Slashdot Mirror
Online Sex Offender Database Leads To Murder?
nem75 writes "The LA Times reports on the story of Michael A. Dodele, a convicted rapist, found murdered in a Lakeport trailer park. He moved there after having been released from prison just 35 days before. A 29-year-old construction worker has been arrested in the attack, and explained that he killed Dodele to protect his son from child molestation. He found out on the internet about Dodele being a sex offender, via the 'Megan's Law' database. The public entry for Dodele in the database was wrong — though he was found guilty of committing crimes against adult women he was not a child molester. Dodele's entry in Megan's Law DB has been removed." Update: 12/11 15:51 GMT by Z : Moved link to non-reg article.
The whole point of these laws is to make you miserable for the rest of your life. If some whack-job kills you, all the better.
This is the purpose of creating a society of hate.
Wow, I can't believe someone that dumb can use a computer. I hope he wasn't too distracted from the latest episode of "Ow! My Balls!".
Wouldn't he have had to inform all of his neighbors within a certain radius that he was a sex offender, anyways? Or is that only for those convicted of molesting children?
A perfect Law & Order episode... I hope the guy who thought killing some convicted felon that did his time gets raped in jail for being such a dumbass thinking he was protecting his son by killing others. There's certainly other ways to protecting your children and yes, computers make mistakes cause their controlled by stupid humans. :)
I'm sorry, I still believe in our fading Republic.
Megan's Law listing may have led to slaying
," the neighbor said. "He said [Dodele] can't be around here."
Lake County Sheriff
Ivan Garcia Oliver 29, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, burglary and elder abuse.
Lake County prosecutors have investigated the possibility that information in the Internet database might have been the motive for the killing of a convicted sex offender.
By Maria L. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 10, 2007
LAKEPORT, CALIF. -- Convicted rapist Michael A. Dodele had been free just 35 days when sheriff's deputies found him dead last month in his aging, tan mobile home, his chest and left side punctured with stab wounds.
Officers quickly arrested Dodele's neighbor, 29-year-old construction worker Ivan Garcia Oliver, who made "incriminating comments, essentially admitting to his attacking Dodele," the Lake County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.
Prosecutors said they have investigated the possibility that the slaying of Dodele, 67, stemmed from his having been listed on the state's Megan's Law database of sex offenders. If so, his death may be the first in the state to result from such a listing, experts said.
Oliver pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, burglary and elder abuse when he was arraigned Nov. 30.
In a jailhouse interview Wednesday night, Oliver said he has a son who was molested in the past, and he took action to protect the child.
"Society may see the action I took as unacceptable in the eyes of 'normal' people," Oliver said. "I felt that by not taking evasive action as a father in the right direction, I might as well have taken my child to some swamp filled with alligators and had them tear him to pieces. It's no different."
Although Oliver did not say he killed Dodele, he said that "any father in my position, with moral, home, family values, wouldn't have done any different. At the end of the day, what are we as parents? Protectors, caregivers, nurturers."
In fact, Dodele was not a child molester. But a listing on the Megan's Law website could have left Oliver with the impression that he had abused children because of the way it was written.
Although Dodele's listing has been taken down since his death, a spokesman for the state attorney general said the site described the man's offenses as "rape by force" and "oral copulation with a person under 14 or by force."
"He was convicted of other bad things, but nothing involving a minor," said Richard F. Hinchcliff, chief deputy district attorney for Lake County. But "it would be easy to understand why someone might think so looking at the website."
Dodele's crimes involved sexual assaults on adult women, records show.
A neighbor at the Western Hills Resort & Trailer Park, a tattered collection of mobile homes and bungalows, said that two days before the killing, Oliver "told every house" in the park that he'd found Dodele listed on the website of convicted sexual offenders and was uncomfortable living near him.
"He looked it up on the computer . . .
The park resident requested anonymity because of a fear of reprisal, but reported Oliver's visit and statements to sheriff's deputies after the slaying. "A lot of people told them" about Oliver's claims, the person said.
Officials in Lake County -- a patchwork of wealth and poverty, vineyards and mobile home parks just north of Napa Valley -- would not offer a motive for the killing.
Hinchcliff acknowledged, however, that one possible motive investigated by the district attorney's office was that Oliver knew Dodele was on the Megan's Law list and did not want him as a neighbor.
According to court documents, Dodele committed his first offenses at age 15 and spent the last two decades either in prison or at Atascadero State Hospital receiving treatment.
His last attack was the 1987 knife-point rape of a 37-year-old woman on a Sonoma County beach.
Those were the charges
I'm conflicted. On the one hand I'm against these databases; once you've served your time you should be a free man in every way.
On the other hand, the responsiblity for the murder is solely on th eman who committed the murder. Ironically one of the victims of this murder is the very child the murderer was trying to protect, who will grow up without a father.
On the third hand*, maybe the kid's better off without a violent dumshit like that around.
-mcgrew
*The Mote in God's Eye, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I concur.
No, sadly, you're not the only one who has confused "tough on crime" with "tough on criminals". You and yours make the rest of us spend billions and billions of our tax dollars doing stupid shit that won't save a single life or stop a single crime, just so you can feel high and mighty and say "he got what was coming to him".
All I can say is I hope you pick a girl up at the bar and she has second thoughts the next morning, and you get "what was coming to you".
This guy was going to kill someone, somewhere, somehow. The fact that he a rapist living near him means nothing. If he didn't have the database, he'd grab the yellowpages.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Google is your friend.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Another victory for hysterical knee-jerk legislation.
The media and the government have worked for the past few decades to make sure that everyone lives in fear of everything all the time. These sex offender databases are part of that. There have been sexual predators for as long as there have been people. Attacks have always been relatively rare, and most people will never be victimized. However, you put these lists and databases out there, people see that a sex offender lives near them, and they freak out.
We are constantly bombarded with reports of what we should be afraid of this week ("find out about the new threat that could kill your children, tonight on 9 news at 10!"). We have also been conditioned through the use of these databases and sensationalist segments like "To Catch a Predator" to believe that everyone ever convicted (or even accused) of a sex crime of any kind is out to get our children. Given all this, it's not at all surprising that someone would snap and do something like this.
No registration link since our editors aren't too bright
There seems to be two groups or two positions at work here: one which holds that all offenders can be reformed, the other that certain types of offenders cannot. Our current law is a mishmash of good intentions with no single theoretical framework holding it together. It takes the 'people can be reformed' position in allowing for the release of rapists ( both those who prefer adults and those who prey on children ), and then takes the opposite position with the creation of lists of people who are 'going to do it again'.
I don't understand the psychology of rapists, so I can't say which position is correct. But I wish that our criminal justice system would either choose one or the other.
Imagine the outrage and press if the database hadn't gotten the offender's entry wrong.
Oh, right. There wouldn't be any.
In my opinion, that's sick. Because of a government agency's screwup, it's suddenly not A-OK to murder a released convict? If the man actually HAD been a child molester, you would never have heard of this story. Everyone would have shrugged it off. Eh, the murderer was twisted, but at least he was protecting his kid. The murdered guy was a sick child molester, so he deserved it anyway, right?
The sex offender list isn't any more wrong because of this. The murder isn't any more wrong because of the list's screwup (and the victim isn't any less of a sick person because of it). All this is is just another example why a sex offender list is stupid and unconstitutional -- it's just that it wouldn't be noticed if somebody hadn't screwed up.
Well, at least they have removed his erroneous entry from the database. Hopefully, that will ensure that he is not murdered twice.
Know what trailer park murders and trailer parks hit by twisters have in common?
Either way, someone's losing a mobile home...
It's just the oldest story in the book. Reminds me of so many clerical error in the old USSR. :)
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
You and yours make the rest of us spend billions and billions of our tax dollars doing stupid shit that won't save a single life or stop a single crime
You're all over the map here. What are you talking about? Jails? We shouldn't at least isolate extremely antisocial and violent people from the rest of society? That flies in the face of all empirical evidence. Do you mean we we jail people for things that don't pose a threat?
As for billions of dollars, well, just killing criminals will save that money.
You are not clear and you are not making sense.
Its the old justice vs vengence conflict all over again. Theoretically after their time in the penal system a convict has paid their debt to society, and has been their slate wiped clean. The public tracking websites appeal to a mob-mentality, fear based culture that suggests criminals can't reform, that you're at risk at all times, and that someone is out to get you and your family. Yes a number of child molesters (and other criminals) re-offend upon being released from prison. The question should be whether public tracking databases reduce this likelihood.
My personal opinion is 'no', in fact they exacerbate the problem by limiting convicts' abilities to reintegrate into society. Once branded with the scarlet letter, they live out their Les Miserables' existence being pursued by law enforcement and vigilantes for the rest of their days.
Child molesters are the boogeymen of the 2000s, just like drug lords were of the 1980s and 90s, gangs of the 60s and 70s, and communists of the 1950s. They pose a societal threat, but not somuch that you need to legislate around their existence and vastly expand policing powers beyond what already exists.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
The murder isn't justified...
But... sex offenders of any type... I have 0 sympathy.
You know?
Who's this guy think he is, Dexter Morgan? Better watch out, he wouldn't want Showtime coming after him for copyright infringement.
For people to realize the obvious...that public databases like this are really only the equivalent of making people who have committed various crimes wear "Scarlet Letters" on their clothing as they did in the colonial era. Back then, if a woman was an adulterer, someone in the village would see her letter and attack her. Not all people are rational or intelligent enough to sensibly deal with the concept of a scumbag living in their community. But that is the inherit assumption that these databases make. These databases exist so that parents can tell their kids to avoid certain areas and people...but that doesn't mean that the molester won't get up in disguise, go into a different neighborhood, and pretend to be someone else to trick a kid into coming with them. The real reason that these databases get so much support is because parents don't want to have to be accountable for where their kids go and what they do. They don't want to have to drive them too and from school, or drive them to their friends' houses. These parents want to do their own thing and they want something easy to reference, instead of being responsible and protecting their kids. These databases are also highly indiscriminate as well...there are cases of 19 year old kids getting put in these systems because they had sex with their 17 year old girlfriends and their parents found out and had the kid arrested. That kid would now technically be a sex offender for probably the rest of his life. It just then takes one paranoid parent who finds out that a "sex offender" lives in his neighborhood, and then goes after him. Or bosses that find out and just can him on the spot (and while that's a violation of labor law, we all know how creative employers can get at working the system). These public sex offender database systems just lead to more trouble than they're worth. Parents should just be held accountable for not taking better care of their kids and protecting them from screwups. Hardcore sex offenders should be stuck in mental asylums and kept there. The rest should just be monitored privately by the police.
Yeah, pretty much.
...he should have used a Death Note.
Dearest Slashdot analogy trolls:
Please tear his analogy apart: "Society may see the action I took as unacceptable in the eyes of 'normal' people," Oliver said. "I felt that by not taking evasive action as a father in the right direction, I might as well have taken my child to some swamp filled with alligators and had them tear him to pieces. It's no different" (Source).
Bonus points will be awarded if you cite Wikipedia entries on logical fallacies.
Every post I make begins with the assumption P=~P.
can anyone give a reason why ALL people convicted of ANYTHING aren't in a database? Since privacy is no longer important when it has to compete with safety on any level, why give it even a token protection? I'm all for protecting children from child molesters, but don't you also have a "right" to know if a convicted car thief lives in the neighborhood? Why can't you look up your new neighbor and find out that he shoplifted a package of underwear 12 years ago? Don't you have a right to sleep soundly at night? Why do we need to know that a child molester lives in the area, but not a convicted murderer? How about drug offenses? Shouldn't we just put all criminal records online? Isn't public safety more important than the "privacy" of criminals?
So the guy "protected" his son from molestation (even though the risk was pretty damned small), and in return gave his son an absentee father, visits to the penitentiary, almost certain divorce (assuming he was married), and a long span of whispers and looks.
Oh yeah, he made a GREAT choice - a real bargain.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Well the article is for registered users only so I can't read it, but I feel like there's something missing from this story. Some key detail like Dodele hanging around the contrustion worker's trailer constantly or something. Otherwise this killer is just using his son as an excuse for being batshit psycho. What did this guy do, log in to the sex offender registry on occasion to see if any molesters lived near him so he could kill them with a clear conscience or with some feeling of vigilante style justice? With only the summary to go on it sounds like this construction worker was being more than just a proactive father. A proactive person complains to the park management, speak with the police, confronts the guy, talks to his own kids about steering clear, etc. Not up and decides "well there's a molester in the neighborhood, guess I'll have to be the one to *kill* him."
This of course is completely separate from the discussion of the usefulness, constitutionality, and accuracy of sex offender DBs.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Don't do this. This is morally wrong.
This contributes to war.
Even if he were a "child molester", he was killed without committing any crime -- just based on mere speculation. This is dying innocent...
GOD forbid me from judging others, but I want to show the wrong ways of those who expect justice from violence.
Violence breeds only more violence. Call me sissy if you want -- that won't change the world.
