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."

Comments

Why stop there?

[TripMaster Monkey]

<sarcasm>

Why limit this to just sex offenders? Why not all criminals? Heck...why don't we just tag everyone...after all, odds are everyone will commit a criminal act sometime in their lives, right?

I got a great idea....we'll tag everyone, giving each transmitter a unique frequency....their 'number', if you will.

Oh wait....this idea has already been proposed...

(Interesting side note...our president's number seems to be 666.

</sarcasm>

Re:Why stop there?

[BrowserCapsGuy]

Somebody needs a class in civics. The governor cannot pass a law. He can only sign it into law or veto it.

Re:Why stop there?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe he or she is genuinely concerned about erosion of civil liberties, and knows that it is always eroded first for those society deems do not deserve those liberties, and then quickly spreads to everyone else. In other words, like free speech which has to protect the speech you find disgusting in order for it to mean anything, you have to keep an eye on cases even involving sex offenders.

Re:Why stop there?

[cortana]

It must be nice to live in a world where it is so easy to determine whether a party is guilty of an alleged crime.

Most child abuse is comitted by a family member. Perhaps we should remove all children from their families at birth, to be raised by the government. This would have the additional advantage that most will be indoctrinated into being GPS tracked 24/7.

Re:Why stop there?

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

I'm not a ballistics expert, but I believe different guns leave different identification marks on bullets, and unless Gil Grissom is lying to me, that's how some crimes are solved.

In any case, they may be passing your idea as a law in Cali.

Re:Why stop there?

[stoolpigeon]

You have to be kidding. People in the modern world tend to use and need a lot of things. Saying 'Don't tag people - tag things' is meaningless in reality. Using guns and bullets as an example probably appeals to a certain segment but change it to automobiles, books, clothes, etc. Now that is a slippery slope. Whereas monitoring people who are extremely likely to offend again in a likewhile manner makes all kinds of sense.

Re:Why stop there?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem with tagging guns and bullets is that when the government decides to come and take them away, there is a nice list that they can print out showing who owns what and where they live.

Re:Why stop there?

[88NoSoup4U88]

I had a conversation with some friends about tagging all people on the world.

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 ?

Re:Why stop there?

[Ioldanach]

I'd actually suggest a chemical tag on the lead itself. This is already done for many types of explosives, so that the residue can be tested for identifying markers. You might not be able to test down to the shell level, or even box level, but you should be able to mark each case of boxes and narrow the list of purchasers down to a couple dozen people.

Re:Why stop there?

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:Why stop there?

[Proney]

So, thank you for your mindless idiotic jab at the President, but some of us here actually voted for him.

That's alright, nobody's perfect.

Re:Why stop there?

[N3WBI3]

4) Learn that screwing somebody you just met in a bar just might have a negative effect on the rest of your life (forget the fact more than 1/4 have genital warts and that it is not prevented by condoms, there is no cure, and it can cause a woman to be infertile).

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).

I can agree with this, I am not aware if this is covered by 'degrees' like murder, or if sex with a 17 yo is the same as sex with someone much younger. I would imagine there is some difference in the law..

Re:Why stop there?

[Bodysurf]

RTFA.

From the article:

"It establishes a mandatory sentence of at least 25 years behind bars for people convicted of certain sex crimes against children 11 and younger, with lifetime tracking by global positioning satellite after they are freed."

Re:Why stop there?

[phlyingpenguin]

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?

Re:Why stop there?

[Total_Wimp]

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 ?

I'm appalled. I'm just speechless. Do people not realize that they're already criminals? Don't they speed in their car? Didn't they steal gum in the 5th grade? Didn't they ever get drunk and pee in the street? Did they pay every bill on time, all the time?

When you make it easy to lock up all the criminals then you make it easy to lock up everyone. Why are we so willing to nuke the bad guys even though we'll be hit by blast as well?

TW

Re:Why stop there?

[dark_requiem]

The scenario you paint is indeed one that needs to be viewed seriously. Remember, the correct way to analyze a proposed government program (unless you're an anarchist like me, in which case the correct answer is a resounding "Nay!") is by the damage it could do if abused, rather than the benefit it will incur if properly administered. This is another example of knee-jerk reactionary legislation, pumped out to score points with the constituency, rather than a serious attempt to solve a problem. And as the first poster pointed out, why stop with sex offenders? Why not non-violent, victimless drug "criminals"? The state loves to scapegoat them, so it seems the perfect opportunity. Hopefully, this legislation is shot down. It's not that I condone sex offenders, but this is extreme beyond all reason, and too readily adapted to whatever is the next crime of the moment.

Re:Why stop there?

[cayenne8]

" 4) Learn that screwing somebody you just met in a bar just might have a negative effect on the rest of your life "

Hmm.....every action you take has a 'price'...but, really, where do YOU go to get laid on a regular basis? I find it is the best place to find good looking women, who you can sleep with...after all, that is a guy's purpose in life eh?

At least till he gives up....and gets married....

Re:Why stop there?

[apparently]

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.

Re:Why stop there?

[jdray]

Okay, we're drifting off topic here, but electronic (or most other means) of tracking guns is only sufficient to track law abiding citizens, really stupid criminals, and people who commit crimes of passion (i.e., those that aren't premeditated).

Personally, I don't know the first thing about being a criminal beyond what I watch on TV. I do know, however, that my buddy, who's a competition marksman, loads his own rounds and occasionally casts his own bullets because he wants consistency that he can't get from factory ammunition. Is someone going to "require" him to chip each bullet he casts? Even if they do, what's stopping a criminally-minded person from not abiding by that law?

If you put RFID tags in guns, what's stopping someone who wants to use it in a criminal act from taking the tag out? Are you going to somehow make the gun inoperable if it doesn't have the chip? It's not a computer. A gun is a fantastically simple device at the basic level, and not terribly complicated at the most advanced level. Someone who took metal shop in high school could easily crank out a simple shooter.

I agree that guns present a huge issue in our society that needs to be addressed, but you have to understand that, in doing it, you just drive real criminals to step up their game. Also, at what point does the defense of "my gun got cloned" come up in court?

Re:Why stop there?

[Queer Boy]

First they came for the sex offenders
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a sex offender.
Then they came for the brown immigrants
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a brown immigrant.
Then they came for the dissidents
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't dissident.
Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak up for me.

Re:Why stop there?

[terrymr]

This is where it gets funny. Ballistics experts will testify to just that at trial. But when people talk about registering such patterns in a database, the same experts come out and tell you that these pattens can change from one firing of the gun to the next.

Re:Why stop there?

[f97tosc]

Why limit this to just sex offenders? Why not all criminals?

This is a silly argument, because it can made for any form of punishment.

I think we are all in agreement that being GPS-tracked for life is a very serious form of punishment. As such, it should be compared to other serious forms of punishements, like life in prison or death. Of course it is terrible to be GPS-tracked for life, but is it any worse than being inprisoned for life or put to death?

The GPS-system could in many cases provide benefits over those alternatives, for example by giving the criminal a chance to work instead of having the taxpayers provide for his living.

Tor

Re:Why stop there?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you will drop the tone when one of these nasty fucks attacks a child you hold near and dear? Personaly, if you harm a child under the age of 12 you should be killed on the spot, right there

Perhaps you will drop the tone when some nasty fuck persuades an eleven-year-old to accuse you falsly of molestation?

Personally, I rather like the idea of due process. You know, that little thing that secures our liberties.

Re:Why stop there?

[Macadamizer]

Hrm, if you've slept with someone whose willfully deceived you about their age, you're hard to convinct (if it's reasonable.)


Actually that's not true. Statutory rape and associated sex crimes against minors are "strict liability" crimes, which means that your intent or other mitigating circumstances are irrelevant -- if you did it, that's enough to convict. Even if they had a fake ID showing they were the proper age, if the DA decides to bring the charge, then there really isn't any excuse that will work for you -- you have to give the jusy reasonable doubt as to whether or not you actually did the deed.

Re:Why stop there?

[operagost]

All guns should have an electronic RFID tag in them that can be read.

... and destroyed, just like the serial numbers we already have on them.

When an owner of a gun purchases bullets, the bullets should be also scanned with the gun - or the owner. Then when bullets are fired, we should be able to look up who purchased the bullets. This should not always prove who shot the bullets obviously - but it would put us in the general direction.

That is, in the direction of the poor sap who bought your RFIDed reloads after your whacked a few poor losers. I'd also like to know how you get that RFID tag when the killer takes his brass with him; not uncommon with experienced killers. Oh, you mean in the BULLET? Yeah, I bet that tag (assuming it will fit) will be in great shape after the hollow point round deforms and fragments inside the target. Sorry, it's not going to happen. You might want to learn a more about firearms before proposing any of these ideas to your local Senator or anything.

Re:Why stop there?

[slipstick]

How much more "erosion" of your civil liberties is this compared to being thrown in to jail? We accept that as due punishment for a crime, why is tagging someone with an RFID chip not an appropriate sentence? If people know that this will be a possibility maybe they won't commit the crime. Doubtful I know as it's not much of a deterrent really but than would you have had the same reaction if the change in law was simply to make the sentence automatic life in prison?

My point is of course, that we certainly do accept the erosion of civil liberties for criminals exactly because they have shown that they are unable to accept the responsibility that the liberties require.

However, there also must be a way to remove these tags should it be later "proven" that you didn't commit the crime. As long as that's in place I don't see that anyone has an argument.

This is simply a case of whether or not you agree that the punishment fits the crime. For child sex offenders many would say this is letting them off too easy.

Re:Why stop there?

[Seanasy]

Because the rate of recidivism for violent sex offenders is nearly 100%

Do you have a cite for that statistic? I could only find this:

Of the 9,691 male sex offenders released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, 5.3% were rearrested for a new sex crime within 3 years of release. [USDOJ]

but that only gives data for up to three years after. It doesn't say anything about recidivism after 3 years which may or may not be significant.

Re:Why stop there?

[Temsi]

I hear what you're saying, but I must offer an opposing view.

The society we have built, uses a system of punishment for crimes committed. Once you've done your time or paid your fine, you're "square with the house".

The only way this could be considered even remotely constitutional, is if the justice system is changed, and judges are given this option in the sentencing framework. This would be akin to life under house arrest, rather than life in prison.
Even then, this option would only be available for future convictions, and cannot be made retroactive without violating the constitutional rights of the offenders. Yes, they're scum, but they still have the same rights you and I do.

So, talking about GPS tracking of sex offenders who have already served their time, is not the way to go and any law to that effect would be unconstitutional. In fact, I'm personally opposed to the sex offender registration requirements. They've already done their time. If you want to know where they are, change the sentencing guidelines offered through the legal system, don't punish them again after they've served their time.

It's your job as a parent to keep track of your children. It's your job as a parent to assume every stranger is dangerous to your child until you know otherwise. Don't expect the government to take care of your parental responsibilities.

Why stop with sex offenders? Why not do this to all criminals? It would certainly make solving crimes a lot easier if you could look up a crime scene in a database and see who was there at the time.
Well, like so many have pointed out, it's a privacy issue - and the presumption of innocence.

So you're wrong when you say this is not the first step on a slippery slope. This is in fact a running leap down the slippery slope... not just a first step.

Re:Why stop there?

[slipstick]

So what exactly is your basic problem with having a punishment for a crime?

Specifically, how is tracking someone for life because they committed murder worse than throwing them in jail for 20 years or so? Each is a removal of a persons civil liberties, incarceration is currently deemed an appropriate removal of civil liberties, why shouldn't the tracking of an offender be likewise deemed appropriate? Hell, as far as I know, if you've only been charged with a crime the police will take your fingerprints and those are kept on file indefinitely. That is a real abuse of civil liberties since you haven't been convicted.

Once your convicted of a crime, the punishment is simply based on what society deems fit. While I could reasonably allow that there are arguments against a lifetime tag, I don't believe you've provided one here. I think it is far worse to incarcerate someone for a period of time than track them for life but I still think that people should go to jail for certain crimes.

Note that this assumes that the tracking device is "easily" removed should it later be "proven" you didn't commit the crime.

Re:Why stop there?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Center for Sex Offender Management http://www.csom.org/pubs/mythsfacts.html/ of the US DOJ:

Myth:
"Most sex offenders reoffend."
Fact:
Reconviction data suggest that this is not the case. Further, reoffense rates vary among different types of sex offenders and are related to specific characteristics of the offender and the offense.

Persons who commit sex offenses are not a homogeneous group, but instead fall into several different categories. As a result, research has identified significant differences in reoffense patterns from one category to another. Looking at reconviction rates alone, one large-scale analysis (Hanson and Bussiere, 1998) reported the following differences:

child molesters had a 13% reconviction rate for sexual offenses and a 37% reconviction rate for new, non-sex offenses over a five year period; and
rapists had a 19% reconviction rate for sexual offenses and a 46% reconviction rate for new, non-sexual offenses over a five year period.
Another study found reconviction rates for child molesters to be 20% and for rapists to be approximately 23% (Quinsey, Rice, and Harris, 1995).
Individual characteristics of the crimes further distinguish recidivism rates. For instance, victim gender and relation to the offender have been found to impact recidivism rates. In a 1995 study, researchers found that offenders who had extrafamilial female victims had a recidivism rate of 18% and those who had extrafamilial male victims recidivated at a rate of 35%. This same study found a recidivism rate for incest offenders to be approximately 9% (Quinsey, Rice, and Harris, 1995).

It is noteworthy that recidivism rates for sex offenders are lower than for the general criminal population. For example, one study of 108,580 non-sex criminals released from prisons in 11 states in 1983 found that nearly 63% were rearrested for a non-sexual felony or serious misdemeanor within three years of their release from incarceration; 47% were reconvicted; and 41% were ultimately returned to prison or jail (Bureau of Justice Statistics).

It is important to note that not all sex crimes are solved or result in arrest and only a fraction of sex offenses are reported to police. The reliance on measures of recidivism as reflected through official criminal justice system data (i.e., rearrest or reconviction rates) obviously omits offenses that are not cleared through an arrest (and thereby cannot be attributed to any individual offender) or those that are never reported to the police. For a variety of reasons, many victims of sexual assault are reluctant to invoke the criminal justice process and do not report their victimization to the police. For these reasons, relying on rearrest and reconviction data underestimates actual reoffense numbers.

Re:Why stop there?

[Snowdog668]

Not so funny, if you have a bullet from a crime scene and a test bullet fired from a known gun and the markings match then you have a very good chance that the crime scene bullet was shot from that gun.

