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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."
Someone commits one offence and for the rest of their lives their life isnt the public's hands? I guess if you can't do the time don't do the crime, but still...
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
So who wants to start a pool on when the first sex offender will be lynched?
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Whilst I guess that the people doing this will counter with "you give up your rights when you take it upon yourself to play with little kids bottoms", it kinda flies right in the face of concepts of rehabilitation, etc. Does the status of 'sex offender' have a timeout, or is it a lifetime thing, once convicted?
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I don't think it's such a good idea. You got nutters out there bombing doctors of abortion clinics, I'm sure there are loonies out there who wouldn't mind killing convicted sex offenders. Afterall they _did_ the time, and I don't think it will give people who really _do_ want to better their lives a fair deal.
Also it gives people a false sense of security.. Who's to say that a registered sex offender doesn't take a weekend holiday to another state to rape and kill? And you thought you were safe in a neighbourhood without any sex offenders..
Isn't anyone worried about vigilantes using this information to track down and assault these offenders (regardless if it's merited)?
It's sad that the authorities try and dress this up as somehow good - when the real motivation behind it is disgraceful.
Standard disclaimer: sex offenders deserve whatever punishment the law deems fit. But, and this is what is forgotten, IF the authorities deem them fit to be released from custody, then it's because (or should be because) they are no longer a threat. If they are a threat, then keep them incarcerated. Don't let them out and then pretend it's OK to publish their name, address, etc. It's hypocritical.
And why stop at sex offenders? Say I have no kids, but an expensive car? Shouldn't I be able to know that the guy next door was convicted of stealing cars? I'm not equating car theft with sex offences, but I do believe that the law should treat all people equally.
If a sex offender ia a threat, keep the bastard in jail. Don't let him out and think that by posting his details on the internet that all will be well. All it does is victimize reformed offenders (who do exist...) and encourage vigilantes - neither of these is good.
I hope the state of Maine also doubled the size of their Information Security department, as this will be a prime target for malicious hackers.
Don't like someone? Just add them to the database and get the word out. They're ruined. This is new, uncharted, and dangerous territory, Maine.
RD
Without commenting specifically on whether or not this is appropriate, consider that we don't go to this sort of length in response to a murder conviction.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
These registries have the potential to ruin people who should never have been marked to begin with. While many sexual predators probably deserve such a punishment, what about the teens who are convicted "sex offenders" simply because their (consenting) girlfriend's parents found out about the level of intimacy in the relationship, and pressed charges (against the wishes of the girl)? I know it sounds farfetched, but every so often you hear of these cases which, on an ethical and moral basis should never go to trial, but because of the wishes of the parents, results in a permanent black mark on the young man's record.
There's sex offenders and then there's sex offenders. I have no problem with a guilty as sin child sodomizer being plastered all over this thing. But you also hear of 17 year olds being charged by overzealous DAs for being with their 16 year old girlfriends. Such "offenders" will be lumped in with the child fuckers and corpse zombies.
This thing doesn't sound it recognizes there are levels of sex offense.
Ok, this is NOT a defense of sex offenders, but we should consider that everyone who has been convicted of a "sex offense" might not be the evil, child-molesting 70-year-old priest we all think they are.
Remember, if an 18 year old (high school senior) sleeps with his 16 year old girlfriend (high school sophomore) and happens to get caught, he could be labeled a sex offender.
How'd you like to have your picture posted on the web and have everyone know your life's details for eternity because you were a horny high school kid who did what scores of horny high school kids around the world do? Do you think the public is going to say "oh, well, he's the OK kind of sex offender...no worries"?