The title is a bit over dramatic, but obviously if you create a public database of despicable people there might be some vigilante justice. I am concerned that all offenses related to 'sex' will or are automatically entered into this database. I think before someone is publicly marked as a 'sex offender' a judge should have a chance to review whether that is something that would be in the best interest of justice. Basically it should be part of sentencing, like 1 year jail, 5 years probation and entry into the national DB for sex offenders, or whatever. Not that I am defending these degenerates, but when you start taking people's rights away and exposing them to public scrutiny I think careful consideration is in order.
To say that making the public aware of sex offenders online leads to murder is a bit extreme in my opinion. If that's the case all the media could be leading to murder by identifying and giving information on situations going on all around the world every single day. That information can be used to do a simple google search on the subject and google map his house. Finishing up the whole thing and doing the deed. That's what she said.
I was once told by a woman of an ethnic background I'm not going to share with you that she didn't know any women of her ethnic background who hadn't been molested. I'd bet good money that was quite an exaggeration, but the bare fact that she said it, and the matter-of-fact tone she was using, creeped me out. No, I'm not presening anecdotal evidence. It's already well-known that most molestation occurs in the home, and not by marauding gay activists. It was just a weird thing to hear from a friend of my then-wife, who is of the same cultural background.
All I can say is I hope you pick a girl up at the bar and she has second thoughts the next morning, and you get "what was coming to you".
Maybe people should just avoid situations like that in the first place? It's a risky practice any way you look at it.
sexual crimes have a high recidivism
crimes motivated by financial gain are not something that has psychological basis. sexual desires are pretty hard wired, and once a pedo, you're pretty much a pedo for life. you can learn to control your impulses, but the impulses are still there. meanwhile, there is no hardwired deep psychological urge to go stand on a street corner and deal drugs
i'm not disagreeing with much else of what you wrote, but you imply the idea of a sex offender and a drug lord are easily interchangeable concepts in terms of criminal bogeyman. no, they simply aren't. there are fundamental motivational differences that makes sexual crimes special, and with a high recidivism rate, unlike the motivations that lead one to commit financial crimes, crimes motivated by money
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
....and so would killing the sick, infirm, and disabled, but you don't see many CongressCritters pushing for the "Save a Buck/Kill a Gimp" bill....
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Well, your link doesn't work either (I get asked for a password), so maybe you should cut the editors some slack.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
On the one hand:
Yes, rapists, and child molesters certainly should be killed. That type of stuff is a "red card" offense and you should get kicked out of the game of life.
On a jury, if I was convinced of the victim's guilt, I would acquit the killer regardless of the evidence. Jury nullification is part of our judicial system.
On the other hand:
Rape (both adult and especially child) is often a false accusation.
Many kids are talked into claiming rape by "child welfare" professionals with an agenda. The number of kids traumatized by brainwashing by "professionals" that pretend to help them is amazing. Those people should really be jailed.
Also, we all know that rape is often any sexual act to which the women later regrets.
I had a friend accused of rape. What happened was her boyfriend came up the next day (after her cheating with my friend; she was all over him, to the point of giving him a BJ in the common area and then dragging him off to get condoms). She broke down. He started offering reasons why she might me crying, and she latched on to rape. See, she had sex but it wasn't her fault. She later recanted. But, he had to suffer with the expulsion from the school; petitioning to get reinstated; and the stigma thereafter.
I would suggest that about 50% of rape claims are false. Also, I would guess that a large percentage of rapes go unclaimed/unreported.
So, you can't just go straight to punishment with a rape accusation, you have to spend a great deal of time and effort examining every bit of evidence.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, geeks and trolls, bots and overlords, is why privacy is important.
At least, that was my first thought. Then I realized that it doesn't have too much to do with privacy per se. After all, it doesn't matter if the data about the victim of the murder were accurate. It could have been entirely made up. Then, it's not really about privacy anymore, but about what people write about others, and how people react to that.
I recently moved into a new city. It would be easy for someone to tell the people in my new neigborhood that I am a child molester. If there is a respectable-looking website for posting this kind of information (and I'm sure there is), they could put a post up there for extra credibility. Doing so would be wrong, because I am not a child molester (of course, that's just me saying that, but just accept it for the sake of argument).
Then, someone might read the aforementioned post and conclude that I am, in fact, a child molester. That would be wrong, because they would have arrived at that conclusion by blindly believing what was written about me, without checking the facts. If they had checked the facts, they would have found that the claim was completely baseless.
Now let's assume that someone did, in fact, buy the claim that I am a child molester. Remember, they did so without checking the facts, the claim is baseless, and I am actually _not_ a child molester. But they think I am, and kill me to protect their child.
Mr. Dodele's case could be seen as a privacy case, because the information in the database supposedly was based on things he actually did. But in my (hypothetical) case, the claims were completely fabricated.
I think the real problem here is not that privacy is being violated, but that people (1) kill, and (2) do so without being sure their victim is actually guilty of the things they kill them for.
Assuming that the killer really did kill to protect his child, I think he did her a nice disservice - now she will have to live with the fact that her daddy is a murderer and an idiot, and probably an inmate, too.
The message I would like to send is (1) take everything with a healthy dose of scepsis, and (2) avoid doing things that are irreversible.
Have a nice day.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Not to defend anyone, but just to pose a question.
If you are 18 and are going out with a 17 year old and you're a monster, what are you if you are 17 and going out with a 16 year old? What are you if you are 18 1/2 and dating someone who is 17 3/4? In three months, you'll both be "18". I guess we could ask if you are 18, just about to turn 19 and you are going out with someone who just turned 18, what are you then. And then why is it okay for a 45 year old man to marry a 35 year old woman? What is this thing that happens to a person's mind during that day just before his/her 18th birthday through the day of his/her birthday? And what if you're just going out for ice-cream?
I'm just trying to figure out what "The Right Way" is. It is my understanding that 18 is a rather arbitrary age since voting, consuming alcohol (legally), and driving (legally) all have different ages associated with be able to perform said actions.
The "sex offender" registry hasn't prevented one crime against children, and has in fact caused more problems than it has solved.
From the US Department of Justice: 96% of female rape victims younger than 12 years old, knew their attackers. 20% were victimized by their fathers or step-fathers. 60% were victimized by another family member.
Sex crimes are the only crimes we continue to punish people after they've "paid their debt to society". We restrict their movement, restrict where they can live, and in many cases ensure through force of law that they never lead a normal life again.
If we, as a society, are convinced that child molesters are incurable, let's just keep them locked up. This idiotic list serves no purpose: if they are, indeed, almost certain to commit the crime again, why are we releasing them from institutionalization? If these people are "sick", let's transfer them from the penal system to the mental health system where they probably belong.
Well, why don't you tell me what is the benefit (to the public) of having a PUBLIC registry of convicted sex offenders (statutory rape anyone)?
The only reason for such registries, is to enact continuing lifelong punishment on the convicted criminal, even after the release, by virtue of harrassment by the members of the public who somehow have the free time to go browsing these databases (instead of taking care of their children).
What are you going to do if a sex offender moves next door to you? Have him evicted on a technicality? Torch his house? Stab him? Don't you think that whatever little chance there is of having this man re-integrate into society, will likely be ruined by this behavior? If you don't want to re-integrate this man into the society, then go ahead and lobby for life-sentences for any sex offense (18 sleeping with 17?)... or better yet - the death penalty. But if you take up the view that people can change, and can pay their debt to society, you have to accept your own conclusions.
But back to the main question - how is publicly-viewable registration going to increase public safety? Is it going to prevent a habitual rapist from raping? If not registering is a little crime, do you think that matters to someone who is pathologically going to commit far more severe offenses?
After the alleged murderer was informed that his neighbor had never molested a child and was in fact on the sex-offender list for crimes against adult women, the suspect replied that (I'm paraphrasing here) "these people can't be cured."
So, the victim was on the sex offender list for raping adult women, but this psycho was so convinced that sex offenders are dangerous predators that can't be cured, that he actually believed his son was in danger. His own words, referring to the victim looking at his son:
"It was more than watching," Oliver said. "You could see his eyes. He was fantasizing, plotting. Later on down the line, who knows how many other children he could have hurt."
So raping adult women = lusting after young boys?
We shouldn't be surprised by this type of tragedy after the media and politicians have gleefully embarked on a decade long scare campaign designed to convince the public that sex-offenders are pure evil incarnate. That they can't be cured. That they are worse than murderers. That they lurk behind every tree and every bush, waiting to attack children. That all sex offenders=child molesters and all child molesters=baby-butt rapers.
This alleged murderer may be a low-functioning individual, or he just may be crazy, but nevertheless our society has reinforced his paranoia and justified it. The real tragedy about all of this is that we have allowed our "modern" society to behave like some medieval village.
Or murdered.
This guy confuses the heck out of me. Okay we all grow up with this thing called common sense. Common sense tells us murder is not the answer. Instead if you found out this guy was your neighbor and it upset you so much why not just pack your stuff and move. Especially if it was a trailer park area. Places like those are a dime a dozen and it wouldn't be that hard to relocate. That way your child will have a father, a man who was wrongfully killed would be alive and well. It just gets on my nerves how some people lack common sense.
People may well be prejudiced. However stupid, that is their right except where limited by law. A bigger problem is differential privacy, where some people can hide things and others cannot. A boss might be less inclined to go after a gay employee if his own divorces and DUIs were equally public. Likewise for the cop.
Paraphrased: You're just not arguing from emotion enough.
Just to pose another question: is it possible you have given a straight reply to a sarcastic post?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
And then why is it okay for a 45 year old man to marry a 35 year old woman?
10 years sound like a lot. However, think about it: my wife is five years younger than me. Many see that as a very normal age difference. However, put that back to when I was 18. She was 13 for crying out loud! I must be a child molester. Of course, it does help that I only met her when I was 28 ;-)
No it isn't, and suggesting so displays your ignorance. Civil forfeiture has an appeals process, and is not a documentation of anything. You are wrong about that.
If the guy who murdered him gets released in ten, twenty years he can move anywhere without ending up on a list or being forced to tell his neighbors of his past.
If that's "what's coming to him", why isn't it an actual law, decided by a jury of twelve, and carried out in a controlled environment?
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
I think part of the sex offenders punishment is to serve his time and ALSO be listed in a database. Why do I think this, because my wife is a social worker and she tells me the stories about how sex offenders are the one groups of criminals that are REPEAT offenders. Also how people who WERE sexually molested tend to sexually molest other people. With the current system (jail time and some evaluation from a shrink) sexual predators DO repeat offend. Should the father of killed the guy, probably not, however should the guys name be in a database yes. I think all crimes should be listed in databases. If you have to wonder if your employer is going to look you up and wonder what crimes you committed maybe we will have less stupid dumb asses in the prison system. Yeah I know you can be falsely accused/convicted and that has its own problems throughout the justice system.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
Its just a form of preemptive justice. He killed him before he hurt someone else. I only hope this justice prevails throughout society so no one ever has to be hurt again!
And you've most likely never been killed, so it's pretty much even.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
As others have pointed out, the vast majority of sexual crimes against children are committed by family members, in which cases a list like this makes no difference.
There are a very large number of cases where people convicted of statutory rape wind up on sex offender registries, effectively ruining their lives for having consensual sex with someone just a few years younger than them.
The worst situation is one that doesn't get a lot of press. So many municipalities are creating restrictive laws about where sex offenders can live that it's reached the point that these people can't live anywhere. The number of homeless sex offenders is huge, and many of these are no longer on normal paroles and accountable to nobody. Whether they're a risk or not is still highly arguable, but the system has forced them into a life where their risk of committing other crimes is much, much higher.
Society needs to make up its mind. Are these people reformed or not? If not, keep them in prison or in support programs.
Barely escaped being labelled a sex offender because he pissed in a park near a school. He was really drunk and it was 2 am but he was going to be charged with (I forget exactly) "Exposing himself within fifty feet of a school." He got a good lawyer and got a lesser charge but his life was nearly ruined for a mistake he didn't even remember making.
It's hard to have sympathy for molesters and rapists but when you hear of people released from prison whose only option is to live under an overpass because that's the only place not near a child I do feel some sympathy. I mean, shouldn't the government designate an area childfree in each state that these guys can live? If not, just put them back in prison for the rest of their lives. It's more humane than under an overpass.
Seems to me a minor party hack published that it was okay to exterminate folks with a particular ancestry in Europe about 70 years ago, and that Milosovic basically published that it was okay to kill bad folks in Croatia and Bosnia about ten years ago. For those US folks that think "it can't happen here", a governor of a US Midwestern state published in the 1830's that it was ok to exterminate an entire group of people just for what they believed. That order wasn't officially rescinded until 1976.
Now then, I won't argue whether the convicted man was good or bad -- because most child molestors do not reform -- nor will I argue that folks don't have the right to protect their kids from unreformed molestors. What I will argue is that publishing a list in a manner as easily accessible as the Internet may be the wrong way to go about protecting the neighborhood. Because otherwise mob and/or vigilant justice takes control and can very easily get out of hand. Leading to murder and/or genocide.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
You are put on the sex offenders list for pretty much anything, including urinating in public or kissing a girl when you are 17.