The problem with registering with a database is that once you have a gun a few minutes with a file can totally change the markings on bullets fired from that particular gun making it impossible to match to the database.

Now your average gun owner isn't going to go around filing the bore of his guns to change it's "fingerprint" but any criminal would.

Heck, you don't even need to file the bore to make it change. After being used for any length of time the barrel's characteristics can change on their own due to the heating and cooling of the metal.

Re:Why stop there?

[kz45]

Perhaps you will drop the tone when some nasty fuck persuades an eleven-year-old to accuse you falsly of molestation?

Personally, I rather like the idea of due process. You know, that little thing that secures our liberties.

even accusing someone of child molestation pretty much destroys their life anyway, so what's the difference?

Re:Why stop there?

[itsallgeek2me]

Here's the thing, If we're worried about them, why are they free roaming about in public? If we're not worried about them, why are we keeping track of them? You've either served your time/been rehabilitated or you haven't. All this wishy washy stuff is just a band-aid.

Re:Why stop there?

[slipstick]

Advocating the death penalty is not an intellectually dishonest position nor one which should result in such a screed.

There are numerous people who have committed heinous crimes, the nature of which indicates that they can be neither rehabilitated nor allowed to roam free. Charles Manson is one which immediately springs to mind. Questions of their upbringing or "why they did it" do not matter, these are people who are either truely evil(in this sense totally in disagreement with almost all societal norms and laws, not necessarily in the sense of religion), or simply so freakin' warped they have no hope of being saved. Killing such a person when the evidence is "without a doubt" not simply "without a reasonable doubt", is not necessarily something that should so blithely be dismissed.

By the way, advocating an idea isn't a crime, so your attempt at analogy simply isn't even reasonable.

Re:Why stop there?

[vettemph]

>>All bullets should have an individual tag (serial number) in them that can be read. All guns should have an electronic RFID tag in them that can be read.
>>I work in RFID, I support guns and peoples right to own and buy them.

I work in Design and Manufacturing, I am also a machinist. Guns are as easy to make as just about anything else. Bullets are easy to make too.
How do you track hunks of metal that can be turned into anything?

Re:Why stop there?

[lav-chan]

I know it makes me sound totally creepo to a lot of people, but i have a really huge problem with sex-offender laws. Like, i would never try to down-play the serious stuff, like rape, but a good deal of the stuff that gets you labelled as a sex offender is complete bull shit.

For example, the other day i was reading about some girl who had a crush on her teacher. They kissed, and the parents of the girl somehow found out. There is no doubt about the circumstances: There was no sex, they were fully clothed, the girl was the one who initiated it, and it was completely consensual. But this teacher is in danger of going to prison, getting a huge fine, and being put on a sex-offender registry for the next 10 years of her life. Not to mention, she'll probably have to sell her house and move to the boonies because she won't be allowed to live near schools anymore. (And, in a lot of cities, that's pretty much everywhere.) All because of a CONSENSUAL kiss.

Consensual minor/adult relationships, consensual incest, and providing pornography to minors are some of the dumb-ass 'victimless' things that are apparently justification for the government to completely ruin your life. (I mean, they're not things i would ever do, but come on.)

I personally am not too worried about the privacy rights of rapists and child-pornographers, so the act of tracking them doesn't really bother me too much. But i don't understand the point. If these people are so dangerous that their every move needs to be tracked, why aren't they in prison?

Re:Why stop there?

[Suicyco]

Yes, but since the law doesn't discern what your actual crime was, it means "anybody who we deem impure from some 'sex' act". You are just a "sex offender". Its meaningless. You rape somebody, you are a rapist. You molest somebody, you are a molester.

Why track people who got caught pissing in public? BTW, I have a friend who is now a registered sex offender for pissing on a tree in a park at night, walking home from a bar. Its bullshit.

Re:Why stop there?

[3terrabyte]

You have a lot of passionate posts on this subject, and I can't really comment on most of your ideas.

But I do have a problem with the idea of tagging someone for life. First, this seems like the wrong place to put the solution. If tagging is NECESSARY, then it's pretty obvious that we're letting them out too early.

Second, this is rife for abuse. We've already heard the problems that have been caused when a sex offender is 'introduced' to the neigborhood. Open database, etc. Imagine how this could be abused. Something as simple as everyone in a city hooking up a horn on their house/store to blare when one of these chips walks by. He wouldn't be allowed to walk anywhere. Refusing to sell goods from your store so such person.

Lastly, civil rights... I'm truly not against their loss of rights in this case. (20 yrs of prison is worse than tagging for life) I'm only concerned about the erosion of the rights for the rest of us. I see RFID leaching it's way into all sorts of things, and this would just be the beginning. On the other hand, prison has a more defined set of rules I don't see being blurred. Why not work on solutions on THAT side of the fence, instead of putting it in Pandora's box of Human RFID.

Re:Why stop there?

[enjo13]

I found :

http://www.johnhoward.ab.ca/docs/sxoffend/page1.ht m

Long term study in Canda showed a recidivism rate of 42%. Interestingly the recidivism rates appear to actually be LOWER than for many other crimes.

I guess the parent is officially.. well..wrong.

Re:Why stop there?

[badboy_tw2002]

Cars are already tagged through a variety of methods, and the owner is ultimately accountable through those methods. If I steal a car and run people down, we at least know where the car came from so we can find out where the car was stolen.

Goods NEED to be tagged for inventory. They already are in some manor or another. And no one is saying to put the tags IN the inventory, just next to it. Put the RFIDs on the shoe box, not the shoes, or a tag attached to the shoes. No one is doing inventory on the shoes inside the box. You're also assuming Wal-Mart cares that you (the shoe owner) is back in the store. Casinos track every single move you make from entering the place to leaving it (though supposedly not in the bathroom or bedroom, who knows, right?). I haven't received too many pop up ads walking in there (I'm guessing the high rollers do in the form of casino hosts.)

Finally, the gun argument is the same as cars. We tag guns to owners via registered serial #s. If a gun is stolen, we at least know where the gun was bought, when it was stolen, etc. That assumes we have the gun. If we could find a way to embed RFID inside bullets, not just on the casing, that would be cool too, as not many people stop and dig the bullets out after they shoot someone.

Tagging sex offenders sounds like a great idea when you think about it, but the slippery slope is there and waiting for us. Sex offenders automatically have less rights for life based on their type of crime (murderers dont' register everywhere they go once they're paroled or finished serving time, and their crime is far worse). I'm guessing the fact that we haven't extended Meghan's Law to non-sex offenders helps the argument that this would remain amongst sex offenders.

Re:Why stop there?

[nelsonal]

The bullet is technically just the lead (sometimes encased in brass or other harder metals) projectile. The casing propellent and primer make a cartridge. Reloaders reuse the casing only, acquiring new bullets (typically the bullet would be highly deformed on impact to be reloaded). If the bullet were tagged it wouldn't matter if the factory or the reloader assembled the cartridge, the projectile could still be tagged. Sure reloaders could buy a stockpile of bullets, but non-reloaders could buy a stock pile of cartridges too. I'm not sure that an RFID tag would survive most impacts.
Since I'm an economist, I wonder if this would cause an increase in jacketed rounds for criminal activity, if the round passes through your target (and would be far more difficult to find) is a passive RFID tag still useful?

Re:Why stop there?

[Vinnie_333]

Being a convicted drunk driver doesn't mean you're a bad driver. Just that you shouldn't be driving ONCE you've been drinking. As far as that's concerned, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to drink, either. Drinking is legal. Just driving while you're drunk is not.

Re:Why stop there?

[DavesWorld334]

It's not freedom if you're never given the option, or chance, to even consider a different choice.

We're about to stop having laws, and start having strictures. If you don't know the difference ... www.dictionary.com. There *is* a difference.

"First they came for the communists but I was not a communist so I kept quiet. Then they came for the socialists and the trade unionists but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." Martin Niemoller, after being released from Dachau, 1945

Dramatic though it may be, it's also true.

Re:Why stop there?

[Macadamizer]

When did you people abolish mens rea?

We haven't, for many crimes. But most people are suprised at how many crimes don't have an "intent" factor. Most infractions, like speeding on the highway, are "strict liability" crimes -- it doesn't matter why you did it, it only matters whether or not you did it. The "why" part might influence the sentence, but it doesn't influence the guilt phase.

Generally, strict criminal liability is limited to crimes where the penalties are fairly low, like the traffic crimes mentioned above. However, there are a select few serious crimes where strict liability is the rule -- as I noted, sex crimes against minors are strict liability. Basically, for these crimes, society has determine that the need to protect children outweighs the "needs" or "rights" of people to have sexual relations with children -- that, and society has also determined that the "deterrence" effect of "strict liability" is more important than the rights of those people on the fringes of these laws who may be operating without intent, but get caught anyway. You can argue whether it is the right balance to strike or not, but that's the way it is in every state.

As I noted, there really aren't that many strict liability crimes, other than sexual crimes against children -- but one serious crime, not related to kids or sex that is strict liability is the unlicensed possession of a machine gun...

Re:Why stop there?

[Suicyco]

Where I live, there is no distinction. There isn't a "child molester" website. Its "sex offender". When you are a registered sex offender, you must tell your neighbors, and must be registered.

This is for ANY crime deemed a "sex offense". Urinating in public is one. Indecent exposure is another (ie. getting caught in a car having sex)

This isn't about tracking child molesters. Its about tracking "sex offenders."

Re:Why stop there?

[dougmc]

4) Learn that screwing somebody you just met in a bar just might have a negative effect on the rest of your life

As might walking across the street. Or starting your car. Or volunteering at the local hospital, getting a job, raking the grass. Life is dangerous.

Sex, however, is generally believed to be normal, even if our society tends to demonize it. For example, the odds are pretty good that your parents have had it at least once.

(forget the fact more than 1/4 have genital warts and that it is not prevented by condoms

Nothing is absolutely prevented by condoms, not HIV/AIDS or pregnancy. However, they are still believed to be at least somewhat effective, even against genital warts. They're not perfect, but they're far better than nothng.

there is no cure, and it can cause a woman to be infertile).

So you've heard of STDs. Good. But what does that have to do with screwing a woman you just met in a bar? If I recall correctly, the first time I met my wife was in a bar. That was perhaps 12 years and two kids ago ...

You could meet a woman in church (or pick some other place for finding wholesome, God fearing women), get to know her for a few months, fall in love, and finally have sex and then get genital warts from her -- she may not even realize that she has it. And then you learn that she's only 17, get arrested, go to prison, and when you're released you get labeled as a sex offender and have to wear a GPS tracker for the rest of your life. Which may not be very long, as some vigilante finds out that there's a sex offender living in his neighborhood on the Intraweb, and he breaks in and kills you in your sleep. (Hopefully they'll take the GPS tracker off before they bury you.)

And genital warts aren't the worst thing you can get, and not the only thing that cant' be cured. And you can also get them without even having sex (kissing could pass them from mouth to mouth.)

Nobody said life was fair. But in theory, our legal system ought to be, and treating `sex offenders' like we do, making them register, tracking their movements, especially when their crimes are stupid things like `public urination' (it varies from state to state, but some do treat that as full fledged `sex offenders'), when we don't do similar things for people convicted of murder, assault and battery, armed robbery, etc. is about as far from `fair' as you can get

But all the politicians have to do is play the `think about the children' card, and everybody involved seems to stop thinking and start jerking their knees instead ...

Re:Why stop there?

[qwasty]

you would think that limiting it to crimes against children 11 and younger would limit this law to only genuine, dangerous criminals. Unfortunatly, people get locked up in the USA for taking pictures of their babies splashing around in the bathtub - It's clearly child pornography according to the law in many states. I'm not joking, people really go to prison for taking pictures of their kids playing in the tub or similar benign activities. I've seen so many decent people get cruelly mistreated by the USA government, it makes me feel sick. Thank god slashdotters recognize what's going on and don't just pretend the only people in jail are bad people.

Re:Why stop there?

[slipstick]

Ah, now this is better, a reasoned argument against their use, or at least a sharing of concerns, rather than previous off handed remarks automatically decrying the law(not saying you did).

As for your arguments(in no particular order), 1) abuse and erosion of civil liberties for the rest of us. Even prison can be abused, witness the incarceration of suspected "terrorists" without due process. Defined rules or not the government is able to abuse those rules when the populous sleeps, it is the price of "eternal vigilance" that we have a democracy(note that I'm Canadian so the "we" is a global "we"). I don't believe it would be necessarily "easy" to extend an RFID tag on criminals to the rest of us any more than incarceration without due process would be. The law appropriately written must require a criminal act to be enforced. That we need to ensure that the law isn't extended is the business of our respective constitutions but ultimately our peoples. Our Supremes in Canada would find it hard(dare I say impossible) to uphold a law requiring ALL people to have a tag inserted. In fact I would think even your Supremes would have a major problem even the "conservative" ones.

2) "If tagging is NECESSARY...letting them out too early". This may in fact be the case, but I have a much bigger problem with the current practice in Canada of what effectively is an "indefinite" sentence. Basically such offenders are usually incarcerated for a defined period(say 5 years as a guess), after which they are "analyzed" and if it is determined that they are a "dangerous offender" they can be kept in jail. While I understand the sentiment, this seems to me to be patently wrong and way to easy to abuse. A criminal is effectively being punished indefinitely for crimes they MAY commit. If the crime is so heinous that it deserves longer incarceration than the law should be changed to make the maximum longer, period! However, this is still better than the practice of "outing" sex offenders. Again, these criminals have done their time, either leave them alone or pass a law requiring this disclosure, but give us the rules of the game. This has changed of course and laws are being enacted to force sex offenders to register with the police when moving in to an area, but the "outing" used to be done without such a law, sort of like a double penalty.

As for the abuse of the tags, this is more of a "technological" argument in that such abuse could be mitigated or even removed from possibility with use of appropriate encryption on the tags. As well as appropriate enforcement against such abuse(e.g. refusing to sell to someone is discrimination). Having said this however, before I would support the "tagging" of criminals it must be shown that the technology that would be used could not be easily abused in the manners you mention. Which could lead to a better quality of life for offenders who really have rehabilitated. Specifically because they would not be easily "outed" or required to be "outed" by the law. Thus the police would know who they were but the general populace wouldn't, detectors could be placed strategically to ensure these offenders would be noticed if they entered certain areas of parks, school grounds, or other areas where children congregate.

Lastly, it would probably go over better if it was a condition of parole, for instance "either accept this tagging for life or stay in jail another 10 years, your choice." Something like that.

