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Tracking Sex Offenders via GPS for Life
ecmcn writes "According to Yahoo! news, the governor of Florida just passed a bill that, along with increasing the jail time served for convicted sex offenders, requires them to be tracked for life via GPS. No technical details about the tracking, but it mentions "warning authorities when a sex offender is someplace he shouldn't be". Maybe they can get Google maps to add red zones around all of the restricted areas."
Seriously it's like sex offenders are any worse then them? I would like to know where a murderer is and a rapist is at all times too so i can avoid that area.
And what about Jessica Lunsford's killer? All he did was cross the street. He wasn't where he wasn't supposed to be until he fled to Georgia. What if his trashmen left his trash cans on the wrong side of the street? Will an alarm go off when he's within 50 yards of a house where a potential victim lives? Imagine taking care of THAT database! Who defines where are the places he's allowed to go? Yes they would have figured out right away that he did it, but it wouldn't have saved her life. If you're going to strip liberties, at least make it worth it. (not-so-subliminal rabidity activation scheme here)
Intelligent Life on Earth
In Calif, tracking is public info. Listed with home address and offense. take a look at meganslaw.ca.gov
And NO, Mr. Jackson isn't listed *yet*
grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
I recently saw a GPS locator made for kids to wear...it would attach to their wrist like a bulky wristwatch and continually broadcast its location.
Now here's an idea...tie the two systems together, so if a kid wearing one of these things comes within 50 feet of a known sex offender, it emits an alarm and/or broadcasts a warning to the parents.
I should be rich.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Parent post has been forwarded to the Mule Creek State Prison officials.
Besides the obvious 'those who want to do bad stuff, will be able to remove it', I was amazed at how many of my friends were willing to tag themselves if they had the guarantee that everyone else got tagged too.
I myself am very uncomfortable with the idea itself : Less so, if I got it black-on-white that only a certain radius of a crimescene is used for bringing up the location-data of the people in the whereabouts... Then again, a guarantee given by my (dutch) government, means shit to me.
So who in here would want to 'sacrifice' a little/big bit of his privacy, if you have the guarantee that everyone else gets tagged too ?
In a similar opinion:
My problem is that the current regulations do not discriminate between offences.
1) Go to bar, get drunk, meet girl, bring girl home.
2) Learn next morning she is 17 (still looks like 25) and used fake ID to get in. Also learn her father is a lawyer.
3) Get listed on sex offender list; be tracked with GPS for the rest of your life.
A similar scenario occurred in my area, but with a bar accepting 25 year or older people only. The guy felt safe, she looked at least 25. Being a well known sport hero (making millions a year) the girl literally jumped on him. Next morning she left the hotel room (team was on the road), she bragged around, daddy heard about it and saw the opportunity.
It was explained the only way out would have been to have her and her legal guardian (daddy) sign an agreement for sexual encounter. The fact she used fake ID to get in the bar had no impact, she was a minor, and you are responsible to make sure she was of age, no matter how she acted.
Now calling your lawyer and meet all parties for a signed agreement is not the first thing on your mind when drunk with a girl grabbing your pants under the table.
Until we clearly discriminate between horny young girls and clear violent attacks or pedophile cases, I will have a hard time with harsh regulations imposed post-prison sentenced (debt to society paid and all).
And what happens when a state decides that two 17 year old boys who have sex with each other are sex offenders? The problem is not that violent sex offenders should be monitored. The problem is, who decides who is a sex offender?
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Yep. I've seen cases where a 17 year old boy sleeps with a 15 year old girlfriend. Get's caught... statutory rape conviction. That makes him a sex offender by law. Now, I'm not real pro young kids sleeping with each other, but I'd hardly consider that 17 year old a 'sexual preditor' that needs to be monitored for the rest of his life. That's just wrong. And asking me as a taxpyer to pay for that is crazy.
You're right. That's why I've started suggesting to every potential molester I see that they wait till the kids are at least twelve and a half.
Honestly, the issue isn't if it's wrong or not, and it shouldn't really be about technicalities of who it is. It's about how right it is to track a person FOR LIFE. Do you really think it'll be that long before other crime punishments pick up the same nifty technology if it's allowed for this purpose?
I remember thinking that when I got one of those police notices of a sex offender moving into my neighborhood. He was convicted of having sex with a girl of 17 while he was 18. The police also rated him as a "high risk to reoffend".
Wouldn't any criminal wanting to get past this just create his own bullets? or remove the tag from the gun? Sounds like a great waste of money that only has the effect of tracking legit gun users.
In many states it can be worse... a 15 year old boy can be having sex with his 16 year old gf and the boy would be convicted of statutory.
Sean.OutaHere()
True, a pedophile is a state of being, much like being gay. Like being gay it is usually fixed. Sure, some people swing from gay to straight or vice-versa over a lifetime, and I'm sure some people swing to- or from- being a pedophile over their lives, but not many.
However, not everyone who has sex with children is a pedophile.
Some men have sex with their own daughters because they are the most "available" person around. Remove children from the house, or if a wife steps in, and the problem goes away.
Others are not attracted to chilren but rather people much younger than themselves - the 25 year old who wants to marry a 10 year old girl may, a decade later, want to marry that same now-legal 20 year old woman, and be happy as her husband 40 years later.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.