>> the rate of recidism in sexual crimes is high
Not true. It's about 5%.
...I think it's mostly a feel-good "Well, they're over there so they're not here" as if registered sex offenders were tied with ball and chain to their house. Nevermind it could just as easily be the other neighbor that never got caught, or a molester from somewhere else that took his car, a bus, a tram, the subway or fricking walked or biked out of the neighorhood to a place noone knows him. If anything, anything at all happened close to his house the police would be all over him whether it was public or not. Does anyone have any statistical on whether states introducing such laws saw any effect at all?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Please cite a source for high recidivism in sexual crimes. This is frequently stated, but only common knowledge is used as a source. If you can't cite a source for this, we have to throw that argument out.
Furthermore, my point of view is that the lists are not making children safer. Rather, they seem to be aimed to exact punishment far after the criminal has paid his or her dues.
Finally, if there is a risk of recidivism, then we need to keep the person in jail and therapy. Releasing them and placing them on a "harass this person" list just encourages criminal behavior. After all, we are releasing people who are still dangerous (after all, high recidivism, right?) and then promptly removing any chance for them to integrate with normal society and develop a support network.
We're letting out dangerous people and encouraging them to recommit!
But.
"A neighbor of Oliver's said that two days before the killing, he "told every house" in the trailer park that he found Dodele's name listed on the Web site of convicted sexual offenders, and was uncomfortable living near him."
That should explain it. ("in the trailer park")
He obviously didn't read WHY Dodele was in the registry, just saw his (Dodele's) name and thought "I gotta get my Gun.".
Here's another quote out of the article, this one from Oliver...
"Society may see the action I took as unacceptable in the eyes of 'normal' people," Oliver said. "I felt that by not taking evasive action as a father in the right direction, I might as well have taken my child to some swamp filled with alligators and had them tear him to pieces. It's no different."
Uhm, YES it is DIFFERENT!!! If Oliver the Ass would have read the site more closely he would have realized that in FACT, Dodele was NOT a child molester but convicted of assaulting adult women. Which is heinous but meant that he had to pay closer attention to his wife (if she lived with him) than his son.
A more accurate statement for him to have said would be... It's like living next to Glenn Quagmire from the cartoon TV show Family Guy.
There was a similar case a couple of years ago where some Canadian guy got the lists and killed two people in Maine. One WAS a child predator. The other guy just boinked his underage gf when he was 19 or so. These lists need to be banned altogether until they only contain people convicted of child predation/adult rape, and not contain some schmoe who got caught with his wang out in public peeing drunk one night.
http://www.guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=BF0FA813-7607-4666-B1F081D6A6C701CC
Prior to that, two more child predators were killed from the same list by someone else. My feelings for child molestors aside, people can be on the list for not so bad things, and end up dead. That's a problem.
A Rabbi, a Priest, and a lawyer are on the Titanic having a lively discussion about God and the law when the boat hits an iceberg and starts sinking.
"Save the children!" the Rabbi exclaims.
"FUCK the children, the lawyer snarls.
"No time for that!" says the priest
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'll just add to your comment instead.
... but at the very least, I find it very odd that the U.S. has such things as "PG-13" movie ratings (indicating the content, often including sexual innuendo, is "safe" for 13 year olds and up), and by 15, we're issuing driver's permits. (We're trusting them with a very expensive machine that they can easily kill or be killed with.) Yet, we still don't think a 14 or 15 year old can possibly be capable of "consenting to sex" with someone older?
Even IF we, as a society, decide that keeping these "sex offender" lists available for public searching is a "good thing", we certainly need to modify the laws themselves first.
Right now, the law doesn't differentiate at all between the man who has sex with 4 year olds in a childcare facility while working there, and the man who has sex with a 15 year old who lies about her age, and possibly even produces a fake ID showing her age as older than she really is.
In my mind, it's clear that it's really the former person that most people get concerned enough about to want to know if they live near them. The other case amounts to an act that's considered perfectly LEGAL in many countries of the world. It revolves around the fact that the 15 year old had enough of at least a PHYSICAL appearance of an adult to be considered sexually attractive to the guy in question.
There's always going to be a problem when you're forced to draw lines at specific ages for what's "legal" and what's "illegal"
Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense -- 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders.
But don't let facts get in the way of your argument.
Dexter kills people who slip between the cracks of the justice system, or haven't been caught yet. He doesn't kill people based on paranoid delusions.
This is America Goddamnit.
I'd love to see the Culture solution implemented ; indulge in a heinous crime against a person, and a sentient machine is tasked to follow you around for the rest of your life to stop you doing it again.
Lets people know that you are a murderer/sex offender/whatever ; you could presumably have different models or colours for differentiating between plain killers, nonces, etc. Megans' law satisfied.
Prevents you from ever doing it again. Obviously desirable.
Turns you into a social pariah. Because few people will want to hang out with you, even if the drone is going to prevent any harm to them. Thus provides a visible, tangible element of punishment.
Prevents you from being unjustly murdered by someone jumping to conclusions about your criminal record, because the drone will either intervene, or at least provide excellent evidence of who did it (and thus a deterrent to anyone not willing to take the punishment).
'tis a shame it requires enormous advances in AI and engineering though.
Well, reading the discussion here has really made me change my thinking on these registry's.
I have two kids, a girl and a boy. I worried over this kind of thing as they grew up (my daughter is off and married now, my son would pull the arms off someone messing with him, Wookie style). When this registry was first put into action, I thought it was a useful idea. Keep an eye on the bastards, ya know?
Well, I won't deny that I find this kind of crime terrible, as do nearly all people. I also do NOT believe that their records should just 'go away' like some of you do when they serve their time.
These databases are terribly ineffective. I respect the idea of making sure that LAW ENFORCEMENT can watch and track them. I respect the idea of LAW ENFORCEMENT making the decisions to warn people in the neighborhood if they feel that someone is a threat. I just don't see (after many of your convincing arguments) why there is any value in these databases.
Quick - someone make me change my mind again!
-- I really need to bleed off some of this
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
I like how it's "vengeance" and not "removing a proven criminal from society to minimize his ability to hurt someone else".
When they say things like "bleeding hearts" they mean you. You seem to think that rehabilitation is a universal possibility (so wrong it hurts) and that the penal system shouldn't, at least in some cases, be used as a repository for those people unable to conduct themselves in a civilized manner. Permanently.
So is yours, stop pretending otherwise.
The Most Recent Catastrophe
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/02/09
sudo eat my shorts
It's happened already. In Philipsburg NJ, a couple of civic-minded @$$holes broke into a house to beat up a Megan's law listed sex offender - but the guy they beat up had nothing to do with any sex offense ever.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2D6153AF933A15751C0A963958260
This was an early case, and the county government screwed up - they took the extra step of delivering flyers to the neighborhood, freaking everyone out and thus whipping up a lynch mob. Nevertheless, the same principle stands. Yes, people have a right to know, but they don't have a right to pre-emptively use violence. Practical as well as moral reasons.
There's a reason why we give law enforcement to the police. They can make mistakes like anybody else - but who the hell knows what a fired-up, untrained, possibly psychotic random lynch mob can do, to *innocent people*?
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
You're robbing the cradle!
I read the internet for the articles.
A publicly accessible database of RIAA lawyers.
Ok, I was going to stay out of it, but this one I have to reply to. If it did help then you would have a point. How ever, you are forgetting all the people that were consenting, just not seen as adults that end up on these lists. Had sex when you were under age? Congrats, you should be on those lists as should your partner, branded for life, denied places to live, the ability to get a good job or any other way of becoming a useful part of society. Nice justice there, 'eh? What do people do when shunned by society? Do they get better and become model citizens? No, they are forced to the fringes and have no choice but to prey on the society that has cast them out. There is /no/ justice in those lists, only hate and fear mongering. You say that they are more likely to repeat the offense? More likely then who? More likely then a car thief, a drug dealer, an abusive spouse? Look at the data and see where the greatest number of repeat offenders is, one source cited above and linked to the report shows 5% for rapists, most of the other crimes are 10% to 20%. No, these lists are there because people over react to buzz words and want to live in fear. Yea, not want /us/ to live in fear, but because /they/ want to live in fear. Fear sells, fear gets attention, and so the media caters to those people spending the money, the ones that want to live in fear. I for one am solidly against such lists, they are nothing but target lists and ensure that the people on them can /never/ integrate into society. And for the record, /I/ was one of those children raped that these lists are supposed to protect. A list wouldn't have changed anything. Kill them, jail them for life, but for gods sake /don't/ force them to become even more desperate and criminal once they are free from jail.
Question reality.
its a feature
What are the odds of having two people in an apartment building that happen to have the same name? Well, it happened to me. First, last and middle initial. The other guy is a registered sex offender. Despite the two of us living in different apartments (A5 vs A7), I've had several people coming to my door looking for him. ... Including the local police.
Yes, even though the database of sex offenders has his address as A7 and has pictures (he looks nothing like me), the police insisted that I was a sex offender until I provided an ID to show we had different birthdates.
So now I have to worry about whackos trying to kill the other guy and getting me instead? Great.
The rule of thumb I always heard was "half your age, plus seven". So a 16 year old is ok if you're 18 or less. At 28, you could have gone down to age 21 without a problem. So dating that 23 year old was not a problem. At 50, you should stick to 32 or above. And an 80 year old shouldn't look below 47. Holds up pretty well.
That's "On the gripping hand..."
Actually, in most US states, the age of consent is lower than 18, usually 16 or 17. See this table. In fact, many states have a range, based on the age of the other party.
Now many people think that 18 or 17 or what ever may be too high of "do not cross" line, but I think that everyone agrees that there should be some line. I mean, whatever your age, should there ever be a time when it is ok to have sex with a 9 year old? How about 10? Try coming up with an age that way, especially if you have a daughter, as most lawmakers do, and see what arbitrary age or range you come up with.
Where's the online database of murderers, thieves, and drug users? Didn't anyone ever read the Scarlet Letter? Not saying the sex crimes and kiddie-rapers are OK, but if you're convicted and serve your time, why do you still have to be persecuted publicly?
can anyone give a reason why ALL people convicted of ANYTHING aren't in a database?
AFIAK, arrest, trail and imprisonment are all public acts and therefore you should be able to work it out if you really want to. Not completely sure about that, but I am sure that fundamentally, its the wrong direction.
More and more, as a society, we're concerned about securing ourselves by putting up barriers between ourselves and others. This is fundamentally ignorant. It is destroying society. Isolation is precisely the catalyst to deviant social behavior, and depression.
The process of branding someone is always flawed, and tends to create the opposite of what you want. For example, if you get angry, it's because of the circumstance you're in right? Wrong. Other people will look at you in that moment, and see you as an intrinsically angry person... just as you brand all former criminals as intrinsically criminal, with life-long convictions.
When you brand these "bad" people (who see their problems as circumstantial, and not intrinsic as you do)... what do you think they'll do? Smile at you with deep understanding that you hate them because you don't understand their struggle with life? If you hate them, then they will hate you back. That's because, if everybody looks at you like you're a freak, you *will* hate them in turn. If you isolate someone, then who knows what dark place they will visit - maybe stealing your car to buy drugs (so they can feel good), or attacking someone, or vandalize your property.
Isn't public safety more important than the "privacy" of criminals?
Public safety can be best served by bringing people back into whatever fragile community we have left. Into jobs, church, family gatherings, community gatherings, 12-step programs, whatever.
You're version of public safety leads to a progressively more depressing and lawless situation. Branded, envious and hopeless people are permanently convicted. Where will they turn? Perhaps it'd be better to put them out of their misery - or dump them on some pacific island somewhere. On the other hand, upright citizens like yourself have to move to progressively safer neighbourhoods with higher fences and bigger locks. Alas for the sad irony of blank-n-white morality.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Wanking is unnatural and wrong - stop WANKING NOW!!!!!!1!!!!!111!!
You are remiss for mentioning that formula without linking to this xkcd comic.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Straighten their life out and get a job, stay out of trouble and stop making pathetic fucking excuses.
I believe I already covered the pathetic excuses. People do it every day, so your excuses ring hollow.
No, and claiming otherwise doesn't strengthen your argument, it merely demonstrates you've failed to give this subject any thought.
PROTECTING THE PUBLIC. That goal is NOT punitive, and yet it is a reason for prisons. Get back to me when you've considered this subject as seriously as you pretended to.
I think the reason we haven't gone crazy and created the mother-of-all criminal registries is because smart politicians, judges and law enforcement people all know they are stupid and don't work. The reason we have any sort of registries like this is because they can be effective political strategy. That is what "Megan's Law" was--there was a sad, probably preventable and high profile tragedy and a public outcry ensued: "the Government must do something! What about the CHILDREN!!!". And so, politicians put together this nice big database project to make voters feel better, even though it probably creates more problems than it solves, because now not only are there sick criminals out on the street, evry nutjob out there can find them which creates yet another crime issue. However, the government "did something" so the voters are happy, and as a nice side benefit there are these contracts to create and maintain this skookum database system, which make for perfect "job creation" (palm-greasing) opportunities.
