Sex Offenders to Register Emails in Virginia

Isaac Bowman writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Virgina has a proposed law that would require sex offenders to register their email and IM screen names in an attempt to monitor and control their presence on social networking sites like MySpace."

Comments

Right

[rumplet]

because registering a new email address and IM account is so hard. Better still, get an .i2p email address.

God damnit.

[Spazntwich]

Our lawmakers are idiots.

Either the sex offender has served his time, or he hasn't. If you're worried about their recidivism rate, UP THE TIME SPENT OUT OF SOCIETY, DO NOT SEND THEM BACK OUT THERE IF WE'RE SO SURE THEY'RE JUST GOING TO REPEAT OFFEND.

Seems simple, so why do these guys make it so complex?

Urban legend

[Anne Honime]

Statistically, sex offenders have a very high commit-it-again rate.

Complete BS. http://www.livescience.com/othernews/060516_predat or_panic.html

For what we know, sex offenders are like other offenders ; many are just your once-in-a-lifetime (because they had oppotunity or whatever) type, a few are true maniacs in the medical meaning of the word. While the first type desserve a sentence, and don't need more attention than anybody else afterward, and probably less than a DIU convict, the latter type are mentaly ill persons, and they need constant medical attention instead of jail ; and they should be held in hospital until proven safe for release. Jail only prevent them from accessing adequate cure for their condition. The social pressure for a trial is in fact at the root of their early release (because neither a judge nor a jury is a qualified MD). This is medieval justice at its near best, if you don't count capital punishment.

Re:Urban legend

[dragonsomnolent]

I also have children, and no I don't advocate youths having sex by any means, but if the girl lies about her age in the first place, why should someone be required to card them to make sure, and if they do card them, and the teenager is in possession of a false ID, should the "criminal" be branded a sex offender for life, I think not. The "criminal" in this matter had no intention of sleeping with an underage person. Even if the "molestor" is 30, if he has reason to believe the "victim" is of age, then why should he serve 5-10 years and be branded for life. I do think that a reasonable person could tell if the victim were 12, and they should be punished, but if a young woman were in a bar (where I live you have to be 18 to get in the door, 21 to drink) a reasonable person would assume she's of legal consenting age. As a father, I would be furious with my daughter for being there, but I would not jump on the "castrate the bastard" bandwagon. It does take 2 to tango, and if a 17 year old doesn't know the emotional ramifications of sleeping with an older person (especially if she lied about her age in the first place), that's the parent's fault, not the "criminal". And, as I pointed out, as did another in this thread, there is the whole intent thing. Note: I am merely talking about the 17ish crowd, not the young teenagers, any reasonable person should be able to tell if someone is under 16 (there is usually a gut feeling that they just seem too young)

Paid in full?

[AlpineR]

Because in our society once you have served your time in prison you are deemed to have paid for your crimes.

I hope you are being sarcastic. If our society deemed that serving prison time paid for crimes, then nobody would ever be asked "Have you ever committed a crime?" on job applications and no ex-con would have to register for previous crimes.

Bad, bad idea

[ajs318]

This is an ill-thought-through measure designed only to court acceptance from the public. Now that it's no longer politically acceptable to go after witches, blacks, jews or gypsies, sexual offenders are the current untermenschen -- somebody to whom everybody else can feel superior; and against whom no measure is unjustifiable, irrespective of whether or not it would ever be workable in practice and/or the extent of collateral damage it would create.

Have you ever received junk mail addressed to a former occupant of your home?

Have you ever been refused credit because of a bad debt run up by a former occupant of your home?

I can answer yes to both questions. I've even received late-night faxes from abroad on my voice line, because my phone number used to be a fax number (the telco had run out of never-before-used numbers and so had to give me a recycled one; it had been out of service for over a year, but that didn't help against some overseas scumsucker with an out-of-date phone book).

Now think of the way that information tends to hang around on the internet: somebody sees an interesting story, makes a copy of it on their website, the original goes away but the copy persists. Also, "sexual offences" cover a broad gamut. Legally there is no distinction between someone who has non-penetrative sex with a 15 year, 364 day old girl who managed to get into an over-18s bar; and someone who participated in gang-rape of a pre-school child. Being caught taking a leak in the street (in times when councils are closing public toilets, and bars and restaurants are erecting bogus "toilets are for customers' use only" signs [they're bogus because entering the premises for the purpose of using the toilet makes you automatically a customer]) is also deemed a sexual offence.

Still think all this tracking of sexual offenders is a good idea? I know exactly why this man did what he did.

Re:You miss the pointlessness

[voice_of_all_reason]

Wait, so in this carefully-constructed example of yours, what the guy actually do wrong?