At any rate, I'm not convinced that tagging is appropriate or workable but all my first posts wanted was for people to stop and think before they reacted to a "removal of civil liberties", ignoring incarceration as being even worse.

Re:Why stop there?

[Temsi]

A very good friend of mine was raped. How's that for perspective?

It's always fun to see people argue by attacking the person with whom they disagree. It immediately tells me you're a bullshit dittohead who has a warped idea of how the world "should" be, and is trying to conform others to that idea. You cannot violate the rights of others, just so you can sleep better at night. How fucking hard is that to understand? Are you really this retarded?

You're making assumptions about me personally, based on a post on a message board. Think about that for a second.

You accuse me of ignorance, yet you offer no topical argument beyond "you're an asshat, join the real world".

So, my advice to you, Mr. Erik Carlsteen of San Diego (tel: 1-619-283-4331), is this:

Get your head out of your ass and stop listening to Sean Hannity.

Oh, and learn some fucking netiquette... or as we call them in the "real world", manners.

Re:Why stop there?

[Temsi]

http://www.csom.org/pubs/mythsfacts.html
Scroll down to the 3rd myth.
You should really get your facts straight before you start screaming.

Re:Why stop there?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am posting as an AC because I do not want my identity known. I have become a regular poster on /., have positive karma, and even have a message in this thread that was modded +5 Informative.

Please don't mark this as trolling because it's not.

I was sexually abused by my uncle at an age when I still needed a babysitter and he needed the money to help get through college. The abuse is part of my earliest memories.

Since then I had a troubled childhood. I was constantly getting into fights at school because I was somehow perceived as different. I've been seeing a psydoc since I was seven years old. I tried to go on to college but by that point my psy problems had kicked into high gear and eventually I was hospitalized for two years. Even after that I have led a tormented life. I have eschewed any sort of intimate relationships because I can't handle them. I am currently 49 years of age and have led a totally fucked up life despite holding a job, being an excellent coder, and making enough money to be financially secure and partially retired now. I'm sure the rest of my life will be equally unhappy.

My uncle went on to get married and father a daughter whom he regularly sexually abused. I learned recently his wife and daughter were also sexually abused by his wife's father. He's an unrepentant alcoholic and I am enraged by the fact he's still alive and has his freedom while I remain trapped by the abuse of power he exhibited over me.

I'm sorry to have rambled.

My point is people like my uncle do not EVER stop their evil ways.

Unlike other crimes where I firmly believe once you've served your time you should be given the chance to build a new life unencumbered by your past, people like my uncle never change their ways and they should be thankful that all he would have to do if convicted and released is wear a GPS tracking device.

I want to live a normal life but know I never will.

This is what the sexual abuse of a child does to the child.

Re:Why stop there?

[covertlaw]

Really? When have you seen people sent to prison for taking bathtub pictures of their babies? Name one case.

Re:Why stop there?

[kelnos]

Except that speeding isn't a criminal offence, and I don't think getting drunk and peeing in the street is, either. (Misdemeanors?) Stealing a stick of gum from a store when you were a minor probably isn't considered a criminal offence either. The bill-paying example is even worse: there's nothing in the criminal code that says you have to pay your bills at all, let alone on time. It's a civil matter.

I'm not a criminal, at least not in the legal definition of the word.

Re:Why stop there?

[metro_techie]

The definition of "sex offender" is beginning to encompass a far larger swath of crimes and consequently the people that commit them. Grandma may be next!

This madness is fueled by the ever-present "protect the children" mantra spun by vote-hungry politicians and elected officials (DAs) who are happy to parade the upswing in sex offender conviction numbers around- easy when the amount of crimes producing "registered sex offenders" is increasing too.

Re:Why stop there?

[gasaraki]

Because tagging someone for life because they've commited a "sex offense" basically says that "sex offender" are impossible to reform, which is obviously bullshit. You're a "sex offender" if you're 19 and sleep with a 15 year old. Should a person like this be tracked for life after his (hopefully very short) jail term? Stamping someone as potentially guilty for life based on nothing other than the little legal tag that goes along with their crime is nothing but ridiculous. If for some reason we have a known and unrepentant child molester being set free, who proudly states he can and will molest children again, okay, maybe tagging him is some sort of solution to this. But tagging someone just because they're a "sex offender" is just as stupid as giving out the same sentence to everyone who commits a crime with the same name. The severity of the punishment has to match the severity of the crime, and there is a GREAT deal of ranges of severity under the title of "sex offender".

Re:Why stop there?

[NormalVisual]

Well, we need to define "jacketed".

The Gold Dot hollow-points I carry are technically jacketed bullets, but usually when one speaks of "jacketed" rounds, one means full metal jacket. FMJ rounds don't expand to any great degree. That's why they were mandated for general military use under the Hague Peace Conference of 1899, and indirectly under the Hague Convention IV of 1907. They just don't cause a comparable amount of damage to hollow-points or softpoint ammo.

FMJ is *very* widely sold for use in target practice, since the jacket completely encapsulates the lead bullet and reduces problems associated with lead getting into the local environment. To my knowledge there's no such thing as a real "armor-piercing" pistol round, since the muzzle velocities simply aren't high enough. Sure, you could probably put a .454 Casull FMJ through a Kevlar vest fairly easily, but that's not representative of what the average street hood will be armed with.

I agree 100% with the statement that making illegal actions "more" illegal does nothing more than give a warm fuzzy feeling to those who aren't critical thinkers.

Re:Why stop there?

[NormalVisual]

I want my freedoms, too, but my freedom is worthless if I fear criminals

Given a choice between fearing the government and criminals, I think I'm better off dealing with the criminals, thanks.

Re:Why stop there?

[StewedSquirrel]

The rate of 42% cited from that study was for "any new crimes" which would include anything from fraud to drug posession. It was also the "re-arrest" rate, where the "re-conviction" rate was closer to 20%.

More importantly, the rate for "new SEX crime" comitted by a previously incarcerated sex offender in that study was 5.3% and other studies show the rate amongst "general incarcerated population" to be convicted of a "new sex crime" is around 3%. Since the number of "criminals" in general is so much higher, criminals convicted of "other crimes" actually constitute 87% of the sex offenses comitted by "previously incarcerated" people.

Yes, convicted sex offenders are more likely than the average member of the population to be re-convicted for sex offenses. No, I don't believe it is so overwhelmingly predictable that it justifies lifetime supervision of people who would otherwise be free to go.

Stewey

Re:Why stop there?

[Total_Wimp]

I'm not a criminal, at least not in the legal definition of the word.

Interesting. Do you think you're "normal"? Do you think that everyone should be held to your standards? Do you think every criminal should be "nailed" for every offense they commit?

What do you think of traffic cameras? How about those cameras that follow the people in public spaces and are watched by the police? Do you think everyone should be comfortable being examined? They shouldn't be violating the law anyway, so why should they care?

How about a camera pointed at the front of your house? It's on the outside, right? It's in a public space, right? How about a camera pointed at the back of your house? You've got nothing to hide, do you?

How about that camera in the lobby at work? How about that elevator camera? What do you think about a camera pointed right at your desk? Don't forget the microphone. It's perfectly legal. You've got nothing to hide, do you? You never goof off. You never surf for comics or Christmas presents during company time, do you? You never make personal calls while on the clock.

Don't forget that lojack gear in your car. How are your driving skills? Never make a mistake, do you? You wont mind a government GPS, just to make sure, will you? Why would you care, you're not a criminal. It's just an infraction and those cameras were letting so many people through. Why would you object to getting a ticket every time you exceded the speed limit? 36mph in a 35mph zone? I'm sure you won't care, because you wouldn't make that mistake. And who would object to paying their rightful due for every infraction they commit. I'm sure it won't affect your insurance much.

I'm sure it won't affect _your_ insurance at all, because you're not a criminal. Funny thing is, we already have traffic cameras. They catch _everyone_ who makes a mistake. You don't have to be a "criminal" (by your definition) to get a summons from a traffic camera. But you don't care, do you? Your life is an open book.

You can think you're better than the "criminals" if you want. I hope you're right. It's admirable to strive to do the right thing. But the rest of us aren't like you. We just pretend to be like you and hope no one finds our skeletons. The world will not be improved by finding better ways to expose everyone's hidden crimes, infractions and contract violations and the fact that they're not felonies won't help the people that suffer the consequenses.

I have broken the law and even though you don't consider yourself a "criminal," you have too. Don't be so dumb that you think this is only about the "criminals".

TW

Great idea.

[grub]

"warning authorities when a sex offender is someplace he shouldn't be"

2005.05.02-14:49 WARNING: Jackson, Michael has left
Neverland.

Re:Great idea.

[telecsan]

"warning authorities when a sex offender is someplace he shouldn't be"

Correction:

2005.05.02-15:52 WARNING: Jackson, Michael has entered Neverland.

All the incidents were reported to have happened at the ranch, right?

Re:Great idea.

[Catbeller]

Actually, no incidents were ever reported until a state attorney cast a net looking for some. It's amazing how much crime you can find if you advertise on a web page for victims. The incident that was settled years ago I discount -- how much payment would you consider to let a man off the hook for assaulting your son? Apparently, the dad wanted some millions or he'd make an accusation. After legal wrangling, MJ paid him off to make the slime go away -- a very bad idea, leading to what is happening now.

Kids: don't watch this "news" on cable anymore. It's not news, it's lazy pseudojournalistic exploitation for ratings, and fame for the prosecutors. Take it from an old guy: CNN et al have tanked and turned into tabloid horsecrap. The golden age of news in the U.S. is over for now.

Re:Great idea.

[The Angry Mick]

It's not news, it's lazy pseudojournalistic exploitation for ratings, and fame for the prosecutors. Take it from an old guy: CNN et al have tanked and turned into tabloid horsecrap. The golden age of news in the U.S. is over for now.

Tell me about it. This weekend saw a never ending onslaught of "news" folk speculating over a missing Georgia bride-to-be. On CNN, Nancy Grace was hopping up and down insisting that "this is not a case of cold feet".

It was.

In the meantime, these Georgia children are still missing.

And none of them have merited even a passing mention on even the local news stations.

Won't it be struck down?

[cayenne8]

I'm wondering if this will be struck down by some court? Punishment after a sentence is done...that doesn't sound like it goes along with the constitution.

Re:Won't it be struck down?

[ForestGrump]

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

Re:Won't it be struck down?

[Emetophobe]

Sex Offenders are also tracked in Canada. Info about the National Sex Offender Registry Why the Ontario Sex Offender Registry was created

Sex Offenders are dispicable people. In my opinion, they should be castrated.

Re:Won't it be struck down?

[Infinite Entropy]

Are you really that fucking stupid? The article specifically says that the law only applies to people who molest children 11 or younger.

Re:Won't it be struck down?

[Emetophobe]

I bet you statistically, 95% to 99% of sex offenders are male. On a side note, I would love to be molested by a female sex offender.

Re:Won't it be struck down?

[mpe]

I bet you statistically, 95% to 99% of sex offenders are male. On a side note, I would love to be molested by a female sex offender.

This was modded as funny. But there is a very serious side to it. There are an awful lot of double standards which distort perceptions. e.g. could anyone imagine a man being treated the same way as Mary Kay Letourneau?
It's even been known for victims to have to lie that they were molested by a man, because no-one will believe they were molested by a woman or even that they are making false accusations...
There's also the problem that many laws here are implicitally (even explicitally ) sexist. Sometimes even the victim is male or female can make a difference as to what the perpetrator can be changed with.
Finally there's the senario of a woman raping a man and telling him "do anything about it and I'll tell the police you raped me. Who do you think they'll believe?"

Re:Won't it be struck down?

[AK Marc]

Of COURSE NOT, and no one but you has been stupid enough to suggest it will! Most people are not complete idiots, and anyone seriously proposing to track the kind of people your talking about would be laughed out of the room.

What the hell are you talking about? There is already lifetime registration for both of a married couple caught (and and convicted for) having sex in their car in a deserted parking lot. Because the sex-offender's database is public and online in many places, they are being "tracked" now, though not real-time. Many people in responding here have mentioned that tracking all sex offenders would be a good thing. Others have implied the same thing. I'm modded as a troll for pointing out that "all" sex offenders is a group that contains people that aren't a danger to society.

The problem is that the same law that pertains to a guy that peeks in the bedrooms of little children and masturbates is the same law applied to any public sexual act, including quick alley sex, sex in cars, elevator trysts, and other such acts between consenting adults and witnessed by no minors. If you think that is infair, don't mod me down for being a troll, go change the law.

GO AHEAD

[Anonymous Coward]

Track all you like. I'll be at the elementary school giving out candy if you need me. [fp]

Re:GO AHEAD

[MWoody]

I'm not worried; most kids these days are taught not to take candy from anonymous cowards.

Another Idea

[timtwobuck]

Why don't they just give them all t-shirts they have to wear instead?

In 10 years its going to be there anyways, lets save the taxpayers some $$$ and cut to the chase.

What if

[dtfinch]

Someone cloned your RFID tag, disabled yours with some sort of shock, went out and did a bunch of sex offending and stuff, then destroyed their copy of the tag?

Re:What if

[bassgoonist]

that's a scary thought. I wonder if people plant DNA evidence at crime scenes now! Sometimes it seems they rely on physical evidence too much.

An age old question

[bassgoonist]

Public safety vs. personal freedoms. Just how many freedoms do you lose when you sexually assault someone... As someone who is NOT a felon, I see no problem in this tracking... But what if it was a wrong place, wrong time drunken haze kind of thing. I don't know what to think sometimes. You just have to be careful whose toes you step on.

Re:An age old question

[brontus3927]

As someone who is NOT a felon, I see no problem in this tracking...

As someone who is not a jew, I see no problem with the Holocaust...
As someone who is not black, I see no problem with slavery...
As someone who is not Native American, I see no problem with breaking land treaties...
As someone who is not a cop, I see no problem with cops getting shot
As someone who doesn't smoke pot, I see no problem with stiffer drug penalties... As someone who doesn't have AIDS, I see no problem with a national database of people with AIDS.... hey, maybe we can use GPS tracking on them too!

See where this is going?
As a gay American, I DO HAVE A PROBLEM with the rights of groups of people being stripped away because they are "undesirable" and "unsafe to the communnity" By statute, a large portion of the US considers me a threat to marriages everywhere.

Re:An age old question

[Princeofcups]

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

Re:An age old question

[LurkerXXX]

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.