It's just the same game we've played for awhile now. A group of crazed zealots pull a kamakaze into important US buildingsa and kill thousands, so now we have a "no-fly" database and a whole set of highly visible new security screening procedures and rules...just the same as Megan's law but on a grand scale--new database, new "systems", new lucrative contracts and voters who feel safer because the government is "doing something", even though those particular somethings are probably as ineffective as they are visible (the governent has done as much wrong as it has done right, and what it has done right is the least visible on the political radar).
Canada has it's own "registry disease" too. A gunman killed a bunch of innocent female students in Montreal--it was a tragedy that remains among the most brutal crimes in Canada's history, and it was the vehicle that propelled the government into bringing about the universal gun registry. Costs ran uncontrolled up to $2 billion before an election changed governments and the brakes were put on spending. In the meantime, RCMP and municipal police forces were underfunded and understaffed and the trends in violent crime have been completely unaffected by the registry (contrary to media hype on both sides--violent crime hasn't dramatically escalated, however the registry has done exactly zero to slow or stop the steady rate of violent crime, despite what supporters of the universal gun registry have said. Most "on the inside" know this to be true). Never mind that Mark Lepine had already seriously broken the law before he fired the first shot (mere possession of the weapon he had was already very illegal in Canada, and the registry wouldn't change that because the restricted weapon isn't even legally register-able today). The registry is easier to get going and gives more rapid positive political feedback than pumping $2 billion into our police forces and doing a massive recruitment and training programme...and there's that "palm greasing" factor again.
Canada has a sex offender registry as well, though it isn't accessible to the public, and we take the DNA samples of sex offenders (probably the only thing that is useful about the registry). Same thing applies though--it is a politically-friendly thing to do. Never mind that police forces have understaffed or underfunded sex-crimes units, or inadequate training, or that crackpot judges sentence rapists to mere months in jail sometimes, or that rapists go free or innocent are jailed because investigators botch cases sometimes. Nope, instead we create lists, because voters like lists and lists cover up problems that are hard to deal with. That's too bad, because billions in funding get wasted on lists. We should be tackling root causes like poverty, homelessness and addiction. At the same time we should be dealing with those now beyond redemption--repeat or violent rapists and molesters should be jailed for the rest of their lives with no parole ever for example, right alongside murderers. I'd
If you are indeed "A Follower of The Right Way" then why must you post anonyously, mr anonymous troll?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
It really depends on the state.
Assuming its consensual, in Va they sort of have a gray area. If I remember correctly there is a 3 year rule. Basically 18-20 year old can get with a minor as long as the minor is not more than 3 years younger than the adult. It's still not legal, but it is not a felony. Its a misdemeanor, contributing to delinquency of a minor or something.
From what I understand police real only charge this if the minor's parents press for it. Or if you do something public, etc.
(The only reason I know this is because back in high school we had some sort of seminar that explained a lot of states laws to us that we may not know about, like premarital sex is a class 4 misdemeanor in VA)
Kilroy was here.
How can you possibly know this? (I'm not disagreeing with you, I think you might even be right, I'm just curious about the method used to make such an assertion.)
Unless I'm missing something, the law doesn't set limits on who can date, just on who can have sex or marry. So sexually inactive teens are OK. (What few there are.) And it says nothing about the 45-35 age gap you mention because they're both adults who are (presumably) capable of making decisions for themselves.
With regard to the 18 1/2 and 17 3/4 example, I would make two comments:
Sex crimes are the only crimes we continue to punish people after they've "paid their debt to society". We restrict their movement, restrict where they can live, and in many cases ensure through force of law that they never lead a normal life again.
Actually, pretty much anything that involves a criminal record is going to screw you over in many cases. In the majority of jobs, criminal record = not hired. No job = no cash. No cash = shit existence.
Throw into that the limited ability to travel and many others, and that person will likely be paying for his/her long after being released from prison.
Yes, some people break this cycle, and some jobs do hire people with records, but the fact is that in most places even McDonalds has the "have you ever been convicted of a crime" section.
I'm not saying that having a record is 100% a bad idea... you don't really want to hire a guy with a rape (against female) records to teach a female athletics class, or somebody with a history of fraud/embezzlement to work in a bank, but the system could definitely use some reform in terms of how long records hang around, what sentences gain one a record (and for how long), and many other issues.
Considering the only logical use of this list is to inform the public about *potential* sex offenders
(based on prior actions) the obvious thing to do is:
o Create a list of all underage children
o Cross reference that list by their {step}father
o Add a cross reference to all other family members
o Include their name and addresses so the rest of us can keep an eye on them.
o Remove the existing sex-offenders list since it's merely a distraction and we'd be spread
to thin watching them *and* the more likely relative.
Belthize
ps: I'm in complete agreement with you. The existing list is mental and serves no purpose.
Sex crimes are the only crimes we continue to punish people after they've "paid their debt to society".
I disagree.
All felons lose the right to vote and their Second Amendment rights - for life. Those, especially the first, are significant punishments, I feel.
In Maine about a year ago there were a few murders of people listed in the Online Sex Offender Database.
Why is this "news" just because it's California, or because his DB entry was wrong?
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
This reminds me of a past post or other news article I read, about two kids in Florida I believe that made a sex tape of themselves. From the story they were long time boyfriend and girlfriend, and at the time the guy was like a half year or a year older. Anyway because where their ages fell, he got changed with making child porn. I forget the circumstances of how it all came out, but to my mind you have to have some common sense at some point.
Just for perspective, I remember when I first started college, I was 18. I had an ex-girlfriend who was a year younger than I come up to visit me. It was her birthday that week. I always thought it was funny that I got her into a bar (I had fake id), while I was underage at 18, and she only 16 (due to her birthday being later on that week). Thinking that really means anything because the birthday falls on such and such a day is stupid. I know with the law you have to draw a line somewhere, but you have to be flexible when considering this sort of thing, and take it with context. Otherwise pretty much everyone (unless their high school partner was the exact same age) has committed that crime to some degree.
That's why states that are actually sane (thankfully mine) have some sort of leeway with the consent laws. In Colorado, the age of consent is 17. However, if one person is between 15 and 17, it is still legal if the other person is less than ten years older. If one person is less than 15, it is still legal if the other person is less than 4 years older.
What I find 'funny' is that everybody feels it's ok to denounce that sex offenders should be 'hung from the highest tree' or other barbaric methods. The weird thing is, that only child molestation seems to be ok for this, while other crimes that are a lot worse like child murder doesn't evoke such responses.
Is it fashionable to do this? Is it ok to declare such things because society also does it? And why only molestation? It messes up the victim for sure, but at least it's alive? Wouldn't murder be worse?
Is there more behind this? Who of the male populace wouldn't want to make it with a hot 18 year old? Does society not tell us that it would be even better if she was 17? Is 16 not even more legendary? If there is one thing that the media keeps pounding into our minds is that young, tighter and virginal are the pinnacle in the field of sex. At what age did Britney Spears prance around on tv dressed for sexual arousal?
So is there a big backlash against the sexual types of crime because Dad secretly also wants to bone a teen and is therefor somehow more scared for his own daughter because he can imagine well how other look at his own flesh and blood?
It just strikes me as odd that this particular type of crime is handled differently in society.
This is how we did things in the old days. If a court declared a guy to be an 'outlaw' then that's exactly what he was, outside the law, and fair game for anyone and everybody knew it. If you chopped off an outlaw's head and presented it to the sheriff he'd give you a silver penny, same as if you presented a wolf's head. If we're going back to that form of justice then lets just get on with it rather than trying to sneak it in by degrees, starting with the child molesters, then the rapists, and so on. 'Course the RIAA would want it to apply to file sharers as well, so might not be a popular idea on this forum.
Loose lips lose spit.
Because if you've ever been the victim of a violent act, it's considered appropriate for you to demand vengeance upon the people who attacked you.
Unless, of course, you are an Iraqi, 'cause then it would just be stupid.
Ad hominim attack. My relative "normality" has nothing to do with whether his action is unacceptable.
No, that's called "offensive action", fuckwad. "Evasive action" would be to leave town, find somewhere away from sex offenders. After all, he did have the list.
Also, since when is premeditated murder the "right direction"? What kind of role does that set for his son?
Except there was only one "alligator" in this case.
Neither alligators nor sex offenders will automatically tear children to pieces. They can, but it doesn't mean they will.
Were that really true, people who raise children near alligator-filled swamps would be justified going out and hunting them, as a pre-emptive action. But of course, they aren't justified in that action. They're justified in building fences to keep the alligators out of their yards, or to keep them in the swamp.
So, following the guy's own analogy, if it really is no different, the right thing for him to do would be to put an alarm system in his house.
This statement also seems a bit off in that it implies that the previous analogy wasn't just an analogy -- that this guy actually was going to take his son to an alligator-filled swamp if he didn't kill a sex offender. If that's the case, he's clinically insane, as, quite obviously, it is possible to live in places other than alligator-filled swamps and not kill sex offenders.
...
Whee, that was fun! Did I win?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Sorry, I meant to put this in the other post. Citation
Absolutely nothing. However, for legal purposes society does not want, or can't have, too much gray when it comes to these issues. A clear line of demarcation is needed and 18 happens to be the number chosen.
No, there need be no "do not cross" line. What we wish to punish is those who take advantage of people who are not mentally competent or mature enough to make decisions for themselves. Establish legal standards of mental competence and maturity and let a jury evaluate each case. While I am sure this will result in many fewer successful prosecutions of statutory rape, I am not sure that's a bad thing. Even with no firm age limit, I doubt any jury would find that a nine or ten year old was mature enough to consent to a sexual relationship.
The database didn't lead to the murder...Miller Lite and a double digit IQ did.
Wait, so this is not the reason they publish kiddie diddler's names and addresses online? I thought they were encouraging vigilante justice to save the courts and prisons some money.
Does this mean I should stop hunting down pedo's in my town?
In some states, public indecency will get you on the sex offender list (I think West Virginia is one)*. So, for merely getting caught peeing behind a tree at a bar after drinking a lot, you can get labeled a sex offender for life. The only victim of that crime is the person convicted, as they will have problems getting jobs, homes, even credit for the rest of their lives, and get put on wonderful lists like these. These sites are an invasion of privacy, frequently contain bad/wrong information, and rely on the offenders themselves to keep their addresses current. There are so many problems with this idea I can't even count them.
* I know this information because for a few weeks I worked as a developer for a major national sex offender search website until my morals caught up to me and I realized what a colossally bad idea the sites are.
today is spelling optional day.
Either put everyone in a db that was found guilty of a crime and make that accessible to the public or get rid of the db altogether.
If sex offenders are such a threat to the public after serving their jail sentence that the government has to resort to using such a db to track them then obviously the punishment was not enough.
A clear line to separate underage and adult saves all the troubles to assess whether someone has the maturity to make important decisions, and be responsible. We all know this differs from person to person, but there is no easy way to determine the line for everyone.
I think the 18 cutoff is reasonable. It's arbitrary, but due to high school ending about there, and all the associated "adult" responsibilities one gains, there does tend to be a pretty dramatic shift in maturity level somewhere within a couple of years of there. State laws differ on how they handle the age of consent stuff, but a lot of the more reasonable states using a sliding window near the age border, as in something like "anyone screwing anyone age 14-17 who is more than 3 years older than them is illegal", which lets 17 years have relationships with 20 year olds at max, and 14 year olds have sex with 17 year olds at max. These kinds of laws are pretty reasonable when you think about it. If a 21 year old guy is screwing a 16 year old girl, you know he's taking advantage of her mentally and physically in the majority of cases, and most of society would frown on it. You have to draw some rough lines in the sand somewhere.
11*43+456^2
Was I more careful when my girls were outside? you betcha. Did I caution them more about "stranger dangers" without trying to enforce a "scare tactic regime", you betcha. Did I pick on or seek out or discriminate against a neighbor? No, and not that I would have, but their relative privacy worked well in both directions.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
It is clear that the sex offenders databases are specifically designed to have people killed. If they were designed to 'protect the children' they would contain data on murderers. I'm actually surprised that murders don't happen more often.
Typically, I hate to see private information given away to people who abuse it, and I do think people should have a right to privacy. But I am going to chime in with a counter-argument because I think there are a lot of people in the discussion who get upset when any shred of privacy data is given away and misused.
There are limits to privacy. The country where the murder was committed (America) was founded on certain inalienable rights, of which privacy is not included. The rights that cannot be denied are (1) Life, (2) Liberty, and (3) Pursuit of Happiness.
A right to privacy would prevent your neighbors from gossiping about you. When New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia didn't have buildings that were taller than 40 meters the world was a smaller place and not nearly as spread out. People knew each other's business. There wasn't the idea of privacy that we have in modern society where you can walk 20 blocks in Manhattan and not know a single person. So in a way, privacy has evolved over the years and databases are a way of keeping it in check.
