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Maine to Launch Internet Sex-Offender Registry
scubacuda writes "On Monday, Maine Today reports that officials plan to put info about the states 1,200 registered sex offenders on the Internet to allow residents to easily determine if a convicted offender lives in their neighborhood. Some jurisdictions - including Portland, South Portland, Saco and Kennebec County - already post sex-offender information on the Internet. But the new site will cover *all* sex offenders registered in Maine, and will include their names, ages and birth dates, where they live, where they work or attend school, and which offense they were convicted of. Photographs will soon be posted, as well."
http://www.dps.state.ak.us/nSorcr/asp/search.asp There hasn't been too much negative feedback about it except a lawsuit from 2 registered offenders who complained about having to be on the list even though their sentenances were completely served before the law creating the registry was enacted.
When a paper in Britain started printing details about paedophiles, loads of people went rampaging, and even vandalized some paediatrician's house. (Though maybe that just says something about the Welsh.)
Why is there special treatment for sex offenders? Generally, people can't look up and see which convicted burglars live near them, for example. If someone is so much of a risk to society that people need telling about them, then they shouldn't be free in the first place.
Here is an exerpt from the following article www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume3/j3_1_2.htm
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
The consentual sodomy case you are talking about is Lawrence v. Texas. The PRIMARY reason they fought the case all the way to the surpreme court was to stay *off* the state's list of registered sex offenders.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/states.ht m
Did you know an 18 year old guy with a 17 year old girl friend is a sex offender in some states? How would you like to be treated just like some rat bastard who molested a few 6 year olds because you were banging your girlfriend who was 1 month away from her 18th birthday? This could happen. You could be hounded for the rest of your life because of this exact situation.
Child molesters are evil fucks, but the government has been getting overly zealous with their definition of the crime.
-- Will program for bandwidth
How did you turn those figures into that conclusion? If 44.3% reoffended within 23 years, that's 55.7% that didn't. If 9.4% fell in the 10 to 23 year range, then 90.6% of the ones who reoffended did so within the first 3 to 10 years. That's the result after a short term only treatment program. Further, the 20 year window for the study means that it was a treatment program that used only methods developed before 1970, at the very latest.
Naturally, we can guess that there are some reoffenders who don't get caught, even over a 20 year long window. That could be a little, or a lot, but the study doesn't say one way or another.
If 9.4% (which works out to 4.42 felons, neat trick) fall in the range from 10 to 23 years out, what would you estimate are the odds most of those are in the range from years 10 to 15, not 16 to 23? Probably pretty high, but the study is reported with the results for 7 years into it, and the full 20 years, but not others, so it's not all that obvious that all the data for years 16 through 23 may well represent only 1 criminal!
Who is John Cabal?
Well, just because I get turned on looking at a woman doesn't mean I'm going to rape her. The person may never change their urges, but they can decide to act on them or not.
...or it it ok to turst your kids around someone who commited a violent assult, just because it wasn't a violent *sexual* assult?
The main problem with these lists is people have been labeled as a "sex offender" for as little as mooning someone as a college prank. They're not all pedophiles or rapists.
Also, why limit it to sex offenses? Wouldn't you want to know if your next door neighbor was a ex-murderer?
I'm sure that sex offenders A. Congregate in the same area(s)
Yes, they do. Using the registry I located "clusters" offenders; many of them shared the same address. I am not kidding. After asking some ex-law enforcement people (that I work with) about this, they disclosed that many offenders are released they stay at a half-way house for a while. The address of the half-way house becomes the offender's first registered address. I found some locations both in and on the edge of the city limits; two of them are within 5 blocks of where I work.