Re:An age old question

[Soko]

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?

Ummmm... This is only applied to convicted offenders in a court of law. You know, that whole "trial" thing, with a jury of 12 of your peers and a judge and all. That's who decides who is a sex offender. As it should be.

I'm all for civil liberties, as long as those liberties don't endanger or hurt anyone else. As a parent, I'd certainly like to know who has been convicted of abusing children, so I can better protect my child. For once, Think of the children! actually applies.

Soko

Re:An age old question

[DrNibbler]

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.

Re:An age old question

[elrous0]

Ummmm... This is only applied to convicted offenders in a court of law. You know, that whole "trial" thing, with a jury of 12 of your peers and a judge and all. That's who decides who is a sex offender. As it should be.

Obviously you don't know jack about the juvenile justice system in America.

Juvenile offenders don't get a trial by jury. A single family court judge decides their guilt or innocence--and whether or not they are labeled a "sex offender" for the rest of their lives. Get a conservative judge--and you get to wear an ankcle bracelet for the rest of your life for banging your 15 year old girlfriend when you were 16.

-Eric

Re:An age old question

[C0deM0nkey]

But what if it was a wrong place, wrong time drunken haze kind of thing.

So...now you shouldn't be held responsible for your actions against a 12 year old? What is up with that? Or, to make it less senstational, remove the age (the law deals with attacks on pre-teen children).

I understand you are making the "slippery slope" argument. Anyone out there reading can keep the obligatory Voltaire quote to themselves. What I want to know is when we start holding people responsible for their actions?

People, actions have consequences. You commit a felony, you pay a price. Go through rehab, work out your problems, bully on you. That's great. There is still, depending upon what you may have done, a price to be paid: in this case, you wear the monitor for life or until you can prove you were innocent (in other cases, you have a "record", etc.).

"Judge, I didn't know what I was doing when I traumatized that girl/boy/woman/man because I was drunk/intoxicated/out of my mind/whatever. Honestly, Judge, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and she just looked soooo good." That's bullshit. "Well...she said 'No', but I knew she meant 'Yes'". That's even greater bullshit.

Maybe the reality is: you could not handle the freedom. If you cannot handle the freedom, maybe it should be limited.

There are two kinds of freedom in this world: Freedom to and Freedom from. These two kinds of freedom are in balance. If your society leans towards Free "from" (the United States, for example), you are secure at the expense of civil liberties; if your society leans towards Free "to", you have lots of civil liberty but opportunities are greater for social breakdown (not that it will happen - just that it is harder to control the population if you emphasize civil liberty at the expense of security).

What is the correct balance? Not where the United States is at or presently heading (depending upon your opinion). My opinion, however, is that the United States courts do not adequately hold people responsible for their actions; there is too much leniency and sixth chances and "oh-he's-such-a-good-boy-give-him-another-chance-y our -honor" crap that an attitude of disdain and disrespect for what it means to be a productive member of society is being sown. We need to hold people responsible for their actions; sometimes a bad decision should impact you for life - especially when your bad decision impacts someone else for life.

Re:An age old question

[drinkypoo]

I want to know, what about people who lie about their age? Granted, I am actually willing to check IDs, and the last time I slept with a teenager, I did check her ID first to make sure she was of legal age. If some girl's parents made a stink and convinced her to claim I forced her to have sex and knew her age or something, there is no way I would be found innocent simply because of my appearance. I am 6'7" and a fairly hair-covered individual. If I could actually get a Jury of my peers then I could probably win, but there is no chance whatsoever that the people chosen would actually be my peers, they would just be some assholes off the street that the lawyers thought they could influence appropriately.

But anyway, aside from that long digression, if you have sex with a girl who looks over 18, and turns out to be 17, you can go to prison for having sex with her, even if the whole thing is her idea, and she told you she was 18. Furthermore, you can end up on a list of sex offenders for the rest of your life. I don't have too much problem with there being SOME penalty, because let's face it you should be in charge of your wedding tackle and not the other way around, but I can't help but think that's an unnecessarily cruel punishment for someone who is essentially just guilty of believing something a woman tells him.

Uh... a bit severe, no?

[coug_]

I'm not a sex offender, nor have I ever been one, but I do think this is going a little overboard, unless we're talking about using it just to enforce the conditions of their parole and not tacking on new restrictions that weren't previously being made.

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[ximenes]

I think all this stuff against sex offenders lately is kind of misguided. Particularly when you consider what counts as a "sex offense" in some cases. Like being 16 and having consentual sex (although of course you can't "consent") with your 16 year old girlfriend. OK, it's illegal I guess. Does that mean that you should be GPS tracked when you're 85?

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[lliiffee]

Not really. I have read research that shows that sex offenders almost never actually reform, so I am honestly in favor of locking up convicted sex offenders for life. This isn't punishment- I honestly feel sorry for people who have a psychological need to commit this kind of behavior- but we have to protect society. If using this kind of tracker makes it possible to safely release sex offenders into the public, I am fully in favor of it.

Now, I know many of you worry about the slippery slope that this introduces, and I am sympathetic to that. Regardless, people should understand that sex offenders are almost always psychologically incapable of avoiding this kind of behavior, so we are forced to choose between putting the public in danger, locking sex offenders up for life, or ingenious and somewhat cruel techniques such as trackers, chemical castration, etc.

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[terrymr]

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".

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[PsiPsiStar]

Depending on the state, the age of consent is anywhere from 14 (WTF?) to 18.

Dude! Where is it 14?

I mean... um... that's ... uh... terrible.

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[elrous0]

I am honestly in favor of locking up convicted sex offenders for life.

Please pick one:

a) I am honestly in favor of locking up a 15 year old boy for the rest of his life because he had sex with his 15 year old girlfriend
b) Okay, well maybe I'm just in favor of locking up the guy who who has been falsely accused by his ex-wife during a nasty custody battle
c) Okay, I'll admit it--I don't know what the Hell I'm talking about and am just shooting my mouth off without thinking.

Thank you for your participation

-Eric

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[Spy der Mann]

He was convicted of having sex with a girl of 17 while he was 18.

There should be a threshold of 2 or 3 years difference between the ages of the "offended" and "offender". _AND_ the "offended"'s testimony should be taken into account.

How many times you've heard things like "But dad, I love him!"

Obviously the problem is that we live in a society where kids under 16 are already having sex like wild. Maybe we should lower the age of accountability (or watchamacallit).

What do you think?

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[drinkypoo]

HTH

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[KiloByte]

Don't forget that whoever is the legal guardian of that 15y olds will be in deep shit.

A friend of a co-worker of mine helped to watch the kids on a school trip. Kids, being the usual naughty monkeys, had mayhem on their minds. Too bad, instead of the usual drinking binge, they decided to have sex. The kids were housed in a number of 4-bed cottages, when the guy entered one of the houses, he saw those four kids have group sex. One 14y old, one 13y and two 12y olds.

The shit happened. The 13y old girl got pregnant. And, the guy now has to financially support the baby until it gets 18y, as he was responsible for the kids at the time.

Re:Uh... a bit severe, no?

[Xyrus]

Only in western societies (or "advanced") societies is teen sex known as a "bad thing".

Teen sex was quite the norm not all that long ago, mainly due to the fact that you'd be lucky to make it to 30 before you died.

Young marriage was quite common. You were considered an old maid if you weren't married by 20. So on and so forth.

The problem, as you put it, is the fact that our society is so puritanical about anything dealing with sex. Frank discussions about sex are still something very rare in this country.

Mix this with the media with the "sex sells" mentality and you've got a few million horny teenagers who think that scoring is the next best thing to having their own car for their rep.

If their parents don't talk to them, their TV will.

~X~

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

But why do we continue to allow this behavior to go mostly unpunished?

Since when is 25 years not punishment?

Fine until they take the subway

[G4from128k]

And what happens when the person takes the subway or is in a building? People act like GPS is the all-knowing eye in the sky. In reality, it fails in urban landscapes.

Re:Fine until they take the subway

[tommyServ0]

There's assisted GPS and dead reckoning that can help in these situations where GPS is not available or is very weak.

Assisted GPS uses the information from cell towers to help triangulate the position when GPS is not available.

Dead Reckoning, offered by GPS units from U-Blox, features little gyroscopes that can "guess" your location based on the acceleration experienced by the unit.

Besides, a unit in motion when it doesn't have GPS is a violation that is reported to the case officer for some companies, like iSECURETrac. It's called "GPS Blocking". You, as a case officer can tell your client to not use the subway or he's going back to jail--if you think that's an issue. Walk, drive, or take a taxi or bus instead. If the offender violates by having a PTU in motion without GPS*, he is in trouble.

GPS tracking has come a long way and has counters to many perceived flaws.

NOTE: I work for iSECURETrac, a company that specializes in tracking offenders.

* After some dampening to eliminate false positives.

how bout rapists and murders also

[bdigit]

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.

Re:how bout rapists and murders also

[mrchaotica]

I thought rapists were sex offenders...?

Re:how bout rapists and murders also

[acramon1]

Yup, rapists are sex offenders. But so are people caught urinating in public. To be tagged a sex offender and tracked by GPS for life for forgetting to pee before heading out seems pretty harsh to me.

Re:how bout rapists and murders also

[Buskaatt]

Your comment brings up an interesting point. Let's just say sex offendors are "only" as bad as murderers. What the heck are murderers and sex offenders doing getting out of jail to begin with?

That aside, there's a myth that child molest have a higher recidivism rate than other criminals, at least according to these guys.

So tracking child molestors by GPS works with the myth to make Jeb look caring.

In my opinion, there's a really good way to make the child molestation recidivism rate 0. Drawing and quartering would be my first choice. Throw a GPS on the mess left over if it makes you feel better.

Not a chance

[gevmage]

This is political grandstanding. An example of making a point of "doing something" that looks good on camera and in the newspapers, but doesn't actually accomplish anything. It's technically infesable and actually attaching a tracking device to a person, like a tagged animal, would involve so much legal fighting that it would probably end up in the US Supreme court.

The proposed ammendment to the US Constitution was a similar strategy; the White House knew it didn't stand a chance, but it put the issue in the minds of voters and polarized people around the issue.

Re:Not a chance

[Bob 4knee]

... actually attaching a tracking device to a person, like a tagged animal, would involve so much legal fighting that it would probably end up in the US Supreme court.

Don't they already do this all the time? Doesn't Martha Stewart (among others) a have a bracelet attached so that her location can be monitored? I realize it's not GPS, and that GPS isn't even a good technical solution to this particular problem, but if the courts couch this in terms of "life in jail", or we let you out "early" (after 25 years) so long as you wear/implant this.

Also we don't need to even have a working prototype until at least 25 years from now...

Re:Not a chance

[ScentCone]

Just for the record, I think that sex offenders are among the worse kind of human beings around. I also think that politicians who use fear of terrorist attacks to push their agendas of invading countries they don't like and secret laws that suspend basic civil liberties to be even worse.

Um, gee... at the risk of falling into a big fat, Off Topic trap here, I think you're reaching a bit. First, be sure to spread your complaints about changes in law enforcement tools to both sides of the political spectrum, since those new laws were enthusiastically passed in the wake of an actual terrorist attack (not the threat of one) by both parties. And, I think your posture towards the administration will come across a little less shrill if you don't characterize the motivations for taking out the Taliban and Saddam as "not liking" the countries involved. It's more a matter of not tolerating the tyrants that had taken over those countries.

Be sure to check with the intelligence provided by the Russians, the French, the Germans, the Italians, and many others before thinking that serious, genuine concern about WMD trafficking didn't play a role in the recent military actions. Of course Saddam had them. He used them! We saw piles of them, and subsequently (as he was taking daily pot shots at the UN-backed flights protecting the no-fly zones over the Kurds that Saddam loved to use them on) refused to say, despite UN resolutions that he do, what he did with them. The likeliest place for all that VX gas and the rest is, of course, Syria. Where, just as before we invaded (when Saddam did regular business both ways in weapons, cash, and more), terrorism is the local hobby. The reason that fear of WMD-enabled terrorism worked as a political motivator is because it was and is a reasonable position to take based on what we knew (and still know).

Changing the regime in Irag, and letting those people live in a democratic society not run by brutal Stalinist punks like Saddam and his two charming sons (who put political opponents through the wood chipper and tortured the soccer team for not winning the Olympics) was the policy of the Clinton administration, too. The difference was that the stakes got much higher, and the opacity of the Baathist regime's inner workings, combined with their steadfast refusal to do anything but obfuscate and play games about the weapons inspections they agreed to, over and over (after being kicked out of a country they had just invaded) to openly permit... those developments made action necessary. And taking that action, and freeing Afghanistan from the Taliban, has already started to do just what was intended. Check with Lybia (now spending money on things other than imported Pakistanti nuke technology), or with Lebanon (happily kicking out the Syrian military bullies running the place), or with the first glimmers of municipal democracy in Egypt and even Saudi Arabia for whether acting was a good thing to do.

The medievalist, theocratic thugs that want to keep people from voting, women from working, and freedom from existing through the middle east, are now showing their true colors by blowing up innocent people in Iraq. The locals hate them, and people are signing up for police and military jobs there expressly out of disgust for what those insurgents are trying to do there. They had enough of that with the last unelected, brutal family regime, and they're done with it. But now they get to do something about it, and that country has ceased to be a government-sanctioned thoroughfare for terrorists and arms shipments to and from the places that support them. Hopefully Syria will wake up, and Iran will succumb to the more clear-thinking, younger part of their population, and make conflict of the sort that Saddam started (and eventually fell to) a thing of the past. As for terrorists, all we need is fewer places for them to comfortably camp out and from which to get millions in cash. That doesn't happen in months, it takes years - but at

Re:Not a chance

[tommyServ0]

It's technically infesable and actually attaching a tracking device to a person, like a tagged animal, would involve so much legal fighting that it would probably end up in the US Supreme court.

You are misinformed. GPS tracking of offenders has been going on for years so it is not "technically infesable."

Companies like iSECURETrac, ADT, and ProTech have been doing it for years.

iSECURETrac has a cool demo (I think, anyway) that shows you what the system can actually do here.

And rather than oppose it, the courts have embraced GPS tracking...the judges welcome an alternative to overcrowding prisons for small-time crooks. And when we must release a sex offender back into society, we have a little something more than the sex offender registry which is not working.

tS

Might as well tag the kids as well

[BubbleSparkxx]

Well this seems awfully pointless unless we GPS all children.

Doesn't the government have more important things to do, like regulate indecency on Satellite Radio or make sure Baseball is steroid free?