So quit the knee-jerk "they are invading my privacy" reaction with these stories. The real tragedy is that the rapist was denied his inalienable right to Life because some clerk mistakenly marked him as a child molester instead of a regular woman rapist. Had they gotten it right in the database, maybe somebody's wife would have felt threatened and committed the murder. The fact is that rape and murder are VERY BAD THINGS and worthy of a scarlet letter.
Somebody mentioned the Hawthorne novel, by the way, which concerns consensual adultery and children out of wed-lock. The mother was a disgrace to the community and the male-half of the adultery was ironically the most respected man in town (the Reverend).
In summary, consider the context of privacy invasion. Some is warranted. Privacy is not an inalienable right.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The related laws states "the age of majority" not at "the age of 18." Yes, is can be used relative to another "majority" aspect, but is that something you really want to leave open?
mod parent up!
The concept that the maturity between a 13 yr old and 18 yr old is different than that between a 28 and 33 year old, didn't occur to you?
Seriously? This concept confuses you?
Getting on the sex offender lists is pretty easy the various 'levels' are key. Indecent exposure, prostitution, assault, rape, etc. I can foresee some guy doing this and not understanding the context at all of the 'list'.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
The murderer should be put in the Megan's law DB.
I don't actually get this. So, in your example, if a guy that was 17 was screwing the 16 year old girl...it would be ok, and the guy wouldn't be taking advantage of the girl??
I mean, either way, she's getting screwed, what difference does it make how old the other party is.
Also, in your example, you just mentioned a girl...what if they guy was 16....would that make a difference in your scenario?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well, I think in an ideal legal system, this might work, but then I think you are actually moving that legal standard away from the jury, and into the hands of the police and prosecutors. The police and prosecutors are responsible for determining when a crime has been committed and what to do with it, long before a jury is ever involved. Those "do not cross" lines give everyday law enforcement a guide, so that law enforcement as a whole is somewhat uniform, and not totally arbitrary based on the individual law enforcement personal.
Deciding what punishment suits the crime is one thing, but deciding what IS a crime is another thing altogether.
If there's grass on the field, play ball.
If not, play in the mud.
I know where all 26 that are registered in my small town live.
My daughter knows what all 26 look like.
She has seen 7 of them and knows to stay away from them.
This is one case where part of the punishment (national registry) fits the crime.
And as in 99.9% of all criminal cases, its a matter of public record.
I support it 100%
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
Well, if you live in a sane society, an 18 year old going out with a 17 year old is perfectly normal, as is a 17 year old with a 16 year old and an 18 1/2 year old and 17 3/4 year old.
An 18 year old going out with a 13 year old, now that's a crime called sexual interference. As is, say, a twenty five year old teacher having sex with his or her under 17 student (or any position of power relationship). Going out for ice cream is fine, legally.
Voting, buying alcohol and driving without restrictions are all privileges conferred on the same day, the 18th birthday.
The recidivism rates for most child molestation crimes are actually lower than those of sexual assault on adults and many property and drug crimes.
Remember that this could have been any of us. Database entries can (and are) be wrong due to the offender lying, the clerk misentering the data, people moving in houses where offenders previously lived, etc.
Look at the father's behavior, not the sordid details of his victim. How would you feel if he had killed a law-abiding firefighter? Teacher of the year? Doctor? Why does/should this matter -- our laws don't make people 'fair game' just because they have a criminal past or work at a minimum wage job at McDonalds.
The bottom line is that he committed premeditated murder in cold blood. We have to remember that it could have been any of us... and that "understanding" his actions will encourage other vigilantes since we say it's a defensible act.
[Sorry if this is a dup of my earlier comments -- my first post didn't show up]
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I had been looking for some hard data on these things, but was unable to find them.
However, I'd argue that the links you provide actually say that they have a high recidivism rate.
The CS Monitor link only talks about the first 3 years after release. Contrast that with the RCMP study, which shows recidivism as high as 77% for people who molested boys outside their family circle. Note that the time frame analyzed is much larger - 15-30 years as opposed to just 3. Total recidivism rate for child molesters was 61%, as opposed to 82% for non-sexual criminals. It's true that it is lower than for non-sexual criminals, but I'd also argue that comparing child molesters to property offenders (graffiti? vandalism?) and "regular" violent offenders is underestimating the impact of child molesters.
Here's the main reason why child molesters are so dangerous: child molesters create more child molesters. Vandals, people who get into fights and killers don't. Preventing a single molestation from happening can save not only that one person, but also its future victims, and their victims.... Child molesters present long-term risks to society unlike any other criminal.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
If you use the half your age + 7 rule, it crosses at 14 years old.
Thus dating for anyone younger than 14 is verboten.
Seriously, these databases are pure fascism. They create a second (lower) class of citizenship. Who goes on the list next? Rapists? Cop killers? Jews? Liberals? I have two young kids and I'd rather accept responsibility myself for protecting them from predators. Unfortunately, my government would prefer that I cower, not think.
i suggest the tag defectivebydesign.
GA isn't/wasn't. Look up Genarlow Wilson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_v._State_of_Georgia. Dude was 17 and received oral from a 15 y/o. He was handed a harsher sentence than he would have if they just engaged in vaginal intercourse. Screwed up. I know they have changed the law since his conviction, but they didn't make it retroactive. Wilson did get released finally this year based off of the punishment being cruel and unusual, but I don't know if he still has to register as a sex offender because a 15 y/o went down on him instead of riding him.
I would find it perfectly OK for a 9 year old to have (an attempt at) sex with a different 9 year old.
The lesson here is that a sufficiently large corporation is indistinguishable from government. --ultranova
I'm not entirely sure what you're point is. If you're talking about "statutory" laws, you're slightly off. At least in the states I've lived in, it's a range below a certain age, not a hard line. IE, long long ago, when I turned 18, my gf was 16 (soon to turn 17). We weren't doing anything where we would worry about that law, but, had we, it would have been legal. The reason is the age difference was only 2 years (rounding up). At least in that state, there would have been no issue.
The concern is more if someone in their 20's, 30's, or higher was with a teenager. Adults have too much power to manipulate and abuse a minor in that instance. It's not part of normal development (as opposed to people of similar age) and more about asymmetrical objectives that will, in likeliness, be damaging to the minor.
Sounds like a line from the Brass Eye Special.
"Is it ok for a man to sleep with a 3 year old girl, now that she is 18?"
"No."
"Absolutely not."
"No way."
In most states both the Republican and Democratic parties meet in caucuses or conventions on primary election day. They usually meet at the voting place right after the polls close. In caucus states the times may vary. These meetings pass resolutions which can become part of the local, state, and national party platforms.
If everyone here went to their local neighborhood caucus or convention and wrote and passed a resolution saying "Sex offender notifications are too harsh" or "Sex offender notification laws are too lenient" it would get the attention of both political parties.
This same process can be used for other political actions like copyright reform.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Perv database is operating at peak efficiency.People are protecting themselves and hunting predators as per genetic survival dictates.What really is the problem?It could be the perspective the press promotes with words like murder and vigilance.
Try this story on for size,rewritten to make sense:
"The LA Times reports on the story of Michael A. Dodele, a convicted rapist, found killed in a Lakeport trailer park. He moved there after having been released from prison just 35 days before. A 29-year-old construction worker , arrested in the killing, explained that he killed Dodele to protect his son from child molestation. He found out on the internet about Dodele being a sex offender, via the 'Megan's Law' database. The public entry for Dodele in the database was wrong [CC] [MD] [GC] -- though he was found guilty of committing crimes against adult women he was not a child molester though still an antisocial predator. Dodele's entry in Megan's Law DB has been removed since he has been removed for our safety."
Its all in your perspective folks!Just ask yourself if you want ANY kind of predator living close to you and think of what you have to lose just to share air with these worthless souls.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
...the internet kills you.
Xaxa, you've showed a pretty much textbook case of basic poll manipulation.
How you ask your questions can have a major effect on how people vote.
For example, the first case:
"Which punishment do you prefer for people convicted of murder?"
The guy who kills his wife/her lover when he discovers them in bed together is a murder. At least some areas, getting into a bar fight and killing somebody can count as murder. Killing your drug dealer is a murder.
So we're looking at the average case here. On average, I favor life in prison for murder, so that would be how I vote.
Do you favour or oppose the death penalty for people convicted of murder? Is that
strongly favour/oppose or somewhat favour/oppose?
This makes it much more conditional. At least to me, it makes me think of it as an optional punishment, for particularly bad murders. I might support LiP for 'average' murder, but I want the death penalty available for particularly heinious or obvious cases. Stuff like the NE bank murders a few years back - they walked in, cased the place, shot/executed everybody, then fled without taking any money. The cases of rape/torture/murder that happened - where they did stuff like force the woman to drink drain cleaner after raping her and burning her and stuff.
I don't read AC A human right
Damnit, how many times have I got to tell you that slashdot is not the place for good analogies or logic? It's bad analogies and hastily drawn conclusions or nothing!
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Maybe all ex-cons who aren't released on parole should undergo a mandatory "civil commitment" hearing.
If they are really dangerous and there's nothing short of keeping them locked up to protect society, keep them locked up for another year until the next hearing.
If they are moderately dangerous but something like mandatory counseling, GPS tracking, community notification, supervised release, or just making them privately register their address, license plates, phone number, email address, etc. with the local police will prevent or deter them from committing new crimes, put them under those restrictions for the next 12 months until the next hearing.
If they are no more dangerous than the average Joe on the street, then discharge them.
Of course, any such plan has major civil liberties issues. However, the alternatives are either to lock all criminals up for life or execute them, or live in a society where we know those ex-cons who are still dangerous are walking the streets unmonitored.
Personally, I'll go for letting them walk the street - I hate police states and these programs are expensive in more ways than one.
But I know that's not politically feasible in today's political environment.
If we are going to to make one class of ex-cons undergo some kind of post-release "program" in the name of protecting the public, we should make sure only those who are more dangerous than the average Joe are in the program and we should apply it to anyone who has committed a serious crime.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If he lived near a sex offender and feared for his child's safety, rather than murdering the guy (and thus going to prison, which certainly won't help his child), he might have tried MOVING. Yes, it's expensive, a hassle, and unfair, but not as much as going to prison.
I was under the impression that people over the age of 18 are able to have relations with those as young as about 16 in most US states, but people much older then 21 are restricted to 18 and older. I always thought there was a squishy gray area between 18 and 21, idk....
The person that was responsible for the error in the database should be charged with something.
This is one of my favorite responses to that comic.
Star Pirates
his link works just fine for me and i get the "password please" from the summery's link.
an IP block maybe? do you live somewhere around LA?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
But I do know that these lists cause a lot of problems in people's lives. I know a single mother whose ex-husband threatened her from Oregon because he found out that she (in North Carolina) moved near a registered "sex offender". (Never mind that the neighborhood that they used to live together in had 2 registered sex offenders on their block). So the ex-husband sends her a threatening letter saying that she has endangered his children by moving there and he will hold her fully responsible if anything happens to the children.
Never mind that the "sex offender"'s "crime" was to have sex with his girlfriend when they were both right around the "age of consent" (him slightly above, her slightly below).
These "sex offender" lists are just part of the "criminalization of America". If you are not on a sex offender list for peeing in the street, or on a drug offender list for smoking a joint, or traffic offender for exceeding posted speed limits, it just means that you don't leave the house much. We have 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population (according to Wikipedia) and that doesn't include the "sex offender lists" or other forms of punishment while not incarcerated.
So why is what used to be the world's richest country also the world's most incarcerated country? A British politician was shown in "Sicko" as saying that this was a tactic used to control Society -- if the people were demoralized they were easier to control. Is that the case or is America just crazy? We're certainly not "the land of the free" any more. And the government is now starting a hunt for "Homegrown Terrorists" as if we really had any.
A kid in my state (17) is being tried as an adult because he had sex with his (consenting) 15 year old girlfriend. When the father of the girl found out, he drove to the school and beat the shit out of the kid. She claimed her boyfriend had raped her (she was lying at the time) and later confessed that she consented to the act. Meanwhile this kid's life is being ruined (think college applications and job applications) because he couldn't keep his emotions under control. The dad who couldn't keep _his_ emotions under control, gets off comparatively easy.
This isn't the local article, but you don't have to pay for it: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904053/posts
In most of the US, those are three distinct events... 18, 21, and 16, respectively. The first two are national laws, the third can vary by state.
Did anyone actually RTFA? The man who was murdered was NOT a child molester.
Remember, reading is fun[damental]!
How do these compare against other crimes?
Violent crimes such as murder and assault outside the family tend to be a "young man's" crime. The recidivism rate for murder tends to be quite low, in part due to the long sentences and in part due to "aging out" of testosterone-laden anger.
Family violence and for that matter sex with live-in children tends to go down if the person is not living with anyone after release. Duh.
How are the statistics affected by such factors as stable employment, stability of housing, stable family life, availability of affordable, no-stigma-attached psychological help, etc.? Today's "crucify them all" society increases the risk of recidivism by making pariahs out of those who need stability the most.
