The law of unintended consequences

[nettiger]

... 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

Comments

[radjinwolf]

As far as I'm concerned, the "sex offender" registry is an invasion of privacy.

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

[flippantmoniker]

I've heard of many repeat pedophiles, and a few who've confessed that nothing has worked, getting their minds of the bungers of tight, young boys. Personaly (based on the adolescent smell effect) I think humans are genetically predisposed to react to children with a sense of revulsion. I don't know, all I can speak for is myself, and sorry, kids smell gross. (I'm a witch! I'm a witch! Hee hee

[flippantmoniker]

I won't be my mother and say, "Learn and abide by the laws

[radjinwolf]

I think you're kind of missing the point or the spirit of the original post. This isn't a debate about a person's right to have sex with an underage child, nor is this about an underage child's right to have sex with an adult. That's an entirely different matter, and the only reason why there was mention of adult -> minor copulation in the OP was to discuss how the law regarding the Sexual Offender list is broken. The debate about a child's mental capacity to decide when, where and with whom to have sex with is an entirely different subject altogether.

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.

[flippantmoniker]

Okay, first off let me preface this response by saying that I'm not trying to be snide or snippy or condescending or anything. text really doesn't let me emote properly, so please take my disclaimer

[radjinwolf]

While I certainly understand your point of view, and concede that, with the way our society and indeed our justice system realistically works, a list like this is an eventual necessity, the merits of that necessity should also been seriously weighed against the possible ramifications

[flippantmoniker]

Is there a statistic on the number of asaults committed against people onm the list?

And no, I agree, death was not part of the sentance. That was a murser just as any other and must be prosecuted as such. There are plenty of people who's not hesitate to put a bullet in my head for being gay. It's murder. List or no, some people only need an excuse..

Anyway, I think we see Eye to eye for the most part. What we need is a system that works, not a list that perpetuates the persecution of a handful of our citizens, but the list exists now, and the best way to stay off it is not to get on it.

[radjinwolf]

Heh, agreed.

I don't think there's statistics on the lists themselves. I tried to look up any statistics I could find out on the wonderful intarwebs, but I came up dry. The most promising site I found had a very narrow scope from only 1990 to 1995, so it didn't help very much.

At this point I'm insatiably curious what the actual statistics are, but I'll have to wait until I get home and get a chance to sit down and really dig through the data.

[flippantmoniker]

Let us know I'm curious now, too :)

Hee hee We've TOTALLY hyjacked NT's Journal.