I grew up in Maine. The state is really, really small. I live in New York now, and anytime I meet someone from Maine, I find that I'm normally connected to them by 1 degree of separation. I also grew up in a small town. News there travels very, very fast. (I was 11 years old and I gave a kid the finger as I got off a school bus... my mother knew about it when I walked in the door 15 minutes later). It does not matter if the news is true, either. Once a piece of gossip gets out, it spreads faster than a celebrity sex video on the internet. Although I am a big advocate for privacy, I think this might in same cases help the sex offenders. If their crimes are easily accessible to the public, it helps stop the wild stories that could evolve around them. Yes, what these people were convicted of is TERRIBLE, but it's nothing compared to what a town full of gossipers can do with a nugget of near-truth. Living as a convicted sex offender is a difficult thing, but hopefully this will keep some of the smaller towns in Maine in perspective so that these individuals can be reintroduced to society. The above is a very weighted statement. I seriously welcome varying viewpoints, but please don't flame me for being open minded.
I recall that when this sort of thing first appeared in the states, the databases were hosted on NT4/IIS4 systems that were unpatched and vulnerable to the RDS database attack.
Basically anyone with rudimentary knowledge that was freely available on the net at the time could feasibly insert new records into the database.
Couple this with the fact that vigilantes DO exist out there and DO kill sex offenders, this is downright irresponsible and dangerous. If these people are a danger keep them locked up - don't encourage violence.
Of course innocent people can get caught up in this and they have no recourse.
In Texas, from 1999, from
DALLAS (AP) -- Faced with a choice between convicts' privacy and the public's right to know about sex offenders, the Texas Legislature sided with the latter.
The decision cost Thinh Pham his front teeth. Now he fears leaving his home.
The 27-year-old Vietnamese refugee was attacked by four men who thought he was a sex offender because his address was listed on the state's Internet registry. But the address was that of a sex-offender who hadn't lived at the home for months.
The vigilante beating came in September, three weeks after the effective date of a new state law mandating more detailed sex-offender information be posted on a Department of Public Safety website. Previously, the state released only block numbers and ZIP codes of sex offenders.
Supporters of the measure said it would help parents protect their children from sex offenders living in their neighborhoods.
But Pham's case raises questions about the state's ability to verify the accuracy of such a vast and detailed database. Top law-enforcement officials acknowledge they have little idea how much of the registry is accurate.
While most of the time I tend to agree with the liberal pro-privacy posts we see on Slashdot, I think this is one case where there's justification for privacy invasion. It's restricted only to those who have committed the crime (a common complaint here is that most recent privacy invasions happen to everyone, including the by-and-large innocent public, and thus violate presumption of innocence), and it's got a built-in expiry for the truly reformed.
Consider also qualifies you as a sex offender in Maine. For instance, if you're a 16-year-old boy who makes out with a 13-year-old girl and you get caught, you're a sex offender; your name and photo goes up on the site.
This all started when a neighbor raped and killed a little girl, and so we created the label of sex offender as a way of categorizing such people, but it's barely been ten years and already we're rounding up all kinds of people who don't come anywhere close to this kind of offense and branding them monsters.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Reminds me of a story here in the NYC area about a year ago, about a New Jersey guy who raped and killed a 12 year old girl in 1985 and is having a tough time reassimilating with the community upon his recent release. The report kept discussing the harassment this guy was facing by the locals and how he can't get a break. But not once did the report ask the question I couldn't stop wondering - "WHY THE HELL IS THIS GUY OUT OF JAIL?!?!?!?!" There's something wrong with the criminal justice system, at least in the Northeast. Last I checked, the girl is still dead, so why is this guy walking the streets in the first place? And why is the news trying to shore up sympathy for this guy????
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
That's a very wise decision. I'm sure that sex offenders A. Congregate in the same area(s) B. Do not drive, run, walk, take the bus, or hang glide to other locations C. Molest those people who are closest to them. Gee whiz, you're a smart nut. On top of that, you bought into all of the media created hype. Congratulations on being a good, law-abiding, non-thinking citizen-drone.
Without commenting specifically on whether or not this is appropriate, consider that we don't go to this sort of length in response to a murder conviction.
You are entirely correct. Curious, isn't it? We don't publish a registry of convicted murderers. We don't publish registries of convicted rapists, or convicted bank robbers. These are all categories of criminals much more dangerous to the general public than pedophiles, yet it is pedophiles who find their names, photos, and personal information posted on the internet.