Some of the highest-recidivism rates are things that are not enforced much. I bet 99% of people who have ever gotten a ticket for speeding committed a similar crime within a month of paying their fine and I bet 99% of them do it at least monthly if not daily. They just make sure they don't get caught. What would society look like if all convicted speeders had to put a speed-regulator on their car for the next 10 years and put a "convicted speeder" bumper-sticker on their car as part of their punishment? The roads would be a lot safer I'm sure, but I don't want to live in that world.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The common answer is what many states have enacted: an allowed gap in ages between participants where it isn't illegal to have sex with someone who is too young as long as you aren't too old. In your situations, (18&17, 17&16, 18.5&18.75, etc) there wouldn't be a problem.
In my state (New York), you are considered to be "incapable of consent" if you are under 17 years of age. However, 3rd degree rape is written rather clumsily to avoid that issue: a person is guilty of 3rd degree rape if (1) he or she has sex with someone incapable of consent for a reason other than being under 17 years of age, (2) being 21 or older, he or she has sex with someone who is less than 17 years of age, or (3) another factor not relevant here. For 2nd degree rape, the two relevant clauses are (1) being 18 or older, having sex with someone under 15, but it is an affirmative defense to that clause of at the time of the act the defendant was less than 4 years older than the victim.
There are odd corner cases in NYS law where it is OK for two folks to boink, but have to stop because they get older, but it involves some rather large spreads of ages (and may be covered by juvenile law I haven't looked into). A 17 year old can boink an 11 year old until he/she turns 18. A 17 year old can boink a 13 year old, but if he turns 18 before she turns 14, they have to stop boinking for a year or more until she turns 15, then they can boink until he turns 21 (and she's 16) and then they have to wait (less than a year) for her to turn 17, then they can boink with impunity. If she turned 14 before he turned 18, then they never have to stop boinking.
In NYS, it isn't the age difference, per se, but rather the difference in maturity and whether one or the other is adult enough to make the appropriate decision. A 16 year old isn't considered mature enough to consent to sex with an adult over 21, but a 4-year age gap is OK. The law handles teen-agers having sex within their age-bracket fine without criminalizing it, yet (theoretically) provides protection of impressionable youth from predatory adults who might convince them they want to have sex or otherwise prey on their insecurities. Unparaphrased sections of the law deal with nonconsensual sex regardless of age, so teens are protected against forced/drugged rape as well.
In my opinion, writing age-of-consent laws with an age-band is more just than allowing disapproving parents to wait until his/her 18th birthday to have him/her arrested for consensual sex with their under-age daughter/son.
This question is why I am a fan of the Rule of Seven. Half your age plus seven equals age of consent (age/2 + 7 = minimum). Any further separation puts the older party in an unreasonably superior position (socially, financially, mentally) which is precisely the argument made for age of consent laws anyway. Interestingly enough, the first doctor to study the subject, Alfred Kinsey, was against age of consent laws. Rape is rape - which is a far different act from consent.
http://www.coderoshi.com/
I blogged about this case and another like it this morning. There's a 71 year-old man in Las Vegas being harassed by neighbors because his apartment is listed as the address of a sex offender who never gave the authorities his new address. This guy is getting harassed and is afraid to leave his house anymore. This vigilante crap needs to stop. Innocent people are getting their lives ruined (not like it was hard to see that coming).
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
I'm not sure how much you know about sex offender registries. The first time I heard about a publicly available list I thought it would make sense. You could look at a map and see where they lived. However, since that early, naive time I've learned a lot. The biggest problem with these lists is that they're poorly maintained by the government (surprise!). So here's yet another example of how these things go wrong, as they invariable do:
http://www.theagitator.com/2007/12/10/hey-not-our-fault/
Hey, Not Our Fault Monday, December 10th, 2007
Nevada's Public Safety Commission has set up a website that includes searchable maps of where the state's sex offenders live. The city of Las Vegas then decided to set up its own site, with a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The problem is that both websites populate their databases with information from sex offenders themselves, people who, as you might imagine, aren't terribly vigilant about keeping their addresses up to date with state authorities. This has led to neighbors harassing non-sex offenders who happened to have moved into residences formerly occupied by sex offenders.
The city says it isn't to blame because . . . it includes a disclaimer on the website stating it shouldn't be used to harass or intimidate sex offenders. Pitchfork-toting crowds, city police say, should be aware of the fact that sex offenders supply the state with it's information, and that they 100 percent accurate. Sounds . . . dubious.
When 71-year-old Harry Berlin, a non-sex offender who's been mistakenly harassed and threatened by neighbors, asked city officials to correct their records, they told him he had to ask the people who run the state database. When he went to the state, they told him to go back to the city. So now he's suing. In the meantime, his neighbors will continue to periodically gather outside his door to taunt him.
Maybe Berlin should consider himself lucky. Matt Welch notes that a guy in California was stabbed to death last month after a neighbor found his name on a sex offender list. There were two similar vigilante murders in Maine earlier this year, and two more in Washington State last year. Both pairs of murders involved online sex offender lists. I can't seem to find a link to an online version, but CNN did a special about a year ago on a mentally retarded kid in his late teens who had the mental capacity of a 10-year-old. He was convicted of a sex crime after exposing himself to a minor in a "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" kind of way. After moving, his new neighbors found his name on a sex offender list, and began posting signs around the neighborhood warning about the "rapist" who lived at his address. The kid ended up killing himself.
This kind of thing was pretty predictable.
OK what about the 19 year old having sex with his 16 year old girlfriend who is 36 months, 1 day younger than him in a state with a 3-year grace period? This should either get a free pass, a shotgun wedding, or a restraining order, nothing more.
As written, the law is still jacked up for cases like this.
15 with 20 warrants either a shotgun wedding or a restraining order, education in the law, counseling, and maybe misdemeanor jail time, not felony time. 12 with 22 may warrant felony time but if the 12 year old is mature and the 22 year old is immature but still maturing it may not warrant public sex-offender registration provided he's mature by the time he gets out of jail. Ditto a 3 year old with a 13 year old provided he's clearly willing to obey the law when he gets out of juvenile detention.
5 with 30 on the other hand, well, I think we can agree that just ain't right.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I agree with you. People tend to lose the most brain cells in the US when they turn 21.
if this guy realised that now his kid will probably get stuck in the social services system where he will get good and abused. Someone wasnt thinking of the children. I feel really bad for that poor kid who is now fatherless, of course given the solution the father thought up to his problem it may be a good thing that kid gets away from that psycho.
What if everyone took turns inviting their friendly neighborhood sex offender over for dinner or to the movies.
The poor guy wouldn't have any time to commit any new crimes.
Just don't invite him over when you are alone or to babysit your kids.
Hey we could do the same for RIAA lawyers and they wouldn't have time to file lawsuits.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The "18 years old" age line is when people are generally considered an adult. They are considered to be mentally able to make the choices that adults need to make. There is nothing special for someone who is 3 months away from being 18 or 3 months past their 18th birthday. There are certainly people who are 16 and could easily have the mental capacity for being an adult, likewise, there are people who are 21+ and don't seem to have that capacity. It's an arbitrary age that we as a society have decided that most people are ready to take on adult responsibilities.
I think 18 is generally a good age for adulthood but when it comes to "adult relationships" (read sex mainly) that we need to put some much needed exceptions into the law. I think there should be a "Romeo and Juliet" clause that says the following:
1. If one or both persons are under 18 then they must be within 5 years age of each other (This allows for a high school freshman to date a senior and also covers people in college going out with high schools are that about to leave high school)
2. If they take pictures/videos of each other while they are under 18 (obviously they shouldn't but it's happening all the time) for their own or their partner's self gratification then it's not considered CP so long as they don't send it to adults, not including their parents.
3. I also think that since most people do end up having sex by 14 or 15 that we should consider the age of consent laws to actually be lowered to 16, like most other countries (granted in some States it is 16 or 17 but it's not uniform, which makes things hard on adults.
The "Think of the Children" crowd (politicians and overprotective parents) need to be fired. Out of a cannon. Into a wall. The quicker we get rid of these reactionary, non-rational people the sooner we can have reasonable laws in this country again.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
I had never thought about looking at one of these registries before. I'm very very against it.
So I looked up my zipcode for the Texas version. Huge list comes up, I start scrolling, looking for any familiar looking addresses. There we go, near the bottom, one just 3 houses down from me.
"Offense: 36010001 Indecency w/child Sexual Contact"
No matter to me. He's 3 houses down, on probation, which means to me the law has done what is right with him (and at 62 years old, probably done more than enough.) I hope no one bothers this "gentleman."
All I know is, my life will continue as normal even knowing he's there. Guess I don't have vigilante in my blood stream.
For your information, I've got the address of the worst offender of them all:
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington DC
Feel free to take justice with your hands.
But... the future refused to change.
As step father to a girl that started having sex at 13 (no, I wasn't around) and is now pregnant at 15 I would say that if you're having sex before you're married you get what you deserve. If you wait until you're married you are much more likely to be prepared for the responsibilities that come with having sex. The fact that, as a society, we've lost all direction as to right and wrong about sex is just a another signpost of our ultimate demise. We teach "little" girls to be "sexy" and then we're suprised when men act on that. We teach men that sex is just a bodily function and we're suprised that STD's are out of control. We sow what we have reaped.
Actually I do know I'm an asshole
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
While I like the idea in theory. I'm not sure how well it would work in practice. While this sort of evaluation might be able to be done by a professional psychologist given a few weeks. How is the average person on the street going to evaluate someone in the short time they may have between meeting them and going home with them.
For example, if you go to a party where there is drinking and everyone is supposed to be 21 but there is one girl there who is 17. You talk to her for an hour or two while getting inebriated and she seems nice and competent (but for the sake of argument we'll say she doesn't pass your evaluation for court). Are you supposed to reasonably going to know that before you go to your bedroom?
We need guidelines that are easy to follow for the average person but give some leeway provided the person couldn't have reasonably known the person was mentally incapable of agreeing to a sexual encounter or within their age group (other high schoolers for example). See my post above for some ideas http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=385671&cid=21660111
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
This is where age of consent laws come into play. In Minnesota, the age of consent is 16 with a maximum disparity of 48 months. So legal sex can occur between somebody who is 16 and somebody who is 18, 19, or even 20, depending on the month. But if you're 21 with a 16 year old, it's statutory rape.
Age of consent, while also arbitrary (and variable by state), addresses when somebody is deemed mature enough to be able to render meaningful consent, thus addressing the questions of age differences older in life versus those under 18.
The battle of Crooked River happened after the so-called "militia" went door-to-door, rounding up weapons from the Mormons, and ordering them to leave the county. The person in charge of the militia was a noted member of the vigilante gangs that had already been harassing the Mormons. Combined with lies from Mormon dissenters to spur them on, this disarmament only fueled fears that more violence was on the way.
Exaggerated reports of Mormons being rounded up were received that caused the Mormon leadership to send an armed rescue party to the area. The mob/militia met the Mormons and killed three of them. Gov. Boggs responded to this by declaring the Mormons were in an uprising, and declaring that they either had to leave the state or be killed.
The incident is a prime example of harassing and tormenting a group until violence occurs, then claiming the violence was unprovoked. More recent examples include the Nazi's justification for the invasion of Poland, and the Israeli's justification for their recent bombings of Lebanon, not to mention the current justification for remaining in Iraq. If Iran had been shown to have developed nukes, it certainly would have been another example.
My g/f is 26 and I'm 32. We often joke about how I'm 'robbing the cradle' or she's got an old sugar daddy. I've always found a 1 year difference such as 17-18 to be completely unreasonable.
but you have to be flexible when considering this sort of thing, and take it with context. Otherwise pretty much everyone (unless their high school partner was the exact same age) has committed that crime to some degree.
Without proper common sense, even being the same age to the microsecond won't help. If a couple has sex when both are EXACTLY 17, both have just had sex with a minor. Strangely enough, there have been DAs that maintained exactly that stance and pressed charges.
In a just world, DAs and judges that allow anything like the above should be placed on a list so we can make sure they are never allowed to work in law enforcement, criminal justice, or anywhere where common sense is required again.
...an online database/map of all the murderers/robbers/thieves living nearby?
I think I would be more concerned about someone killing me than diddling me...
The age of consent varies from state to state and country to country. As I recall, and I believe another poster mentioned this, but there is a site that mentions these ages. In the US, I remember them varying from 16 to 18 and internationally going as low as 12. I think for my state the couple needed to be either: both 16 or above, be 4 years or less apart in age, or be married (although I don't see the point in being married so young).
The age, though, is an arbitrary number (and those that say 'but that person was only 17' without knowing them should be slapped IMO). What it comes down to is trying to protect those incapable of truly protecting themselves. Everyone matures at a different rate for various reasons. So how do you judge a person is capable of truly consenting? Well, in a legal sense its too complicated to do on a case-by-case basis (assuming the system does a good job with it), so ages have been picked where it is believed that enough people are capable and those ages become a part of the rules and laws, for better and for worse. Just as not every 17 year old is immature, not every 19 year old is mature either.