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[Anonymous Coward]

25 years in prison? Being tracked for the rest of your life?
These sound like punishments to me. On the other hand, these are poor methods of rehabilitation. A better question is why do we continue to send our criminals back into a system that doesn't fix anything? What is wrong with us?

Accuracy?

[LinuxHam]

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)

Re:Accuracy?

[Bob 4knee]

Not true. He was not "registered" at that address, he had moved w/out updating his location. Furthermore, he had the girl (alive) for awhile (I forget, days?) after he abducted her. I'd think a blinking "pervert" light 50 yards away from the missing girls address might be a major clue...

GPS for kids

[TripMaster Monkey]

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.

One Nation

[Joe the Lesser]

Under God, indivisible, with LIBERTY and justice for ALL.

Re:One Nation

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Actually, you're wrong. People who have sex with children are humans. It's pretty easy to demonstrate. Of course it may be convenient for you to twist the meaning of the word 'human' to help you deal better with various emotional issues you may have. Let's hope you never get into a position of political power where those issues may affect the rest of us.

Re:One Nation

[learn fast]

Which is why this bill will be called the USA LIBERTY Act. You aren't against something called the USA LIBERTY Act, are you?

Re:One Nation

[Qzukk]

Anyone who has sex with children (or even, God forbid, infants/toddlers) can no longer be classified as such.

Riiight.

Because the guy who screws a 17 year old girl two days before her birthday after lying to him about her age is obviously a sick, sick monster.

While you spout this shit off, remember that a 17.9999 year old is still treated like a 4 year old under the law in many states.

Re:One Nation

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

That's right. They shouldn't even get lawyers. Let's just throw out due process while we're at it. Christ knows how the US got a Constitution in the first place given the scant regard most people have for human rights around here.

Re:One Nation

[Shajenko42]

Anyone who threatens to kill someone for simply exercising their right to free speech should be imprisoned.

Re:One Nation

[nehumanuscrede]

"They should be locked up in maximum security getting their asses ripped apart by Bubba and the gang for the rest of their lives."

I found this comment interesting. According to the poster, it is perfectly acceptable behavior if the personna involved are of legal age. ( gender notwithstanding ) In fact, it is an encouraged behavior ( a wish if you will ) on the poster's part.

There are far too many instances of folks being thrown into this ' sexual predator ' category based on the testimony of a single person. Many times that person being a child. ( After all children would NEVER lie right ? )

I know this is probably news to you all too but just in case you didn't know. . . *whispers* Teenagers have sex. . . . and according to the law as it stands today, each and every one of them are ' sex offenders '.

Very similar parallels to the Salem Witch Trials. We've simply replaced the phrase " He / She bewitched me " with " He / She touched me ".

We need to take another look at the laws that define 'sex offender' and update it to 21st Century standards before we slap them with an electronic leash for the rest of their lives.

Alerts marked as spam

[PornMaster]

Too bad that any police department using AOL for e-mail won't get the alerts anyway...

Re:Civil Liberties

[bardothodal]

Pissing outside is a sex offense. So tell me again how someone should be tracked for life cause they couldn't find a bathroom....

Re:Google Maps

[TheViffer]

Wardriving would never be the same.

What about this girl?

[marshac]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife /2004-03-29-child-self-porn_x.htm

If they succeed in prosecuting her for the crimes they are charging her, she would become a sex offender. Would she have to wear a GPS tracker too?

Re:What about this girl?

[huge colin]

She was charged with "sexual abuse of children"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't get charged with "attempted murder" after a failed suicide attempt. Not sure why this should be any different.

Re:What about this girl?

[lobsterGun]

If they try her as an adult, they would be effectivly saying that she had the maturity to fully understand the ramifications of her actions. ...but then, would it be a crime for her to distribute pictures of herself, since by trying her as an adult she is no longer considered a child in the eyes of the law.

What a conumdrum!

Re:What about this girl?

[Procyon101]

Wow... under that logic, isn't every child guilty of possession of child pornography simply by virtue of the fact they carry around a naked childs body under all those clothes?

Re:What about this girl?

[No Such Agency]

If she doesn't come home from school on time, has she abducted a child?

Re:Civil Liberties

[BlakeCaldwell]

then why not leave them in prison forever? why not give them the death penalty?

this is silly. either they've served their time or not. what's next? manditory breathalizer for any ex-con drunk driver when he gets into his car for life? manditory daily urine tests for ex-con drug users for life? key-logging for any convicted computer crackers for life?

how about whenever someone gets out of jail, we give them a second, less-harsh sentence for life, making sure they never repeat their crimes?

you can't do this. this is why there's sentences in the first place. you have to let people live their lives after they've paid for their crimes.

think this out before you support something that seems so simple like this..

Problem is the definition of sex offender

[Monkelectric]

Ill leave the heavy crime and punnishment stuff to someone else, but who can be labeled a sex offender is ludicrious. I knew a lawyer who defended a guy the government was prosecuting as a sex offender for the following:

Guy got drunk, drove drunk, stopped on the highway to pee on the side of a road at 2:00am.

The reasoning went something like, "well, if he's peeing in public, hes exposing himself in public, therefore he's a sex offender."

Re:Problem is the definition of sex offender

[soupdevil]

You're right. That's ridiculous. He should be locked up for driving drunk, not for pissing.

Re:Problem is the definition of sex offender

[garcia]

Guy got drunk, drove drunk, stopped on the highway to pee on the side of a road at 2:00am.

The root of the issue is what they define exposing yourself. If you are just taking a leak in public that's "public urination". If you are blatantly fondling yourself (i.e. individuals taped at a particular I-94 rest stops in Minnesota) in public it's a little different.

I also want to know what child is up at 2:00AM that might be in direct sight of this individual relieving himself.

Re:Problem is the definition of sex offender

[lost_n_confused]

That is basically what happened to my oldest son when he was 18. He went to a college party and was served alcohol and got wasted. He was walking back to his friend's apartment and stopped and pissed on a bush and a girl in the apartment complex saw him pissing and called the cops. He is now a registered sex offender. He may not have to wear a GPS tracker but he is on the sex offender list.

Re:Prevention

[hoka]

It is very possible. In fact, there was a special on I think 60 minutes a few months ago on this exact topic, because a fair amount of (ex)-sex offenders are being treated very unfairly, ie being discharged from jobs, being treated unfairly socially, and being harassed by neighbors. Even though one of the persons followed would be considered a "good citizen", and was undergoing these relatively experimental testing procedures (it involves showing pictures of various acts, and rating them on a scale of rised emotion), he was still treated unfairly. How would you feel if you had to go to every door in your neighborhood, announce at nearly any sort of background check, that 10, 20, 30 years ago you made some huge mistake? Even if you have since been treated, have moved on, and have kids. And in a world where you can easily be accused and taken to court for something you never did in the first place, you may be labeled for life even though you did nothing.

Yes!

[Monf]

I think this would be great, becuase the guy who molested my kids was sentenced to 165 years to life (Humboldt County Case #CR030081S, sentenced January 12, 2004, California CDC# V20848, currently residing at Mule Creek State Prison, Ione, California), and he is appealing against the mandatory sentencing guidelines, and if he gets out the GPS will help me hunt him down and kill him...

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[brpr]

I'm half-wondering what part of a civilized society even allows people like this to continue to consume food and oxygen?

That'll be the civlized part of a civilized society. If we were a little more civilized, we might realize that don't we can't become better people through punishing others.

(That's not to say that we shouldn't punish anyone, just that we shouldn't fetishize the act of punishment as if it somehow improved the character of the punishers).

Recidivism

[stoolpigeon]

Recidivism is the word you are looking for. For some interesting info. on recidivism amongst sex offenders you can read many things. I found this to be interesting.

Sex offenders only?

[erroneus]

Someone else made a sarcastic remark about tracking other offenders as well, but I have to worry about this measure and related measures as well. (Earlier today there was a story about Ohio's drunk driver plates and the proposed pink plates as well.)

There are thousands of people falsely accused of crimes on a regular basis and while many (hopefully most) false accusations get cleared up, many do not and it leads to needlessly painful and complicated lifestyles for many unfortunate people. *I* am not one of the unfortunate, but I could have been had investigators not done their jobs investicaging properly. (If I were black or poor or both, I'm pretty sure I'd have been convicted quickly.) But the fact is, being accused alone is often enough to mark a person for life and the abuse of the system is way too prevalant in my opinion. (Countless divorcing men are thrown into jail while wives attempt to maintain custody of children by accusing the men of abuses of all sorts... way too common and sadly, women are rarely, if ever held accountable for making these allegations...and if a defendant cannot afford legal counsel? He's screwed.)

And now yet again people are having their sentances increased beyond judicial order by adding yet another portion of a life sentance. What ever happened to "pay debt to society"? As usual, fear is paving the way to law that abuses the people, their freedoms and rights.

Just to repeat, I'm not an unfortunate one, but I can so easily imagine how I or anyone else could suddenly become one without having deserved it. Hell, even a false accusation that never gets erased can cause irreparable harm to a person's reputation. I almost lost a job because it was found that my ex-wife had made accusations that were documented to be proven false later. I can't get those things expunged without spending a lot of money and I had done nothing wrong.

Why are we doing this? Does it help keep us any safer? Fear is driving people to crazy things.

Re:Sex offenders only?

[Rakishi]

Seeing as sex offenders have an insanely high rate of committing such crimes again, yes it does help keep society safe.

And of course, fear drives us. We make money because we're afraid of what happens if we don't, we save up in case something happens (fear again), we have a military to defend us (fear again), we have laws to punish criminals with jail sentences (fear yet again, it's not rehabilitation but removal from society), we follow laws for fear of punishment, etc. Have you seen the last election? We vote for candidates because we're afraid of what the other guy will do. We had a Cold War because we were afraid of the soviets and their nukes, hell the whole concept of mutual annihilation is based on fear.

Re:Sex offenders only?

[JimBobJoe]

Someone else made a sarcastic remark about tracking other offenders as well, but I have to worry about this measure and related measures as well.

It's actually a great example of another area where security experts need to be involved in.

Clearly the goal is reduce child molestation and sexual offense. Figure out where the risks are, what's important, what's not, put laws/programs/whatever in place to deal with the risks and issues.

Politicians don't work like that. The media drools over some sorta rare situation, politicians jump into action to make laws more stringent than the laws that were already on the books. I can tell you one thing, if the horse has already run out of the barn, it doesn't matter how hard you slam the barn door.

What we need is good data.

In spite of what local politicians say, recidivism of sexual offenders is low. (google "sex offender recividism" and parse the info yourselves.)

But I want more complex data than just that...in order to assess risk properly, and put everything in the correct context. For instance:

*Apparently the true serial sexual predator is a very rare situation. We are most afraid of it, with little justification. How common is the true serial sexual predator?

*We have a lot of law enforcement resources locked up in chld pornagraphy--catching those who make real child porn (for good reason) and catching those who consume it. How much is the latter a threat? How likely are they be an actual molester? What's the statistical likelyhood that a child would be molested by an individual that has a taste for child porn. (I incidentally heard somewhere that 2% of Americans have a taste for child porn, but I've not heard that again? Answers?)

*Next, I've heard some evidence to suggest that the majority of child molestaters have only engaged in acts with one child. These individuals have actually not had any significant attraction towards any other children, nor do they after their molestation of the child in question. Further, they are most often relatives or friends of the child/parents, and so know the child well. (I've got a theory here...these people did not have a single bit of pedophilia in them, but something about this child makes their brain go *ping* and things go downhill from there.) So what's the statistical evidence on this?

This is an important thing to know. If your child is slight/significantly/astronomically more liklely to be molested by an individual who has not shown any prior-disposition to children in the past, and further, is likely already known and trusted by you (the parent) then the sexual offender databases and pink license plates serve as a tragic distraction from where the risk actually lies.

Anybody got any information out there?

Re:Human rights?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

It's scary when people are confused between literal and metaphorical usages of words. We describe sex offenders metaphorically as beasts, but anyone with half a brain cell can still see that literally speaking they are still humans. No matter how unspeakable their acts may be, a human is a human and deserves human rights.

I think it's a good idea on its own...

[AmazingRuss]

...but I worry that it would be the thin edge of the wedge. I'm sure there are many in law enforcement that salivate at the idea of every traffic offender waddling around with a GPS clenched in his buttocks.

I think the correct solution is to keep molesters locked up, or painlessly execute them. They're sick, the sickness makes them dangerous, and we don't know how to cure them. Until we can cure them, we can't have them running loose. It's harsh, but I think doing that would free up resources we could devote to figuring out how to identify and cure these people.

Hi there

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post has been forwarded to the Mule Creek State Prison officials.

Re:Civil Liberties

[Locke2005]

Uh, if they are repeat offenders, shouldn't we just keep them locked up? Isn't that the only way of really preventing them from preying on any more people?

That being said, "sex offender" is really too broad and ambiguous a term. Remember, if you are 18 and have sex with a 17 year old a day before her 18th birthday, you are classified as a sex offender... even if you later go on to marry the woman. I think we need to draw a distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex. And please don't give me any BS about 16 year olds being incapable of informed consent!

Think

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the dumbasses say "lock them up", you should think twice about how poorly defined "sex offense" is in US law and in most people's minds. In most states two 17-year old boys having consensual sex is a jailable sex offense. Is it fair to lock them up or track them for life (never mind the stupidity of the original law). Or how about a 17-year old boy and 17-year girl who are "legal"; boy turns 18 the next day and is now a sex offender (a pedophile) cuz he screwed his 17-year old GF, who is a minor. This shit really happens.

Are these people guilty of anything? Are they "unreformable"? The law in some states sure says they're sex offenders.

Not all sex "offenses" are the same. Maybe that's why we shouldn't lock them up for life. Think.

Re:One way to do it

[mrchaotica]

Would be to sentence them to 25 years in prison then 10 years of monitoring.

We do that already -- it's called "parole."

How much?

[ZosX]

How much is this going to cost tax payers? Seriously. If this were a tribal society or even america 100 years ago they would have just killed the perpetrator. Someone that cannot stop themselves from their own inclinations needs to be taken out. I'm sorry but with certain crimes there should be little recourse. A $.35 bullet is really cheap considering the tens of thousands we waste housing these monsters and then paying someone to watch their every movement. If you want to rape or molest a child or a baby you can get up to 15 years in prison. That is roughly half a million alone just to house them. Imagine what half a million in scholarships could give a poor community. Imagine how much benefit hundreds of people could see from half a million versus one predator who by his actions has given up his rights to be a part of our society. We would have hung people like this on the spot 100 years ago and why shouldn't we continue to do so? What about the families and the kids whose lives have been destroyed? What recourse do they have? The satisfaction that the man that raped their little 9 year old gets to walk in 10-15 years and potentially ravage some other child along the way?

