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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?
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
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.
Nobody deserves rape. You should be thankful that most of society does not share your sense of justice.
[
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.
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?"
Yeah, pretty much.
...he should have used a Death Note.
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. --
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.
"To say that making the public aware of sex offenders online leads to murder is a bit extreme in my opinion."
Extreme? Like saying the Earth is round? The database led to his murder. Fact. He was innocent of said crime. Fact. Database indicated where to find him to kill him. Fact. Presence on said database leads hysterical parents to targets, fact. Database is frequently WRONG. Fact.
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.
Some people live next to swamps withs alligators. They manage by taking appropriate measures such as proper fencing and keeping their eye on small children.
Of course, some take a different kind of initiative by going out into the swamp and shooting everything that floats, crawls or looks like an alligator in any way.
The difference between alligators and sex offenders is that alligators have laws protecting them.
May the Maths Be with you!
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.
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.
Nobody told anybody to go and kill the person. FACT. The database might have facilitated that function (fact, indeed), but you can use your argument on literally anything. Nailguns might facilitate killing, hammers, forks, things with sharp edges, and so on. I still think that the person who went to kill is at fault. If there were no database, he would have looked for other ways to obtain the information and kill the person.
Paraphrased: You're just not arguing from emotion enough.
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.
This is just lies. The offending rates is less than 5%. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r164.pdf
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!
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%.
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!
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"
Do you have a figure? What percentage of women that live through a rape commit suicide. That'd be an interesting figure to look at. Did you know the vast majority of rapes are commited by - tadzoum - the husband ! Certainly unacceptable and punishable, but maybe not something worth killing yourself for.
The feminist myth that rape is worst than death and can never be overcome is actually hurting rape victim by making them feel odd when they eventually heal from the psychological wound.
\u262D = \u5350
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.
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.
I'm not saying rape is a good thing, or that it's not horrible to endure, but claiming that "It's worse than death because some women will kill themselves because of it." leads to a terrible precedent. The bottom line is that some people WILL kill themselves if they get depressed. Putting anything that causes that depression on the same level as murder is just idiotic.
And no, I've never been raped. By your logic, I guess that makes me unqualified to speak on the subject. Of course, given that we can't ask ANYBODY whose been murdered, we're going to have to start accepting testimony from people who didn't experience all these things.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
A publicly accessible database of RIAA lawyers.
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.
This is one of those assertions that always has me scratching my head. According to the statistic I find online, approximately 1 in 4 women is raped before graduating college. This means a quarter of the population is incapable of forming relationships? I know people are lonely and alone out there, but from my own personal experience it's hard to believe that a full quarter of the developed world's women are spinsters.
On the other hand "meaningful relationship" is a pretty vague term. I'm not entirely sure how you would measure that.
I read the internet for the articles.
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.
You are remiss for mentioning that formula without linking to this xkcd comic.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
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.
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.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
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."
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).
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.. Generally, recidivisms (~30%-50% after 15) is lower then petty crime about the same as violent crime (substantial higher then murder which is ~1.2%). Certain classes have a far greater recidivisms (male non-incest pedophiles ~77% after 15 years which is higher then all but motor vehicle theft, and caught with stolen property). But it's contrasting career criminals with people with "deviant" sexual preferences or poor impulse control. It's not really the same.
Treatment helps a lot. Dropping the rates by 1/2. But some do not think they have a problem and do not want or seek treatment. Thus I think sentences ought to be indefinite unless they accept treatment. Because this type of crime can destroy a life.
Also, all rates are suspected to under estimates. For instance Karl Toft admitted to have molested over 200 boys during his lifetime while only 28 came forward to press charges.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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.
Sex offender databases don't have a good enough S/N
ratio to be of any real good. Far too much useless
information is stored and presented. Far too many
BS "sex offender" convictions are handed down and
add the noise of databases.
This murder is a perfect example of that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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)