Worrying about the transition of a 16 and 17 year old couple to a 17 and 18 year old couple is rather moot-- the laws generally compensate for this. However there are other laws that are not so intelligent-- I believe if a child emails a nude picture of their self to their own self-- for whatever reason-- they can be charged with trafficking child pornography and face serious jail time, as stupid as that sounds. So okay, sometimes society is worrisome. (I've joked around before, I wonder how long it will take for someone to stumble across a picture of one of my children's first bath pictures and assume either myself or my wife is exploiting a child without the consideration that maybe we're just simply parents!)
My two cents.
A lot of the bleeding-heart types fight to stop these databases for the same reason you cite however they differ in that they don't think the punishment for these crimes should be that severe. So you have sex offenders (and, if you look at the data, they have very little chance of actual 'rehabilitation') who they don't want you to know about and they don't want to keep in prison. I'm with you, I'd prefer they stayed in jail but between jail and the registry database I'd rather have one or the other than neither because they are still dangerous.
that plugs more support and concern for the criminals than the victims of crime
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
> Dodele's entry in Megan's Law DB has been removed.
Oh, boy, that's a relief! Now he won't be murdered again.
It's good to know the government always supports the little guy.
Would garner more votes...that's a guy who had sex with a 14 yr old when he was 17 and ended up being murdered at 22 over it...
The laws we focus on kids having sex are ridiculous...
This issue is very complex but I do have a few thoughts to share.
From the get-go it's safe to say that almost everyone wants to see children protected from emotional trauma induced by adult sexual activity. Note that I say almost everyone because otherwise there would be no issue to speak of.
The fact that studies have shown positive correlationships between childhood sexual trauma and sexual development has almost universally been lost in such debates. Whenever someone brings it up the normal response is not to make excuses for the sexual deviant.
Now prevention is recognized as the best medicine yet fumbled when anger and hatred take the wheel so let's scrutinize the methods being adopted to attempt to prevent such incidents. Two approaches which have fairly recent histories are to jail certain offenders indefinitely and to publish information on released offenders. There are however unfortunate consequences to these approaches including the topic of this debate and fear of turning one's self in (yes, some of them are still human beings contrary to the the broad brush of popular culture).
True prevention must come in the form of correctly identifying the sometimes subtle indicators of the possibility of an offense. Men as the primary offenders tend to try to deal with their own childhood sexual traumas without the benefit of professional or religious assistance. Pride, social pressure, humiliation and other factors come into play here, however I'd like to get back to the point. If more investments were made into the psychological research of the development of (male and female) childhood sexual trauma victims then identifying the factors which may trigger the victim to later become the offender may become clearer and TRUE PREVENTION may then become possible. It is clear that offenders were not always victims however I suspect that reliable data is scarce due in part to the reasons mentioned above.
Root cause analysis in a nutshell. Those who offer "THEY'RE JUST MONSTERS" add nothing of value as they one were once innocent of the crime in question. Taking the whack-a-mole approach to prevention is no prevention at all.
(God bless),
Anonymous Coward
A citation on victims' sexual development
http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/pubs/issues/issues9/issues9.html
I hardly think it's fair to judge the overall value of the system to society by one success.
tone
tone
...still lament that they are forced to read Nathaniel Hawthorne.
There was a guy in our church that very gradually was getting friendly with the children. At one point, the child's grandmother looked on the Megan's Law list and saw his name on there. We (the board) asked him to leave the church and also to let us know what church he was going to so that we could inform the senior pastor that he should not be involved in children's ministry in any way.
He refused, but whenever I run into him around town, I always make a point of asking how he is doing and what church he's going to. Trust me, his current pastor is always aware that he is not to be involved in children's ministry or be around children... ;)
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Why does it matter that the guy's entry in the database was incorrect? Does that make it more wrong for some nutjob to go all Death Wish on him?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The goal of any prison+treatment program should be first to discourage them from committing crimes in the future and then, if possible, helping them to come to grips with who they are.
* For any crime, for some people the mere threat of going jail or other punishment is sufficient to keep them straight even though in their heart they are still up to no good. These people never become first-time offenders. As long as they think they will be caught and believe the "rewards" aren't worth the risk and punishment their risk is nearly zero.
* For others, being in jail is enough to keep them straight on release. Others have had life-altering events like being hit by a car and becoming a quadriplegic that make it impossible for them to commit new crimes. These people never become 2nd offenders. As long as they believe they will be caught if they try again or are physically incapable of trying again, their risk is nearly zero.
* For others, it takes therapy, religion, or another attitude adjustment is necessary. As long as these people are still living their "new life" and don't relapse to their old attitudes, their risk is nearly zero.
* For still others, nothing short of continued supervision will keep them from committing a new crime. Over time, some of these will move into the other categories. By the time old age catches up with them, almost all of them will be in the second, no-second-offender, category due to infirmities.
If we can accurately identify the sex offenders in the trip-to-jail-scares-them-straight group, then we can let these people out without fear and save a ton of time, money, and energy in the process.
Likewise, if we can accurately identify the therapy/religion/whatever group and the cops can keep tabs on them and verify they are still in their programs, we can keep their registration information private knowing it won't be useful in the public's hands and will just clutter up an already-crowded list.
It is the last group that public registration lists, living restrictions, civil commitment, and other forms of extended supervision are made for.
This should apply to anyone who commits serious crimes not just sex criminals.
By the way, some sex criminals, notably some teens and early-20-somethings, "age up." If they are 22 and lust after 13-year-olds, when they get out of jail 10 years later at age 32, they may lust after perfectly-legal 23-year-olds and are no longer need to be on any kind of registry. Heck, 23 for a 32-year-old is even old enough to meet the "half your age plus 7" criteria widely used for "how young is too young" dating rule.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Would the story be as sensational had the construction worker killed the rapist to keep his wife safe?
Not trolling here...dead serious.
Obviously the point of the article is to make us feel sorry for the rapist and another attempt to strike down Megan's law. What the linked article failed to mention (thank you CBS) was that apparently, this guy's son had been molested before. So he's not just some paranoid nut case.
Also the LA Time article say that, "Dodele committed his first offenses at age 15 and spent the last two decades either in prison or at Atascadero State Hospital receiving treatment.
His last attack was the 1987 knife-point rape of a 37-year-old woman on a Sonoma County beach." Charming person I'm sure...gentle as a lamb after 20 years in prison, I'll bet.
Seems to me that Oliver just finished doing what the justice system failed to do--protect the public from a serial rapist.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
The fact that most offenders re-offend doesn't imply that most crimes are committed by re-offenders.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
"I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything."
-David St. Hubbins
Sometimes my arms bend back.
"Charlene Steen, a psychologist who examined Dodele on behalf of the defense in two 2007 trials about whether he should be recommitted to a state hospital, blamed the messenger. 'I think [Oliver and Dodele] are both victims of the Internet,' she said."
Victims of the Internet? How? It's just a series of tubes.
Somebody should inform her that she made that remark out loud.
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
I mean, either way, she's getting screwed, what difference does it make how old the other party is.
The main difference is the perceived increase in possibility that an older partner would use coercion, or would act predatory towards the younger. It is also to an extend based on the moral-righteousness of people just thinking it is an improper way for such and older person to behave.
I personally believe because of the former the burden of proof should at least be relaxed, although I feel the that the extend of which it is effective relaxed with respect to statutory rape is unreasonably low.
The same statues for Megan's Law that mandate registration into a sex offender database also prohibit the use of the database for harrassment, violence, and murder against individuals in the database.
Human nature precludes the 'here's the information about that bad bad man but don't try to take the law into your own hands' intent. In this day and age of five-nights-a-week "To Catch a Predator", there are wannabes out there who want to be part Chris Hansen and part Chuck Norris.
This is our real life Two Minute Hate.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
When Martin Sheen comes into the room, get off your ass and stand.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
My (anonymous coward) thought exactly.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
He did what needed to be done, even if it was for the wrong reason. Putting violent criminals and repeated offenders behind bars is a waste of money and a burden upon society. Releasing them afterwards is an even worse move.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
This list haunts me. I think it should be demolished as it further destroys the lives of men and women, many of which are not guilty of rape or pedophilia.
First, let me say I am on this list for having sex with a 16 year old girl, when I was 28. Did I plot this? Did I fantasize after jailbait? Do I think about teenage girls all the time?
NO
I was in a bar. She was in the bar. She was drinking beer. I bought her a drink. The bartender checked her ID (again) and gave he the drink. We got along. I got her to bed. Next week I was arrested for statutory rape when she told her mother about this great older guy she was seeing.
Should my life be ruined (which it has, I cannot get above a minimum wage job now to save my life) because I had sex with a mature looking 16 year old with a damn good fake ID?
Many of the offenders use friends or families addresses, vacant lots, stores, or ones they make up out of the blue just to avoid being watched. So some moron gets a ( fake ) addresses and firebombs innocent people's homes. Real smart move if this stupid stuff continues to escalate. Vigilanteism needs to be left to the professionals.
Besides, didn't the offender pay his debt to society if he/she is out on the streets again? Or is it now once a criminal always a criminal, for ANY crime? At least be consistent.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If you acknowledge that age and maturity play a role in the capacity to knowingly consent to have sex, you are then faced with your choice of two systems for deciding how to define statutory rape: Either you draw a fine, black line or you have a trial to decide the issue of the alleged victim's capacity to consent every time two people have sex. That's every time, for any two people. If you don't draw a fine line, you have to decide whether that 30-year-old woman really had the capacity to consent to have sex with her 30-year-old boyfriend, and whether he had that same capacity.
The fine, black line method works because everyone who is about to have sex knows how to determine whether the other party has the legal capacity to consent and there is no need to investigate every single sexual act to determine whether one or another party to it should be prosecuted. Drawing the line at the age of 18 may not make any more or less sense than drawing it at 12 or at 40 to some people, but the line does have to be drawn somewhere, unless you deny that age and maturity play any role in the capacity to knowingly consent to have sex.
And that's why we have a statutory age of consent. However, saying that it's just 18 across the board in the USA vastly oversimplifies matters. Every state has its own laws on this, and some are smart while others are downright bizarre.
I did mention sane society, didn't I? ;)
We used to be able to get a drivers license at 16, and you still do, but there are some restrictions until you're 18 or have had it for a couple of years, whichever comes LAST. If you can vote you can drink. Well, except in some of the crazier provinces, where there's a year in between to make sure high schoolers can't buy booze.
You don't call a 43% recidivism rate high? What would it take? 90%? I'd say a recidivism rate that's higher than the national average for the crim itself qualifies as "high". The OP didn't claim that it was the highest of all crimes, just that it was high. But don't let facts get in the way of being smug.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
How could you possibly know that the list hasn't prevented one crime against children? Or that it has caused more problems than it has solved?
There are permanent legal consequences to ALL crimes that people are convicted of past the age of majority. As for "paying their debt to society", there is no such thing. The only thing that comes close is if you are executed for a murder, because society has taken from you as much as you have taken from society. However, even then, society has certainly not be repaid for what you took from it. The family of your victim has nothing more after you are executed than before. If you kill or rape someone, spend a few years in prison, and then go back about your life, you are so far from having "repaid your debt to society" as to be laughable.
Yes, being a good Christian and not murdering people is tantamount to feeding your son to hungry alligators. The logic is infallible! You couldn't have just warned and protected your kids, moved, or even bothered to take the time to figure out what his crimes really were (rape of adult women, not underage boys). The only sensible thing to do was murder him, I'm convinced.
He'll probably get off on some "extreme emotional duress" defense. The court should sterilize his whole family (including siblings and nephews/nieces) to get rid of these fanatical genes. If the court does anything less it'll be like they're sending my kid into a burning fire covered in gasoline.
As to knowing the victim.. my first thought upon RTFAing was to wonder if the Overly Protective Father acted from, uh, personal experience. (Ie. illicit desires or acts toward his own kid.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Not to mention the fact that this only accounts arrests. Unlike burglary, it is much easier for child molestation to go undetected. Case in point: that story about 2 months ago about the video that dude supposedly found in the desert. They finally tracked down the girl in the video, and her mother had no idea this had ever happened. This probably happens all the time, because children are too young, embarrassed, intimated to say anything.
If you have insider information, can you then hack the site and insert the CEO of the company?
("...convicted to paying $9,99 for eating his neighbours children" should make sure that only the worst of the worst believe it)
The media and professional journalists should stop sensationalising news and appealing to emotion over news on various issues, including terrorism and child safety. Journalists exist to bring us news, not to make us cry over missing white women syndromes and other issues.
I believe that in this case the murder may have been fuelled up by sensationalistic media representations of molesters. I mean, sometimes the way journalists speak about these criminals it makes them sound as if they are mediaeval bishops talking about dragons or the satan. Yea, molesters do something bad, but journalists represent this multiplied by a googol.
This results in people watching TV and then having emotional charges and anger against criminals. It is normal to feel angry with criminals, but television over-charges people to an unnatural point where the emotion charge becomes irresistible.
Think about this, and I am sure you will understand that a person who watches TV and reads sensationalistic journalistic articles will not really need a database to start seeing molesters everywhere around them... Media activelly fuels paranoia about everything, including terrorism (yea terrorism is bad, but media magnify it by a googol as well and pass emotional charge to the viewers).