Sad. Vigalante justice never seemed so appealing.

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[Locke2005]

Why don't we just get over this delusion that jail time is about rehabilitation or punishment, and just admit that we put people in jail because they can't hurt any innocent civilians while they are in jail?

Overreaction

[Dolly_Llama]

This may not be a popular sentiment here, but what is done to sex offenders has gone way overboard.

Consider what 'sex offender' can mean. We're immediately led to imagine a child molester, but consider that a 'sex offense' in some less enlightened areas in the country can be things like

Sodomy (between consenting adults)
Public Urination

Now for those offenders that are the not nice things we are inclined to imagine, either the offender is a threat to public safety or he is not. There may be fine distinctions as to how an offender is considered a threat, but in the end it is a binary condition: Threat/Notthreat.

If the person is a threat, that person should first NOT BE OUT IN SOCIETY, that's what prisons are for! Second, it would be in the public's best interest that the offender be given treatment such that he is no longer a threat upon eventual release.

If that person is not a threat, LEAVE HIM ALONE! This increasingly public punishment of sex offenders makes even repentent, treatable offenders pariahs in any community. Look at what happened to the guy just recently released from Atascadero Hospital only to be bounced around from Mill valley to Oakland to Antioch, people picketing outside of his room, the location of which was released to the press.

Stupid, useless, ineffective: politics as usual.

[doodleboy]

Any sex offender seriously contemplating raping and killing a child will not hesitate to chop off the monitoring bracelet and go underground. Period.

This is a ridiculous law. But it gives a scared public the warm fuzzies, and some politicians get to look good on TV for a while.

It's like the Schaivo thing. Douchebag Tom DeLay and all those other political flaks were just looking to score brownie points with the public. Call me a cynic, but I doubt anyone in Washington looked at it any other way.

Re:Civil Liberties

[Princeofcups]

> Uh, if they are repeat offenders, shouldn't we
> just keep them locked up? Isn't that the only way
> of really preventing them from preying on any more
> people?

There's no room. The jails are full of kids who were caught with a quarter ounce of pot on them. And soon they will be full of people who cannot pay their debts.

jfs

Can u say insane?

[NitricEster79]

Look I'm sorry but this is just how absurd things have gotten around here. We are tagging and tracking sex offenders for life but not people that have killed? This ranks right up there with spammers getting jail time. The entire point of our system isn't to mark someone for the rest of their life. The idea is we change them while going through prison to be more constructive members of society...I guess we gave up on that a long time ago though.

Adultery

[PsiPsiStar]

What constitutes sex offense? In Georgia, isn't adultery included? I know the supreme court has struck down anti-sodomy laws.

I assume statutory rape is included with rape and sexual assault. But what about sexual harrassment? What about prostitution?

Re:Civil Liberties

[randalware]

And how many other things are "illegal" in silly ways.

Resisting arrest (too many ways to list),
spitting (attempted murder in OK, if target is the police),
child abuse ( ask your state social service for a written defintion)
( and then think about how vague it is.)
terrorisim ( look at the patriot act abuse cases )
property seizure ( money & property can be seized with ever being charged)
( let alone convicted )
( and with no requirements to ever be returned )

Remember the "we were wrong" retractions in the newspapers are
usually short and buried deep on pages that are not likely to be read.

Re:One Nation (Minor Revision)

[Sandbox Conspiracy]

... under Canada, with liberty and justice for all.

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[plover]

For predatory sex offenders, it's not so much about punishment as it is the protection of society as a whole. These are not people who "add value" to the rest of us. They cause misery; they give nothing. They spread mental illness amongst their victims in almost the same way that insects spread disease. These are defective people, they are not people we need to "help" or fix, they are people we need to keep away from other people forever and ever and ever.

All that said, I'm still not a big fan of the death penalty. Since I don't buy into the whole "afterlife" thing, I think death is the easy way out for these people.

What are you talking about?

[C0deM0nkey]

Florida should have been on the ball in the mid 90s when GPS became mainstream.

Article 1,Clause 3 of the US constitution: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

What the heck are you talking about? The clause you quote from the US Constitution states that you cannot create a law in order to prosecute me for something that was legal at the time I did it (ex post facto ~= after the fact). It has nothing to do with deciding to write a new law to use a technology that was not previously available. If you RTFA you'll note that

Some offenders already on the street could be ordered back to jail or be placed under GPS monitoring if they violated their probation.

In other words, a current offender would have to offend again (or break the rules again) before they could be sentenced under this new law.

Re:Prevention

[FictionPimp]

When I was 16, I would of killed to have my face all over school saying I just scored. Unless the chick was ugly.

Re:Civil Liberties

[dustman]

And please don't give me any BS about 16 year olds being incapable of informed consent!

Are 8 year olds capable of informed consent?
Are 12 year olds capable of informed consent?
Are 14 year olds capable of informed consent?

If you say 'yes' to any of these, most people will say you are sick.

The line has to be drawn somewhere. What's in your personal agenda that makes it so important to you for 16 year olds to be able to have sex with adults?

I work with people in law enforcement

[pr0t0]

occassionally at least.

I used to take the simplistic view that going to prison WAS paying your debt to society. As such, once released you were a free (wo)man again. Not that I had any love for sexual predators, I felt the requirement of notification to law enforcement when moving was unconstitutional and a violation of the "paid your debt" philosophy.

But as it was explained to me, when sexual predators are freed from prison, they are not done serving their sentence. The notification is part of a type of "bargain": release in exchange for notification. But as another poster pointed out, many do not uphold their end of the deal. I suppose you could have a hypothetical situation where the inmate prefers to stay in prison rather than notify of movement. Of course this is unacceptable in practice due to prison overpopulation and it causes an (undue?) burden on taxpayers. So in the end, it's more of a forced option.

So in the end, I'm not sure lifetime GPS Tracking is a violation of rights, but I think in practice it won't be very useful.

Still, I can see a persuasive argument being made that it is a restriction on the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" inalienable right, which is by definition not a right that can be granted or taken away by the government according to the US Constitution.

combining technologies

[drDugan]

I think we should combine GPS tracking of criminals with services like this one

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=148095&cid= 12410776

mentioned earlier today on /.

then I could get an SMS message on my cell phone when a sex offender was near.

wait wait -- even better. let's put GPS tracking on all the KIDS, then we can check every ten seconds or so if the location of the sex offender is too close to some group of kids, and notify all the people in the area with an SMS message

wait wait -- even betterer let's put GPS tracking devices on everyone and let the governement make some big heuristic rule set for who is supposed to be where at certain times and put shock collars on people that create taser-like debilitation if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time

employers wouldn't have to use punch cards any more!

you'd never have any ambiguity in crimes, like "where were you on the night of May 5?" -- 'cause we'd already know!

no one would ever get lost ever again...
etc etc etc

it would be swell...

Re:Prevention

[N3WBI3]

How would you feel if you had to go to every door in your neighborhood, announce at nearly any sort of background check, that 10, 20, 30 years ago you made some huge mistake?

Probably better than the kid I traumatized by that act..

Are you incapable

[stoolpigeon]

of morally differentiating between various crimes? Do you not find that the difference in the damage done between say a thief and a child molester warrants different treatment? Do the objective studies showing an incredibly high recidivism rate for sex offenders not impact how you view this?

Based on your side not and making guesses about your opinions -- are you also as opposed to euthanasia due to the same types of concerns in regards to where it will stop?

Are elections coming up again?

[schiefaw]

No one has ever been defeated in a US election for being too hard on sex offenders or drug users. I am no great defender of either, but I am real sick of the transparent a$$-kissing from the politicians. I am actually at the point where I get nauseous when I witness such obvious pandering. If sex offenders remain a threat upon release, why are they being released. At some point someone will need to fix the system. This is like applying a work-around patch to software.

RTFA

[stoolpigeon]

Shouldn't let it bug me but it is. Over half the highly modded comments in this thread are like this one. The article says nothing about doing this to 'sex offenders' in general.

The article states that this law applies to '...people convicted of certain sex crimes against children 11 and younger...'

I like your idea that such people be incarcerated until cured - of course what that means in the vast majority of these cases is a life sentence with no parole. How economically feasible is that?

Why stop with Convicted Sexual Preditors

[m11533]

This is surely one of those slippery slopes that we do not want to go down. I am a father and certainly can understand the horror of what happened in the case that motivated this law. But, this country used to have a principal whereby if you were convicted of a crime, you served your time and then were allowed re-enter society to become a productive member of society. Recently, there has been a competition to see who can impose the harsher punishments, and who can be the least forgiving. All in the name of preventing abuse and molestation of children. But, why should we stop with those individuals who have been convicted. Let's monitor anyone who has been arrested in association with an investigation of alleged molestation or child abuse. Even better, lets just monitor EVERYONE. We have the technology. And, surely the only people who wouldn't want their location known are those with something to hide. We could even solve most problems with this single solution... if we know where everyone is, and when they are there, we will far more quickly solve all crimes, and prevent terrorism. Sounds like the perfect solution, doesn't it?

I'll also suggest that for government leaders who profess to be strict adherents of the Christian faith, this is surely a most un-Christian solution.

Why not go the whole way

[advocate_one]

and brand perverts with a letter 'P' on their foreheads... make adulterers wear scarlet letter A's on their clothes... make convicted shop-lifters wear a dayglo bib whenever they have to enter a shop...

If that's what it takes to make the public feel safer in their beds, then, I'm sure some politician somehwere would love to make it so...

Re:Civil Liberties

[Locke2005]

The point was, there isn't some magical birthday at which people suddenly become responsible. It's a continuum, and some people mature a lot faster than others. There are lots of people older than 18 that are incapable informed consent too -- does that make it ok to take advantage of them, just because they have had that magical birthday? Doesn't it seem a little arbitrary to you that having sex with someone a day before their 18th birthday makes you a sex offender, but doing it a day after is perfectly ok?

A level of civilization is judged...

[$criptah]

...by how a society is treating its criminals. Does not look good for us, does it?How about we aim our money and efforts on reducing the number of people who want to kill or commit sex crimes?

The tracking law does not look too bad for an average American; I am pretty sure that many people like to have convicts locked up somewhere far away. What is going to happen when an average American is a convict? Ever thought of that? How about tagging all the citizens in order to prove that one was innocent during the crime? Now, that's a thought! And if you're not tagged, then you should be guilty until proven otherwise just because nobody was aware of your location.

Why on earth is the modded insightful???

[wannabe-retiree]

"Under God, indivisible, with LIBERTY and justice for ALL"

Quoting the pledge of allegiance (not a real law mind you) is considered insightful in this discussion??

The Constitution specifically says when Liberty can be taken from someone. Ammendment 5 says that one cannot be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"

So yeah- Liberty and Justice for all unless you are convicted of a crime in which case you forfeit the Liberty part in order to fulfill the Justice part.

White Collar Criminals

[jafac]

Let's GPS-track the white-collar criminals. The CEO's of America who fraudulently misrepresent earnings, or hide income in offshore partnerships, etc.

SOME sex offenders CAN be cured

[davidwr]

People are on the sex offender registries - usually for life - for a variety of reasons.

Some are 20 year olds who impregnated 15 year old girlfriends.

Some are high school or college students who had sex with a drunk girlfriend in violation of the law that says a drunk person can't consent.

Some are 14 year old boys who don't know how to control their own hormones so they rape their 6 year old sister.

Some rape adults.

Some are child molestors who do it for their own jollies - "kiddie rapists."

Some are pedophiles - "child lovers" - who do it because they mistakenly think the child loves them and wants sex and they love, or think they love, the child. This also applies to cases where the child really believes he or she wants to have sex with the adult, as is the case with a few male teenage victims.

Each needs a different kind of rehabilitation. The first three will probably not re-offend after age 25 because either they will be interested in legal-aged women or are past the "youthful indiscretion" of having sex with drunk women.

The rapists and child molestors come in two flavors - the true sociopaths and those that will eventually buy into societal norms. The former group is probably dangerous for life, and the only thing that will help them is fear of consequences, along with public notification in case that isn't enough. The latter group needs an ongoing treatment program much like many alchoholics find in AA.

The "child lovers" need to be convinced that their conception of a child's desire for sex is mistaken, and that it is more loving to stay out of a kid's pants. Until that time, they fit into the same category as child molestors. Once they buy into this, they are no longer dangerous.

The biggest problem to deciding how to separate "curable" and "treatable" sex offenders from those who aren't is that people lie and people can be fooled. Even 1 out of 10 "false positives" of "cured" or "in treatment and not dangerous" sex offenders means for every 9 who are allowed to resume normal lives, 1 is let out on the streets unmonitored who is a danger to society. Compare this to the estimated 1 out of 1000 people out there who have never been convicted of a sex crime but will commit one later in life.

Re:SOME sex offenders CAN be cured

[bleckywelcky]

There is definitely a gray area in there. At the age of 20, how many of you never checked out a high school chick? How many of you never checked out a 16 year old? I'm guessing somewhere around 1% or 2% ... There are some VERY well developed 15 and 16 year olds out there that look like they're 18 or 19. When you're 20, jumping down 2 or so years is not a stretch. However, by time you hit 25, you should have grown out of that. Is it right that a 20 year old who has sex with a 16 year old should be GPS-tracked for the rest of their life? Hardly. Now, if that 20 year old went for a 12 year old or something, fine ...

Re:SOME sex offenders CAN be cured

[drsmithy]

The "child lovers" need to be convinced that their conception of a child's desire for sex is mistaken, and that it is more loving to stay out of a kid's pants.

I personally know of at least half a dozen "children" (ie: under the age of majority) who not only desired sex, but also actively sought it out. There was no exploitation by the older party, those who have since split did so amicably, two are still with their boy/girlfriends (12 years down the track) and one is married.

Most friends I've known have similar knowledge of their old peer groups.

This whole idea that "kids don't want sex or even know what it is" is ludicrous. Kids know what sex is from (relatively) quite a young age now. They also hit puberty (ie: are physical ready for sex) at much younger ages. Lots of "kids" around the 13 - 16 age group either are, or want to be, sexually active. Why they should be (legally) denied involvement with an older party, who is just as likely to be a sincere, caring, experienced and mature lover as they are a manipulative pervert, is beyond me.