Also, about ten years ago, I worked at a call-center and one of our accounts was the "Tip-Line" for an abducted child. We recorded the phone calls that came in and were absolutely not allowed to hang up on anyone no matter what they said - anything could have been a clue. I managed this account and let me be the first to say that it is not the media created hype that I bought into. I would suspect that anyone who is forced to listen to people calling in and describing what they have done/are doing/wanted to do to children would take similar precautions. Until you have repeatedly listened to accounts of rape and dismemberment without any recourse, think twice about the criticism.
including the guy (22) out at a bar, meets and goes home with the girl (16) using fake id, and convicted of statutory rape.. he'll do it again, right???
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Some states consider "living in sin" to be a sex offense, others consider purchasing a vibrator to be the same. There's people on the sex offender roles who got arrested in a gay bar in the 60s, etc etc. This isn't just a list of pedophiles and rapists.
It's not just that.
Michigan had an internet-public sex offender list.
After a bunch of legal wrangling in the legislatures and the court system, it was allowed to go public.
When the newspapers had done accuracy tests, they found that 30%+ of the list was flat out wrong. The criminals hadn't bothered to register at their new job, new residence, etc. When someone was living in that house after the perp was long gone, the new residents get the brunt of the outcry, vandalism, etc.
If the law enforcement and court system can't be bothered to track them or keep the lists accurate, then they shouldn't be allowed or required to post lists of them anywhere on any grounds.
Keep in mind that some pretty low-level crimes count as sex offenses, it is NOT just molestation.
For example, until the recent SCOTUS ruling anyone having gay sex in Texas, or hetero oral or anal sex in many states, was a sex offender.
Prostitutes and johns are all sex offenders. So is anyone on any pornography related charge (sell Hustler at the Kwik-E-Mart in a conservative town, go on the registry). Go too far with a lap dance, sex offender. Put on a production of "Hair" in the wrong town, sex offender.
So, apparently, is anyone who has mooned:
From http://www.appa-net.org/revisitingmegan.pdf
In another example from Michigan, an 18 year old male, who engaged in the "senior prank" of "mooning" his school principal was convicted of indecent exposure, had to register with the state for 25 years, and and has his name and address publicly exposed
specifically when it comes to pedophilia and statuatory rape
Let's make sure were using the right words here:
Pedophilia: sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object
Statuatory Rape: sexual intercourse with a person who is below the statutory age of consent
Neither of these definitions automatically imply that criminal did anything to cause anybody emotional trauma. An indiviual can find children sexually attractive and not rape them, just as most men don't rape every woman (or man) they find sexuall attractive. In the case of statutory rape, a person one day younger than the age of consent is no more likely to be hurt emotionally than a person one day older than the age of consent, especially given that there are many years difference between the age of consent in different localities.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
Actually in Maine the age of consent is 16, plus there is a minnimum age difference(4 years) so if a 15 year old has sex with a 18 year old it will not break the law, since the age difference is less than 4 years.
None of this applies if the older person is a teacher. If a teacher has sex with a student they can be charged with statutory rape even if the age gap is less than 4 years or the student is over 16.
"I heard an argument (BBC Radio4, "Moral Maze", ages ago) which claimed that paedophiles are 9 times more likely than a random selection to be homosexual, but I can't find anything else to back that up."
I'm surprised at this level of ignorance still exists today. I'm sorry to inform you that in fact, it's the reverse that's true. The FBI keeps statistics on just these sorts of things, and in fact 95% percent of child molestation cases are committed(bottom of page) by self-described heterosexuals. In fact homosexuals are no more likely(again, scroll to bottom of page) to abuse children than heterosexuals.
I can not help but also point out that your other argument:
"I find this parallel interesting. Homosexuality is arguably natural occurring but atypical (I choose those words carefully) - the same could be said for paedophiles. I would be surprised if they are a historically recent phenomena and they certainly make up a very small percentage of the population, yet their actions and desires are abhorent to the vast majority of us.
The same can be said of homosexuality 100 years ago."
-is also critically flawed.
You see, consensual homosexual acts cause harm to no one, while conversely, child molestation does indeed cause severe mental aguish and trauma to the victim.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"