Of course, this will only work for so long as laws requiring convicted pedophiles -- even those who have served their time and theoretically owe no burden to the State -- to provide their names and contact information to local authorities are ruthlessly enforced.
Any such system will inevitably see mission creep. Why NOT list people convicted of other serious crimes? Makes sense, doesn't it? After all, that information is public record anyway, right?
While we are at it, it makes sense that we should post information about people suspected but not convicted of crimes. After all, there's no criminal penalty here. It is just information. No worse than the rumor-mill, right? And it advances the public safety. We will limit it to those suspected of serious crimes and, yes, terrorism. Besides, in the United States, we let judges use crimes of which a defendant has been accused but not convicted in considering what punishment is appropriate when a criminal defendant has reached the sentencing stage. Why should the judges be the only ones who know?
It is just information right? And we should let information be free.
Such as information about the political groups and associations of ordinary citizens. Are you a member of a political group with radical ideas? We know now that groups like that are potentially dangerous. They produce people like Timothy McVeigh. Nobody says you can't be a member of the group; we are just saying you can't keep it a secret. Hey, we have hood laws across the South already. We have laws against secret political societies. So this is just a logical next step. Post that information. No harm, no foul, right?
Palestinians and Muslims are risky too. No harm in posting information about them. Honest people have nothing to fear when their privacy is compromised, right?
Samuel Johnson once said that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. The protection of children has become the last refuge of fascisti. It has been the "wedge issue" used to justify sweeping restrictions on internet access in public libraries (gotta stop that child porn), an oppressive IV-D child support collection apparatus (gotta get them deadbeat dads), and any number of "public safety" statutes, which have used the safety and protection of children as a tool to build a system of social and legal controls that could easily be used for any other purpose, and which create a mindset of submission that would welcome additional restrictions for "good" purposes.
I take literally the idea that in order to protect all of us, we must protect the most unworthy among us. A convicted child molester who has served his (or more rarely her) time and whom the state has chosen to release has that most ancient of rights recognized in Anglo-American law -- the right to be left alone. That means that using public funds to create public registries containing their personal information, thus giving them a pariah status that directly contradicts the clear language and intent of the 8th Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments, not to mention common sense, is wrong.
I fully expect someone to respond to this message with some screed about how precious children are, and how their cousin was molested, and how would you like it if someone molested YOUR kid. Know what? That's all completely beside the point. The issue is freedom and liberty, not crime. Restraints on freedom and invasions of privacy in the name
Considering that "Statistics show that anywhere from 75-92% of all child sexual abusers - abuse family and friends children " according to http://www.beachildshero.com/neighbor.htm I'd say he'd better not live anywhere near his family or friends.
In the UK there was a campaign for a "Sarah's Law" (in reference to the Sarah Payne abduction around Y2k), mostly spearheaded by the News Of The World newspaper (The Daily Mail with porn basically). Said paper even went as far as listing the names of some 100 registered sex offenders, which led to vigilante attacks on people who merely looked like those printed. This move drew widespread condemnation from everyone with a semblance of sanity.
Thank the holy lord Jesus Christ that the law never became legislature.
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
You "know" they're most likely to re-offend? Unless they're insane (in which case they should be confined to a mental hospital), why would they be. Either way, please let us know why you believe this.
But let's just say you got your wish. You can look up information on anyone who's ever commited any kind of crime, including their picture, home address, work address, ect. What exactly do you picture doing with that information that would make you safer? Would you "run them out of town"? If so, you'd better first make sure that you're better at it then the guys who live next to criminals in the next town who'll be trying to do the same thing. Would you contact them somehow and say, "Hey, I know what you've done. And if anyone does that around here I'm coming after you first!"? Well, even if that didn't result in you getting into a fight (in which case YOUR picture, address, and employer would be on the Internet because you'd be guilty of assault), it's not like the police don't already look at known criminals first when pursuing a new crime. Would you, if you found out you had a convicted criminal next door, go out and buy extra locks, maybe install some sort of alarm system? Well, only the dumbest and laziest criminal in the world is going to commit a crime they got convicted of, at the house next door. The vast majority of them are at least smart enough to go to a different neighbourhood. And not just to avoid being the first and most obvious suspect, but also because ex-cons don't tend to be able to afford to live in the types of neighbourhoods they'd want to steal things from.