Consensual sex - and by that I mean sex where both parties participate voluntarily, not the legal definition - is not in any way, child abuse. Certainly, some people regret their sexual encounters afterwards, *but that is true of all age groups*.

Nowhere near 100%

[davidwr]

Many factors affect recidivism rates for violent criminals.

These include
age - older adults are at much less risk than younger ones,
what-have-you-got-to-lose, adults with families and stable jobs are at much less risk than others
rehabilitation opportunities - those who are taking rehab seriously are at a much lower risk than those who aren't or those who do not have the opportunity to be in a good rehab program.

Even absent the last two, a person who violently attacks someone and is locked up for at least 10 years and until age 40 will on average be at significantly lower risk by virtue of age alone.

Re:Human rights?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Right of justice? I've not come across that one before. Is it in the Constitution?

The whole point of the justice system is to eliminate the victim from sentencing, not to give them the right to carry it out. The reason is pretty straightforward - in political systems where the victims (or the family of the victim) determines the sentencing we end up with a society rife with feuding. As a result, most modern societies have no 'right to justice' in the sense you may be suggesting (and I may be misreading you).

Probation vs. For life

[Sylver Dragon]

There is a big differnce here:
during probation != for life
We track criminals for the duration of their probationary period, but after that they are no longer tracked. This is part of the probation system. Basically, we let a well behaving convicted criminal out of jail early, with the caveat that he is not really a "free" citizen yet, and he must still report his whereabouts for the remaining duration of his sentance.
This system would track a criminal for the rest of his life. Potentially, for a long time after their proscribed punsihment has expired. While I agree that jail time is the wrong solution for the type of people this law targets, we still need to make sure that we are not allowing civil rights to be eroded on this front. Tell me, what's to stop this type of law being passed for "rapists and other violent criminals"? People would probably go for it. But tell me, what all is included in that "other violent criminals" bit? Do you really want a government deciding who it gets to track forever? Have you ever read 1984, Brave New World, Farienheit 451, or better yet, a little bit of history? Just because we claim to be a free and open society, doesn't mean we can't follow the path of Rome into imperialism.

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[The Good Reverend]

just admit that we put people in jail because they can't hurt any innocent civilians while they are in jail?

This may be true for child molesters, but it's sickening the stuff some in prisons have to put up with from other prisoners. Why should anyone behind bars be subject to the violence and rape that goes on, no matter what crime they've committed?

Incarceration IS the punishment - no one in prison deserves violence on them.

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[JimBobJoe]

These are not people that can be rehabilitated. Sex offenders have amongst the highest rates of recidivism.

Bah! Where do people get this info?? Sex offenders have some of the *lowest* rates of recidivism. Just google "sex offender recidivism" and you can parse the information yourself.

They're wired wrong. They're defective people. What society needs is to protect itself from these people.

There are many issues with that thinking, but simply going from a security aspect, it's not a good use of resources. A child is significantly more likely to be molested by an individual who has never had any previous sexual offense, either reported or unreported. Further, a child is astronomically (I use that word for a reason)more likely to be molested by an individual who is well known to the child and the family, is therefore trusted. The serial molester cases that the media like to drool over are rare and distracting us from more much more risky issues.

I think you wont disagree with the premise that we need to prevent/decrease cases of molestation, but if we know that it is most likely to occur from a person that has never offended, shown any signs of offending, and is trusted by the victim and their family, then clearly, we are approaching the problem from the wrong side of things.

And on a final note, I heard some sorta research (but can't locate) that there's about a 2% disposition toward child porn. That's 1/50 of Americans. In your book, that's quite a lot of people to lock up.

Recidivism

[zoombat]

Because the rate of recidivism for violent sex offenders is nearly 100%, which means that they will almost certainly rape or murder someone it the future.

You know I thought it was really high, too, but according to these myths and facts about sex offenders, the majority of sex offenders do NOT reoffend. Also, I was very surprised to read that sex offenders are less likely to reoffend than non-sex offenders.

On the flip side, there's this analysis of multiple studies which reports some pretty high recidivism rates for various types of sex offenders.. and really demonstrates how complicated it is when factoring in the type of crime, and especially the extreme underreporting of sex crimes. I suspect that the overall lower rate is probably because of the underreporting and the grouping of all sex crimes together.

But in any case, I don't think your "nearly 100%" number can be substantiated. The biggest numbers in the studies analyzed, showed 52% of child molesters facing rearrested (not necessarily convicted) within a 25 year period. Oh, and Exhibitionists had a very high recidivism rate (41%-71%).

As a side note, people who are released from prison early and wear tracking systems have been deemed safe enough to be released, and unlikely to reoffend -- otherwise they wouldn't have been released early. What they're talking about here, is using it for people who have already served out their entire sentences.

When do we start uplifting chimps and dolphins?

[theguyfromsaturn]

This starts to sound like the probies in the Uplift universe from David Brin. I hope we get to start uplifting the chimps and dolphins soon. I wonder what the Tymbrimi will look like.

Re:When do we start uplifting chimps and dolphins?

[theguyfromsaturn]

Just to clarify for those who haven't read the uplift universe, here is a quote taken from a chapter (avaiable at http://www.davidbrin.com/sundiversample2.html) of Sundiver, the first book written in that universe.

"... They went to great efforts to convince the populace," Jeremey said in a low rumbling voice, "that the laws would cut down on crime. And they did have that effect. Individuals with radio transmitters in their rumps often think twice about causing trouble to their neighbors.

"Then, as now, the Citizens loved the Probation Laws. They had no trouble forgetting the fact that they cut through every traditional Constitutional guarantee of due process. Most of them lived in countries that had never had such niceties anyway.

Hilarity.

[Grendel Drago]

You know, I wondered how often something like that happened. I'm sure it wasn't an issue twenty years ago when you needed expensive equipment and your own chemical lab to make porn (yeah, yeah, darkroom chemicals are simple; they're still not trivial, and they leave evidence a little harder to dispose of than JPEGs.) But I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg; there's got to be quite an underground economy in self-produced child pornography. And while it's creepy, I don't think laws sending folks to "pound me in the ass" federal prison were intended for these kids, or the people they tell that they're 'eighteen, honest, I swear, for real'.

I think they were intended more for completely legitimate but thoroughly unsettling sites like this. (Seriously. It's set up exactly like a fucking pornsite.) Which coincidentally, is utterly legal. Funny, huh?

--grendel drago

While I have no love for sex offenders

[AviLazar]

I think this is a bit extreme. The offenders went to jail, paid fines, and probably have to register themselves with such laws as Meghans law. But you know what, a tracking device (unwanted) is a violation of privacy and every FREE citizen deserves a right to privacy.

Now if they want to implement this to people on probation, I would have no problem with this as people on probation must remain within a certain locale. Sex offenders are not under the same requirement. Also, I believe (barring the company itself) a former sex offender CAN legally work say at a school, daycare, etc...but usually they cant get these jobs as parents would have a fit (rightfully so).

When politicians go bad.....

[northwind]

Please don't take this as flame bait. There is more to it than that.
I have two daughters. One was sexually assaulted.
What this politician is suggesting is i my opinion totally and utterly an attemt to assassinate common decency. I find it revolting.
First of all I think that rape is a dumm word and the sentences for rape are equally stupid. There should be no "rape". There is only one thing: Assault. An act of violating another human being against the other persons will.
Be it for sexual reasons or for money or any other reason.
Maintaining the word rape in my opinion creates the aura of mysticism around this subject. It shows that many females have difficulties dealing with the experience and I believe (although I am not female) it is because there is this artificial destiction between rape and assault.
That you convict somebody of rape does more than just that. It creates a victom of rape. And this seems to often create a very slow healing process.
Call it what it is: Assault. Period. Nobody likes to be mugged for whatever reason. And both genders can relate to it with no difficulties.
And I really don't see that any substantially part of the female victom has been damaged anymore than if somebody put a gun to my head: As long as I survive with my body intact - I am the surviver.
If females are still judged by their virginity instead of their personality and intellect - then shame on those who do so.
Doing what this politician is doing he is putting a constant reminder out there to delay the healing process. Revenge is always empty. You think you want it - but it is not a reward. It is just you doing the same thing that was done to you.
If you really think surveillance is nescessary - then these people belong in an institution to be released when the psychiatrists say so. Don't make the society a parkinglot.
So really - I see this as just another attemp to gain control. The goal to be total control. Massive surveillance units. Administrations. Kings.
Use the money that you save by not doing this to help all victoms of assault. Males or females.

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[ScentCone]

We used to be a lot more sensible about this: if you so aggregiously attacked society that you've essentially declared a permanent contempt for it and willingness to harm it, then you get something special: like being a laborer for life. You know, the salt mines, that sort of thing. Now we've got all these great labor saving devices, so it sort of takes the fun out of knowing that child rapists are breaking up rocks to make road gravel (meaning, it's not cost efficient, so they're still a drain on society, not a cheap asset). I've seen programs where lifers are put to work doing things like making wiring harnesses or other actitivies for which it remains difficult to employ robots. Sounds like a great alternative to outsourcing some manufacturing to China, if you ask me.

Oh really and what were those...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh really and what were those super accurate studies that you read? Which type of "sex offender" did the study look at - pedophiles, ephebophiles, rapists, exhibitionists, statutory rapists, opportunistic molestors, people who pee in public, people who have consensual sex in public, "sodomites"? Were these "sex offenders" male, female, self-identifying or clinically diagnosed? Links please.

If you look at people who have a disorder (e.g. obsessive compulsive, hording, anorexia, alcoholism) you see that it's very difficult to cure the disorder entirely. Many are rooted to a degree in an obsessive compulsive type dissorder. Many disorders are simply treated at the symptom level. Provide some therapy in combination with medication in order to treat individual symtoms. Thus a pedophile, one who gets consistent sexual arousal when looking at pre-pubescent and cannot sustain arousal when looking at an adult, can have symptoms treated and appear normal as well as behave normally.

Much like an alcoholic. Alcoholics are either genetically predisposed to drinking or become alcoholics because of emotional issues. Many alcoholics will say "once an alcoholic always and alcoholic". This doesn't mean that they can't stop their behavior (with some help) and become productive members of society. Nor does it mean that they aren't productive members of society while in the middle of their alcoholism. Nor should it mean that we should brand them in some way so that they are easily identifiable. And don't try to argue that there's a big difference between pedophiles and alcoholics. In general yes, in terms of impact on society no. How many families are ruined and how many children killed each year by an alcoholic either behind the wheel or with a weapon compared to those killed by a pedophile or other "sexual predator". How many are maimed or otherwise beaten by an alcoholic each day in the US?

What's the recidivism rate (repeat of the same type of crim) of your average convicted clinically diagnosed pedophile versus an alcoholic who's convicted of drunk driving versus someone convicted of armed robbery or B-n-E? The problem is no such numbers yet exist. The numbers provided by the DOJ itself are, in their words, limited. Only a couple of studies followed sex offenders after release and it could be said that the act of studying them changed their behavior.

I don't like this save the world through incarceration, tracking, ostracism, marking, tagging, berating, and continuing to punish after the fact. It doesn't make sense. You can't put numbers to it and show success.

Once a child sex offender != always

[davidwr]

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.

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Are your suggestions backed up by any kind of research about the behavior of criminals or are you just fantasizing about the pleasures you would indulge yourself in if you were dictator. I've a horrible feeling it's the latter.

Article is *not* about sex offenders...

[msimm]

Its about child molesters. Slippery slope arguments can certainly be made either way but formulating a highly moderated argument against something when even your own subject line makes it clear you didn't get past the (typically) poorly written synopsis is plain sad.

The article itself is short, take the 3 minutes to read it then open a real discussion.

It establishes a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life behind bars for people convicted of certain sex crimes against children 11 and younger, with lifetime tracking by global positioning satellite after they are freed.

This is why

[EtherAlchemist]

I see the sarcasm tags, but I respond anyway. Here is why: Which is more dangerous to you as a person who lives in society- the guy who might commit some kind of crime or the guy who already has?

My PERSONAL feelings on this are that if you commit a sex crime, fuck yes you should be tracked if you are released. And you know what, maybe that tracking device should include some kind of taser- wander out of your allowed area, zap, authorities notified, you go back to jail.

Our system has all kinds of failings with regard to sex offenders and crimes against children. Get busted for selling pot as a third offense, life. But, get convicted of raping a child, 3 years. WTF

Yes, I think there are crimes that warrant tracking for life and I don't think it violates the trackee's rights. Violation of their rights? What fucking rights did they (the criminal) violate to get thrown in prison in the first place? You rape someone, you're not just violating their rights, dude. You're fucking that person up FOR LIFE. What do they get? Do you know what kind of trauma it is to find out the person who raped you was released and that there's no way for anyone to KNOW where that person is? All they have to do is check in with a parole officer (sometimes) once a month, what are they doing the rest of the time?

Having kids, if I knew the school could go into lock down or alert when a tracked individual showed up, great.

Why don't we tag everyone? You don't need to. "Odds are everyone will commit a crime eventually" What? Where does this stat come from? Giving you the benefit of the doubt, what KIND of crime will everyone commit eventually? Does the guy who goes over his time on the parking meter fall into the same kind of criminal category that the serial murderer does? No, there are limits to this. That's why law books are so thick, someone has thought about that before and decided that the two crimes are different and warrant different punishments.

So should (and would, despite the the tinfoil hat mentality) any system of tagging convicts.

This is absurd.

[ThatDamnMurphyGuy]

This whole tracking child molesters thing is absurd. No, I'm not defending these scumbags, so hear me out.

What makes a sexual offender or predator any more dangerous than a convicted murderer or rapist? Why should one have to announce their presence in a neighborhood and not live x miles from schools but not the other? Both are potentially dangerous. The murderer or rapist won't care that the girl or boy next door is 16 or 19.

Both were convicted and served their time. Period. If we're not going to track EVERYONE convicted of those types of crimes, then we should'nt be tracking any of them.

This is just as one sided as cities that post lists of the "johns" convicted of prostitution but never post a list of the prostitutes. They were both convicted; list them both.

There was just a thing on the news about the new Ohio law that gave authorities the power to arrest, try, evict, or move child molesters or predators that live within x number of miles from a school. This includes people who own their homes, and lived in these places long before the schools in question were built.

Like I said, I'm defending their actions, but I think the whole mess is too lobsided.