Of course I know why journalists and media do this... They appeal to emotion and make people feel paranoid because IT SELLS. They profit by making people feel crazy about a coming apocalypse, be it terrorism or crime or whatever. Media love to create panic, because panic sels books and makes people watch TV endlessly, resulting in more ad revenue. Fear attracts attention, and media that utilise fear attract more viewers and therefore more money.
Journalists are supposed to be professionals and treat news like news and only state facts. If a journalist wants to make people feel emotional or paranoid, perhaps they should rethink their career and become novelists writing horror fiction.
This is the site of the county court system where I live:
http://www.starkcjis.org/docket/main.html
You can look up just about anything that ever went through the court system on that site. Anything.
I'm 33 right now, and there's a record on that site of a speeding ticket I got when I was 18. Full Name, home address at the time, birthdate, full case disposition. For a speeding ticket that I got 15 years ago. ANYone can look up ANY record on ANY person for ANY case that went through ANY court in Stark county with that site. I can see "private", or more accurately embarrasing, information on that site about family and friends (bankruptcy, garnishments, 20 year old DUIs) that I'm certain they don't want to sit around and discuss at Christmas parties, let alone divulge to future employers, but it's all there for anyone to see.
Privacy is such a myth.
Yes, I'd say there's a problem here.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
In Norway, the law(1) says (in my translation) that "any punishment can be set aside if those who had sexual relations, are relatively equal in age and development".
This paragraph always struck me as a great idea.
1: http://lovdata.no/cgi-wift/ldles?doc=/all/nl-19020522-010.html&196 - in norwegian.
The "line" should be a gradual curve of increasing penalties with an increase in age difference, increase in age of the older person, and decrease in age of the younger person.
A person who misses "no charges" by 1 day should suffer at worst only minimal penalties, something similar to a traffic ticket. A person who is 1 year further apart than the law allows should be eligible for slightly stiffer charges. If they are 5 years farther apart than the law allows then maybe a felony charge is in order. If they are 10 years too far apart then we may be talking predatory behavior and public registration after release from prison. You get the idea.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
My state already has a searchable database for the court system. So if you want to see if someone got a speeding ticket or something a little more serious, you can search for it. Before the database was online, you had to go in person to get public records, but you still could get them.
What you see happening more is communities passing restrictions on where sex offenders can live. Locally, this has happened a lot recently. One town passed a law effectively blocking sex offenders from living there. Another city almost did this, but ended up lowering the restriciton to prevent sex offenders from not registering so they could live in the city.
As for the two teenagers in love scenario, I think a 2 year difference addition to the laws would be fine. An 18 yr old with a 16 yr old or a 19 yr old with 17 yr old wouldn't be an automatic sex offense.
One man's vigilante is another's terrorist. The KKK thinks of themselves as vigilantes protecting white America, and the Black Panthers protecting blacks, a Timothy McVeigh protected us from the government or something, and the Unabomber protected us from technology, and I'm sure Al Queda thinks they are righting wrongs committed by the West.
But will this dude be prosecuted as a terrorist or hate criminal? What if he were black and Muslim? No difference? Are you sure?
Well, my suggestion would probably have the effect of making it harder to prosecute a statutory rape case. Most juries, when presented with a 'victim' that could pass for 18, who consented to sex, and perhaps even actively sought out sex, will probably judge her to be mental competent and mature enough, even though she's only 17, or even 16. Prosecutors would probably only bring their most clear cut cases to court.
As for inebriation, your scenario is already a problem under existing law. You could have what you considered to be perfectly consensual sex at a party, with a girl who's 18+, and the next day the girl could decide you raped her. If the prosecutor agrees, it's up to a jury - and there are no bright lines there.
${.}UCKING == GOOD
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Really now, there's almost nothing I loathe and detest more than a rapist or child molester. Now, I understand this guy did his time, but honestly, the damage he caused has ruined another person's life, for the rest of their life. And what does this guy get? A bit of time in jail, cable TV, 3 meals a day plus a workout room. I don't even have that shit and I work for a living. Do I agree with the murder? No. I think the guy's reasons were truly honorable, but it's not him who should decide another person's fate. Now if the victim HAD raped or molest his kid, that's another story....
Never monkey with another monkey's monkey.
"To summarize, less than 5% reoffend. It seems the 'bleeding hearts' win."
Sucks to be the victim of that 5% doesn't it?
You think I took your eye, so you take my eye. I forget that I took your eye (or claim I didn't), so I take your eye. You take mine, I take yours, and before you know it, we have a feud, which leaves the whole world blind.
The essential lesson is that the only way you stop violence is to -- guess what? Stop violence!
I don't always agree with that -- sometimes, you kill him because you know he was going to kill you. (Not because you thought he might -- see Iraq.) But I do think that attitude applies here -- revenge is pointless, and also counterproductive.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If I were the sex offender, I will follow my doppelganger to whereever he lives. I will dress the same way, grow the same mustache/beard/hairstyle and wear the same glasses. I will even try to speak/walk/move the same way. This way, I will reduce my chance of being killed to 50%.
Joking aside, I find this whole obsession to sex offender disturbing. But I'll let others argue about that.
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
Now you can see photos of everyone convicted of a DUI on a convenient website.
They advertise the site on TV, too... there's a nice shot of a lady, at home, looking at the website on her PC, shaking her head slowly in disapproval as she browses the gallery of offenders.
Check it out... click on a city... you can see a mugshot, name, blood alcohol level, date, and sentencing info. Fun!!!
I'm a Kiwi and, for better or worse, Rugby is our religion. Your story reminded me of an incident during a Tri-Nations match between NZ and Australia when Jerry Collins, blind-side flanker, one of the hardest men in the game, needed a piss and the game was about to kick-off. So what did he do? He walked to the sideline, knelt down, and pissed into a bucket. This was all shown live on television. No idiot cops bothered to arrest him thankfully...
Hang on - am I understanding you correctly? I think you're saying that in America a convicted criminal loses the right to vote for the rest of their life?
I assume that the founding principles of the American revolution still apply, specifically the "no taxation without representation" principle.
So I deduce that once you've been convicted of a crime and carried out your sentence, then you never get another opportunity to vote and consequently never have to pay another dollar of tax either.
Or am I missing something here?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I bet he read too much "the naming of the dead" by Ian Ranking
I'll answer your question with a question.
Why just sex offenders?
The drunk drivers in your neighborhood are probably more of a threat to your children - and there are more of them.
What about burglars? Shouldn't you know about them as well? That football player was just murdered by burglars. Many burglaries also turn into rapes as a crime of opportunity - in for a penny, in for a pound.
You and your children are -surrounded- by the threat of crime. Not to downplay the seriousness of sexual assault, but many of the "sex offenders" on these lists are people who took a piss at the wrong place and the wrong time.
Seriously, why just sex offenders, but not other felons? It seems like your risk-assessment is a little skewed from reality...
I'm a parent as well, and the reality is that bad things happen to good people all of the time, that's life. The bottom line is you can take precautions, but there are no guarantees. If you think about it for a minute, that is a very scary thought when you are talking about your children.
But publicly branding criminals after they have served their time does more damage to society than it prevents, and singling out "sex offenders" has a proven track record of unfairly tarring the public urinators with the same brush as the violent rapists.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
It's 43% for all crimes. As others have pointed out, it's more like 5-6% for another sexual crime.
You call yourself pottymouth but you don't seem to know the first thing about sex. Have you never heard of contraception, safer sex, and the broad range of sexual practices that won't lead to pregnancy or STDs? Obviously if parents refuse to know about all that, they can't teach their kids how to avoid collateral damage. So who's to blame?
While I think your ideas on statutory rape are a step in the right direction I would like to see more progress as I outlined in my previous post that I linked to.
I agree that this inebriation is another problem. I think a few things that would help in this regard would be to repeal some of the shield laws that go too far.
For example, there are several laws that say that a person's previous sexual history and rape claims cannot be entered into evidence for the juries to consider. While I understand the origin of these laws they don't give juries the proper disclosure about the victims past which maybe relevant to the current case. So if someone is bi-polar, or otherwise mentally unstable, and they have a history of rape cases that get dismissed or found to have been complete fabrications then that should have a bearing on how believable the victims claims are relevant to the current case.
This leads into the most controversial suggestion, we should have a law on the books that says if it can be proven (hard but not impossible) that the person made up the rape charge (there was a case just a few days ago where she was trying to save her marriage) then they get a jail sentence equal to what the rape perpetrator would have gotten. Right now they only get a small slap on the wrist for filing a false police report which really doesn't fit the scope of their crime.
The last thing I'd like to see, and this applies well beyond the rape laws, is to have mandatory protection from the media reporting the identity of either the supposed victim or perpetrator of a major crime, in this case rape, until the case has been closed, or at least until the jury renders their verdict. We try our criminals in the press. This leads to a lynch mob mentality in the citizens, where someone is tried before they even go to trial.
Ultimately, I'm not sure that we'll ever have a good legal solution to the false rape claims problem. The only thing I think we can hope for is a good social change.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Dude - at least read what you're quoting.
"Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense -- 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders."
Straight from the GPP's link. Ignorance is one thing, but wallowing in it and parroting a completely different statistic just because it fits your preconceived idea is just idiotic.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
In traffic offenses, you have speeding, speeding more than X MPH over the speed limit, reckless driving, etc. They are all different degrees of the same crime, with varying penalties.
With homicide, you have justifiable homicide/self-defense which is usually legal, criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter of various degrees, and murder of various degrees. Criminally negligent homicide sometimes gets off with probation or at most a relative slap on the wrist. Capital murder can get you the death penalty.
Grading seemingly-consensual sex offenses on a continuum between legal sex such as between two adults or an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old to the most vile form of rape you can think of provides much better justice than a "sharp cliff" between legal and illegal-you-are-ruined-for-life that may be based only on a day's difference in a birthday.
Of course, any sex act which would be illegal between two competent adults is rape in the traditional sense of the word. Age of the victim may be an aggravating factor but it is not the factor that defines the act as rape.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Neither is drawing attention to the caps and the insults.
As to what you cliam to have processed, who cares? You think your
Exceptions prove the rule. The rule is pathetic excuses.
You failed to make a single cogent argument, likely because you know you have none.
And lastly, you're a moron. There's your excuse for failing to respond, when the reality is you're beaten, and wrong, and not smart enough to do anything about it but make MORE PATHETIC EXCUSES (like the caps?).
Neither is drawing attention to the caps and the insults.
.000001% of the cases (and I think you're lying so it's 0%) matters?
As to what you cliam to have processed, who cares? You think your
Exceptions prove the rule. The rule is pathetic excuses.
You failed to make a single cogent argument, likely because you know you have none.
And lastly, you're a moron. There's your excuse for failing to respond, when the reality is you're beaten, and wrong, and not smart enough to do anything about it but make MORE PATHETIC EXCUSES (like the caps?).
The "mother" and "father" (I'm a step, not there when it counts) that failed to give the child values rather than condoms. I suppose if she wanted to do Heroin your solution would be to teach her about methadone? I've two other kids that have made it to marriage without any such problems.
The problem with people like you is that you want to force everybody into your warped idea of normal where sex without commitment is just fine and normal and unavoidable. Just use a condom or a pill or an abortion. I don't care how you live and if you like the toilet go drown in it! Just don't teach my kids your bankrupt morality. People do grow up and get married having never had sex with anyone but their spouse. It's a good thing and statistics easy prove that out. Teaching children otherwise is damaging and destructive not only to the individual but to society as a whole. It may sell MTV and Victoria's (lack of a) Secret but otherwise it's a cancer on us all. Unfortunately an army of morons like yourself have descended upon our schools to teach kids how to destroy their lives before they've even started. Wait until we decide that theft and murder are inevitable so we'll just stop trying.....
A Rabbi and a Priest are out for a walk on a cold winters day. The Priest notices a homeless boy, his thin wet clothing stuck to his skinny body as he huddles in a dark doorway. The Priest nudges the Rabbi, points at the kid and says "My, my would you look at that". The Rabbi looks at the kid and back to the Priest and says "What, what would you have me do about such a thing, and just what would you do anyway?" The Priest smiles wistfully and says "Well it makes me what to take the waif home and fuck him". The Rabbi looks again at the kid the back to the Priest and asks "Out of what?".
There are cases where men get convicted merely because a woman screams "rape" after consensual sex because there are women out there who feel empowered if they can lure men in and then have them arrested just for fun. I'm not saying it was in this case, but there rae men who get falsely accused and then have NO CHANCE in court because of the same mentality that run these lists.
"yeah okay you raped this woman? guilty!"
or
"okay you raped this woman.. but you have a few million dollars? hrmm we may actually have to have a case here.."
So it'd be a real tragedy if this man was actually innocent, and convicted due to knee-jerk rulings. but I doubt it as those cases are somewhat rare.
Oh, let's not forget the innocent people who are found guilty based on circumstantial evidence with no real evidence because the local police have a "gut feeling"