So where's the benefit of such registries? There's nothing sensible you can do in response to discovering a criminal living in your neighbourhood, that wouldn't be sensible if there wasn't one there. And there's nothing you can do to the ex-con themself that would deter them from victimizing you anymore than the records they know the police have. Unless you'd be willing to go so far to deter them they you yourself would wind up on the list of "known criminals".
If you want to be safe, take reasonable precautions against crime. If you have any energy left over, drive more carefully and take good care of your health (you're far more likely to die from sickness or an accident than from an avoidable crime).
But if you want to scare the snot out of yourself, and put ex-cons in hostile and desparate positions, then by all means, start a registry.
But Pham's case raises questions about the state's ability to verify the accuracy of such a vast and detailed database.
Yeah, there wouldn't be any problem at all if they just kept the record accurate. Yep, there's no problem if a bunch of violent drunk yahoos run around beating the crap out of people so long as they get the right address. [sarcasm]
P.S. The full article can be found here.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
What the sex registries are saying is that crimes involving your genitals are intrinsically worse than murder except in those cases where murder draws the death penalty, since even a murderer that is released after serving multiple life sentences doesn't have to inform his neighbors. Worse, there is a blind equality to sex offense registries that are simply lists. The offender who was eighteen and had the fourteen year old girlfriend whose parents called him on the statutory rape charges (or sexual assault on a minor, depending on what state you live in) is listed right there with the serial rapist who was screwing all the first graders on their bus for five years.
I'd be fine with the thought that they'd just take everyone found guilty of sex offenses and shoot them in the back of the prison. They won't though, because they've an inkling that errors can be made in any sort of criminal case. Errors in most criminal cases naturally fix themselves after time, the criminals get out of jail and can live more or less normal lives. Removing the justice system from the picture and encouraging vigilante activism like the sex offender registries do is mind-boggling though, not only is our justice system set up so that guilt must be proven and not innocence it also assumes a sort of natural state of innocence returns to EVERY OTHER SORT OF CRIMINAL. This is obviously not the case, otherwise we wouldn't need three strikes laws and similar mechanisms to defeat repeat criminals. Why don't we have 'two strike" registries? Murderer registries? Heroin addict registries?
We might, but people don't find those crimes as sensationalized in their minds as rape. I imagine some people might rather have Ted Bundy and Charlie Manson over for dinner than a rapist, that doesn't track in the human cost scenario to me but I understand it would happen. I've had to deal with enough rape victims now though that I'm pretty sure that however fucked up the rape made them I'd still rather not have traded the rape for a corpse. You don't always, but can, get over rape. That means that there's something seriously fucked up with having sex offense registries and not murderer registries. But if we allowed TWO registries, then in ten years we'd have twelve registries and people who got caught a decade ago smoking a joint would be burned alive by their neighbors for being filthy drug dealers.
Laws and government follow an ethical gravity, given a chance to they tend to want to flow into a natural state of totalitariansim because of the perfect order. That's why people like me are always bitching about the slippery slope. If you want sex offenders ass-raped for punishment, then make sure that it's part of the sentence. I'd certainly rather have a precise extreme punishment dealt by the state (since thanks to the death penalty, extreme punishment really should include an awful lot) than trust the fringe elements of the public to make uninformed illegal punishments on people thanks to some sort of tacit governmental sanction.
"But the address was that of a sex-offender who hadn't lived at the home for months."
Now here's a question: Would it be "OK" if the vigilantes pounded the face of the person they were trying to get?
Kinda makes you wonder where the line between this and the so-called Nuremberg List is drawn.