guess my point is.. most kids and adolescents need protection cause they are stupid, and parents are neutered in this society to protect them (otherwise we'd see MANY more such murders) God knows.. if I was a parent, and I found that some 40-year-old skumbad was using MY offspring to sate his libido, Fucker would be losing a few bits. So, yeah, The laws seem stupid and unfair, but they protect those guys who can't get a date their own age as well as the children they'd take advantge of, as well as the parents who are doing the best they know how to do.
People may not agree with the laws.. but if you don't wanna suffer the consequences, don't break the laws. You'd be hard pressed to find ANYONE in this nation who doesn't know that if you fuck a 12 year old.. your name's goin' on a list.
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What the tiger is trying to point out, is that people who end up on the Sex Offender lists are being targetted and in rare cases being murdered, simply because their name appears on the list. In the specific case of what the linked article is in regard to mentions that one of the people who were murdered was targetted randomly because his name appeared on the list when he was arrested and convicted for having sex with his teenage girlfriend, while he himself was a mere teenager. Unless this girl was only 13, he shouldn't have even been on the list to begin with, and it's not as though it's uncommon for, say, a high school senior to go out with and bed a freshman (talking upwards of a 4 year spead here, from 14 to 18.) Most likely he was arrested because the girl's parents freaked out and accused him of rape, which is an abuse of the system imo.
The original post is also to question the merits of having a Sex Offender list in the first place. You responded that parents need a way to keep informed of past molesters and rapists because there's seems to be a historically good chance that a prior offender will do so again. Well, again imo, that's a complete failure of our corrections system (please take note of that title...corrections system) and as a means to avoid responsibility for their own failures, our law enforcement officials shouldn't be posting people's private information (including their address, pictures, etc) on a public forum as a way to make people "aware" of things that they rightfully have served their time for - rehabilitated or not.
My point is that parents have the means to investigate people who have been convicted of any crime due to court proceedings being a matter of public record. If a parent was responsible and concerned, they'd look up someone new who moved into the neighborhood, or they'd ask around before they themselves moved into a neighborhood. Or, god forbid, they should actually take the responsibility to teach their children what to do and what not to do and how to react to a stranger or neighbor if they start to do things inappropriate.
The point is, there are methods to correct and prevent sexual abuse, but it's just too easy to make a list of everyone who's ever done anything even remotely considered to be a sexual offense and allow their privacy to be invaded and allow them to be villified by the community by plastering their name and face up as a "bad person" for all to see. That's wrong, period.
And just for a bit of background on myself, I would be on a Sex Offender list too if things had gone further legally back when I was in 7th grade because, as a joke, I pinched a girl just above her breast. I had no idea that what I did was considered sexual in any way, but before I knew it, I had police at the school, my parents, her parents and I was being charged with Criminal Sexual Misconduct. So tell me, is it justified for my personal information to be broadcast to the world and labelled as a "sex offender" for something like that?
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I agree that in a society with a working corrections system, we'd have no need for such a list, because dangerous predators would be either removed from the public or rehabilitated. However, that's just not our system.
There's a lot that I could say to support the merits of such an offender list, but I know I'll never convert you to my way of thinking, and I respect diversity- thus is one of the good points of our system.
I will say this, though, being added to the list is part of the sentencing.. Therefore, "time served" does not apply, because it's ultimately a life sentence.
As for kids in Highschool, I do believe that such marks are purged from a minor's file at age 21. Not sure how it works in all states, but it's to my understanding that minors' records are sealed. Should a 7th grader be hounded and marked as a predator for a pinch prank? No, I think that's excessive, and I'd hope that it would be ruled against by a judge / jury. However, we as a community, society and nation have set the system up that tolerates such harsh legal ramifications for juvenile behavior. if we want that to change, then we must begin the arduous task of rising up, educating ourselves about potential officials and social policy, getting involved in the system and making a change from the inside.
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