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Law isn't about rehabilitation, unfortunately. The law is, quite simply put, a system of codified, organised revenge. It began with Hammurabi and the earliest civilsations; in order to prevent blood feuds and duels in the street, the king or high priest was declared to be the sole distributor of revenge. When two parties had a dispute, the king would decide who was at fault, and exact revenge sufficient to satisfy the injured party, no more and no less.

So, if you are wondering why prisons are the harsh, brutal, violent places that they are, remember they are society's implements of vengeance. The inmates have (purportedly) injured some part of society, now society is going to make them pay according to the rules and guidelines laid down by experience and practise.

I'm not condoning it or saying it is the best method to deal with criminals, just explaining exactly why it is all that it is.

Re:And why do we let them go free?

[greythax]

Well, with that reasoning, why don't we get over this delusion that school is about educating our children and just admit that we put children in school for a cheap form of day care. We talk about rehabilitation because it is the ideal, and the second we stop talking about it is the second we give up on a large segment of our population. Additionally, if all we are doing is removing them from our society, wouldn't it be easier to just kill anyone who comitted any form of crime? Especially if we are sure that they can't be rehabilitated and are going to do it again no matter what.

As far as I am aware, punishment as a deterent has failed to put an end to crime for at least 2000 years now. Perhaps it is time we started to look into something different.

GPS is NOT tracking

[mpeg4codec]

GPS units receive signals and triangulate their position using those. The thing about this is that they're entirely passive. A GPS emits absolutely no RF signal [which is why you can use them on airplanes without any worry of interference] and is thus impossible to track.

A tracking device could use GPS as a means to find its location. However, it would require the use of some other system in order to be possible to track. In other words, the wearer of the tracking device would need to send out some sort of a homing beacon before it's even possible to be tracked.

A Questionable Call

[duerra]

My problem with something similar to this idea (not the under 12 thing, but the sex offender in general thing...):

I seriously question how many guys are put into jail today after being accused of raping a girl. How often is it "he said, she said"? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend rapists, but the whole movie-production of a woman screaming "rape rape!" is hardly ever the case. In today's society, all a woman really needs to do is accuse some non-multi-millionaire of rape, show a little sperm, and he's in jail for a loooooong time.

I definitely don't hold it against some women to pull such an act any more than I hold it against some guy to actually willingly do it to begin with.

check your facts

[nasor]

"Seeing as sex offenders have an insanely high rate of committing such crimes again, yes it does help keep society safe."

Where do you get your information about sex offender recidivism rates? Many people seem to take it for granted that sex offenders have very high recidivism rates, but it seems to be one of those things that people just repeat back and forth to each other without actually bothering to ever check if it's true. A simple google for "sex offender recidivism rates" brings up numerous studies indicating that the recidivism rate is only around 10-20%. That's hardly an "insanely high" rate, especially when you consider that recidivism rates for other crimes like robbery are often as high as 40-50%.

Wouldn't it be easier to just TAG THE KIDS?

[dgatwood]

Here's a modest proposal... tag the kids instead.

Look, all of these knee-jerk laws have been in response to some convicted sex offender taking a kid, doing Lord-knows-what, killing the kid, and disposing of the body somewhere. All of the knee-jerk laws, however, fail to actually prevent this from happening.

Would parents being able to find out about sex offenders in their area result in irresponsible parents taking better care of their kids? What if that sex offender just happens to drive through a neighborhood that isn't his/her own? Do those laws somehow help prevent that?

And GPS tracking? Give me a break. That helps you catch the guy after the fact. In all these cases, they've caught the guy anyway, so all that does is reduce the civil liberties of lots of people to capture a handful who would have gotten caught anyway. What's the point?

No, what we need to do is mandate that a tracking device with a lifetime battery be implanted in a child at birth and removed at age 18. When a child goes missing, five minutes later, the police converge, shoot the person who kidnapped the kid, and the kid arrives home alive, rather than in a body bag dragged from the mud of some swamp in Florida.

If you're going to pass a law that reduces civil liberties, at least pick a group that already has no right to privacy. If you're going to pass a law to protect children, at least pass a law that will actually protect children . Makes a heck of a lot more sense to me....

Re:Wouldn't it be easier to just TAG THE KIDS?

[badboy_tw2002]

Is where they embed it a secret? I hope so, or else when they get the kid back there's a lot of stumpy little children running around.

Right now standard prodcedure is to go round up every sex offender in the area and haul them in after the fact and see what they were doing. There's no difference betweeb that and tagging them and seeing where they went (besides lying about it).

Sex offenders have no right to privacy. That's the group this law is intended for. Whether you agree with that is another argument entirely.

Re:Wouldn't it be easier to just TAG THE KIDS?

[dgatwood]

Is where they embed it a secret? I hope so, or else when they get the kid back there's a lot of stumpy little children running around.

You are thinking 'extremity' while I was thinking 'cranium' or 'chest cavity'. Embed it in such a way that it can't be removed without killing the kid unless you're a surgeon. For example, a small incision to place it on the underside of the sternum would be sufficient.

And I'm of the opinion that "rounding up every sex offender in the area" constitues presumption of guilt based on past behavior, something which the law doesn't allow. If there were an armed robberi at a store and you rounded up every person who had ever stolen something in the county, you would lose your badge. There's no reason for these two crimes to be treated differently.

And what's to say that this even makes sense? An eighteen-year-old having sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend is legally a sex crime in most states. How exactly is tracking this now-50-something guy going to somehow make your 12-year-old daughter safe from child molesters?

The proposal of tagging the sex offender doesn't prevent the crime and, as you yourself admit, doesn't really make any difference over simply knowing who they are. Tagging the children, by contrast, could save lives, allow the perp to be caught in the act (thus making it almost impossible to escape prosecution), and would also have advantages in other situations.

Think about it. You are a parent. You have the right to know where your kids are. "I'm going over to Tina's" could really mean "I'm making out with Bobby at the movies." Hmm. According to this, you weren't at Tina's at all. Care to explain yourself, young lady?

This would also be helpful in tracking down runaways, non-murder kidnappings (often by family members who lost custody), and tons of other situations involving kids. It's a total win-win.

Only if they catch her masturbating...

[buddhaseviltwin]

...because that would clearly be equivilant to child molestation.

So you're assuming that all sex offenders are male

[johnny cashed]

Or they just prey on women? Quote by ErikTheRed: "You have to either really hate women or be completely clueless as to the consequences of something like this to not consider this an extremely bad situation (for your sake, I hope it's the latter)." Hmmm, I seem to remember a certain female teacher... Who is now married to her "victim". Was justice served? I'm not saying she commited no crime, but does the "Justice" system deliver justice? P.S. Her name is Mary Kay Latourneau

IHBT^2

[runlvl0]

Okay, just so we're all clear here, it's my understanding that the great-grandparent post is referencing Pastor Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

That being said, the post

First they came for the sex offenders
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a sex offender.
Then they came for the brown immigrants
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a brown immigrant.
Then they came for the dissidents
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't dissident.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak up for me.

is offensive in that it compares the actual plight of persecuted Jews and Christians in Nazi Germany* - that is, that they were shipped off to concentration camps to die because of their religion - to the inconvenience to be suffered by people who have been convicted by a jury of (according to the Fine Article) "sex crimes against children 11 and younger". He then goes on to compare "brown immigrants" (which seems racist to me, on the face of the argument) to the same group (people who enjoy sexual congress with pre-11 year olds), along with dissidents, who certainly deserve and enjoy protection of their behavior in the United States.

If he's not comparing pederasty to being a Jew or Christian in Nazi Germany, or being a "brown immigrant" (particularly in Florida, where this article references) or being a dissident, and if he is not fairly explicitly comparing the United States to Nazi Germany*, then I have missed the point (if any) of the great-grandparent and apologize.

All of that being said, I think that the point is pretty sophmoric, and that if I haven't missed the point, my original analysis stands.

* (note invocation of Godwin's law)

And, the point is?

[Andy Gardner]

Just browsing through the comments i found myself asking a few questions. Firstly , what exactly is the point in tracking previous offenders via GPS? and how does this prevent them from re-offending?

Just think about the logistics involved to make such a sytem worthwhile. How will these people be monitored? If they enter an area they shouldn't be in, will an enforcement squad be sent out to detain them immediately? If not then it would be negligent to have released someone who you have determined poses a risk (the risk quantified by the tagging) in the first place.
If the point of tracking the movements of someone is to prevent them from entering certain areas, this would suggest they already pose a risk of commiting an offence (guilty before proven innocent anyone?). It begs the question, if you use GPS to track someone and as such deem them to pose a risk to society, should they even be released in the first place? It seems to be a contradiction of terms. A tagging system would not prevent someone re-offending.

Although it would provide an excellent basis for a study on methods for tracking large numbers of the population.


...And when you think about it there are all sorts of criminals out there who want to murder/rape/kidnap/carjack you, they could be right outside you door now, they could pounce at any time it really isn't safe for you out there. What we really need is to tag all the criminals, remeber they are criminals so it's ok really, everything will be ok soon.
But when you think about it how do we know we got them all? anyone has the potential to be a criminal you know, could be your next door neighbour is a criminal. Then theres the terrorists/communists/insurgants/dissidents we really need to make sure your not a terrorist/communist/insurgant/dissident, because you could be, they're everywhere plotting against us you know.
Its for the best really and don't forget we just want to make things safer and easier for you because it's a scary place out there.
Well we got those evil crimanls great news isn't it! The only problem is were not all that happy about your polical ideas and we noticed that you've been socialising with some other people who have the wrong political ideas.

Im afraid you will have to come with me...

Recommended PBS Special

[Caseyscrib]

You should watch the PBS Special, Burden of Innocence. It has interviews with a lot of people who were wrongfully convicted for rape and other crimes, and then their story of how impossible it was to find jobs even when they were completely exonerated.
To quote the site directly:
Only 17 jurisdictions have laws providing monetary compensation to the wrongfully convicted. Of these, the amount of compensation varies widely, from a maximum of $5,000 under federal law, to an unlimited cap in New York and West Virginia.(from here) - That basically means if the Federal Govt fucks up and wrongfully convicts you, you can only sue for $5,000.

War Prevention Measure

[nick_davison]

Anyone remember the start of the second Iraq war? When the U.S. government, being the only ones in control of GPS, decided to turn down the accuracy for all non-US military signals in order to stop any Iraqis from using off the shelf GPS gear against them?

I'm looking forward to Operation Someone Else Has Oil Freedom - the maps change from nice reassuring dots to three hundred plus yard wide shaded circles. With a large enough number of sex offenders (consensual BDSM, urinating against a tree when drunk, girls who lied about their age), the entire state of Florida will turn in to a great big glowing hot spot and the entire population'll freak out.

Given the choice: reassuring themselves that knowing where these people are makes a difference vs. slightly cheaper oil... which side will the average middle American fall on? Will they still accept war if it means turning down the accuracy of their knee-jerk response system for a while?

Hey, if one form of stupidity that only hurts their own citizens prevents another form of stupidity that hurts other countries' citizens, is it such a terrible thing?

Isn't that the internet equivilent of ...

[MacDork]

I'll show you mine if you show me yours? Last time I checked, kids weren't being prosecuted for playing doctor. So let's say the DA gets a conviction. What's the punishment? Send her to prison where she can really be molested? It seems obvious to me that the law here is not designed to 'protect the children' so much as it is designed to prevent teenage pregnancies that cost the government lots of money.

More to the topic, the tracking sex offenders for life bit is just political grandstanding. Do they even have the hardware lined up? What does it look like? How much does it cost? How long does the battery last on a full charge? Does the parole officer have to collect the GPS data from the individuals or does it 'phone home.' Given the reliability and speed of mobile phone data transfers, either solution will probably suck. Assuming it's a bracelet sort of device, how hard would it be for the criminal involved to simply cover the device with his tinfoil hat before heading out to molest some kids for the evening. Even if the 'client' hardware is flawless, the server side of things can't be much more useful than passive tracking. There are 200 registered offenders in Citrus county where Jessica Lunsford was murdered. There are 2075 in Miami-Dade. There must be tens of thousands in the entire state. We can't even scale to those numbers to prevent fratricide among our military men and they are assumed to be cooperative in the process. Now try it with a group of individuals who would prefer not to be tracked. Even a fraction of the total number sex offenders in FL are going to be VERY hard to keep up with. News for nerds? Where are the benchmarks? The hardware specs? Oh, there aren't any? Isn't that interesting.

In short, this appears to be nothing more than political "feel good" vaporware, and yet another instance where the "moral majority" is jumping on a local issue in Florida to score points without accomplishing anything. Cheney isn't running in 2008. Jeb has started the campaign early. Are the Democrats trying to point out the obvious flaws? Nope. It looks like they are going to stand by and get their ass handed to them again.

Re:unimaginable EVIL crime

[GrahamCox]

Oh get off your high horse. This is exactly the sort of black-and-white thinking I'm talking about. There are degrees of crime you know, and simply labelling all "sex offenders" as evil is completely unhelpful - attaching the label "evil" to anything is a denial of any form of understanding. Of course many sex crimes are terrible crimes that I wouldn't wish on anyone, but equally there are many really quite harmless crimes that do not warrant the witch-burner mentality.

I dread to think what would happen if I lived my childhood all over again starting now. There are events that occurred to me that society would not only not tolerate, but would actually multiply up into something that would cause more harm than the original event. I feel sorry for kids of today - as much as anything it is society's attitude which is inflicting the damage. In my case I was lucky enough that what happened to me was really no big deal, and I quickly got it into perspective and it didn't bother me then nor does it bother me now. No, I'm not talking about rape or other serious sexual assault, but I am talking about the sort of thing I see people get hounded and villified for today that 30 years ago was just no big deal. And it isn't a big deal, so let's stop treating the issue as black and white. It isn't.

And by the way, your comment is EXACTLY what people said about witches in the 17th century, so you make my point admirably.

and who is a "predator"?

[whitroth]

From down here in Jesusland, in the banana republic of Florida, home to the new law....

First, if someone has finished their jail & probation time, haven't they "paid their debt to society"? How are they supposed to "rehabilitate themselves", with this on top of the near-impossibility of getting a job other than flipping burgers with a felony conviction.

Then there's the matter of definition: I'm thinking of an aquaintance here, who spent three years in jail for statutory rape...because he was 18, and his girlfriend was 16 or 17. I'm still trying to find out from our local newsmedia if this applies to people like him.

Remember, Jeezuz's Forgiveness (tm) only applies to other members of your church, and those Republicans who agree with you.

mark