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New Jersey Bars Sex Offenders From the Internet
eldavojohn writes "New Jersey just passed legislation making it illegal for sex offenders to use the internet. NJ congresswoman Linda D. Greenstein said, 'When Megan's Law was enacted, few could envision a day when a sex offender hiding behind a fake screen name would be a mouse-click away from new and unwitting victims. Sex offenders cannot be given an opportunity to abuse the anonymity the Internet can provide as a means of opening a door to countless new potential victims.' While they still can search for jobs, this is a major expansion over the prior legislation which barred them from social networking sites like facebook or myspace."
People convicted of drug offences banned from the internet, because they might use the internet to buy drugs
People convicted of fraud banned from the internet, because they might use the internet to defraud someone
People convicted of disturbing the peace banned from the internet, because they might use the internet to disturb people
And so forth.
Really, its become LoonyLand.
People are ashamed of the US, people don't want to travel there, people don't want to support American companies, people don't want to even listen to them.
They are a case of "do as we say, not as we do".
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
I moderate this legislation -1 unenforceable
1) Sex offender applies for job which requires internet access/use.
2) Sex offender doesn't get job because of this law. (and also possibly because they're a sex offender)
3) Sex offender sues NJ for silly-ass law.
And what about those sex offenders in NJ who already have jobs that require Internet access/use?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
If these sex offenders are all so heinously dangerous that they need to be stripped of things like using the internet, moving to a neighborhood without angry mobs with pitchforks driving them out, etc. -- why are they out on the streets? Shouldn't dangerous people be locked up or executed? Make up your damn minds - either lock 'em up (or execute them), or set them free. You can have your cake and eat it.
What makes sexual offenders so much worse than violent nonsexual offenders (who are allowed internet access)?
There are a fair number of sexual offenders who aren't actually violent.
I believe sex crimes include stuff like indecent exposure, "Lewd and lascivious conduct", consensual (but illegal) sex, etc.
I guess the Wars Against Drugs, Terror, Iraq etc are not enough, have to start a War Against Sex Offenders too.
Oh well I suppose that makes most voters in New Jersey feel safer.
"No one has ever been raped, beaten or contracted a sexually-transmitted disease on the internet."
I think that statement's a little too broad to be taken as true.
That doesn't mean, though, that I disagree with you in spirit. I'm concerned that 'sex offender' is too broad of term for this to really apply. I heard a story about a guy who was 19 and had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. According to the laws of that state, there was some flexibility there if the age difference was two years or less. The male was like a year and two days older than the female. The judge banged his gavel, and now the kid is a 'sex offender' that has to register.
If anybody had asked my opinion, I would have said that this was excessive considering the context. The idea of banning him completely from the internet, in my mind, is ridiculous. Not only would this have the potential to effectively prohibit him from working in an office environment, but as the internet becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, it will become the punishment that continues to keep on punishing. Every year that goes by, his life gets harder.
I don't have a silver bullet for this problem. But I would at least offer the suggestion there should be levels of sex offenders. For example: Somebody convicted of statuatory rape where the age difference is less than 4 years would be a different level than somebody who brutally raped an unwilling person. The person I just described wouldn't be banned from the net, but the sort of person you'd see on "To Catch a Predator" could be.
That suggestion is a bit short-sighted considering my point about the ubiquity of the internet, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, though, nobody (outside of an extreme case) would think of banning a convicted criminal from using a telephone. It won't be long before internet access is just as fundamental to our society.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Oh and by the way would someone define "sex offender" in the context of this article? If you use a broad definition of "sex offender" then someone who was arrested and prosecuted for streaking in their college days or for public urination may meet the criteria as a "sex offender".
This is all getting ridiculous. Here in South Florida, sex offenders are prevented from living within 2,500 feet of a school, parks, and other places where children gather. This puts all but tiny slivers of entire counties off-limits, and of course there's no housing available in those slivers.
So what have they done? Parole officers are telling their parolees to live under a bridge. As many as 20 sex offenders at a time live under this one bridge connecting Miami and Miami Beach, where they have no power or running water or even reliable shelter from the weather.
And they wonder why some of them disappear from the system entirely.
Either sex offenders are a threat to society and should be in prison or they're not and should be released. This crap about releasing them and making it impossible for them to live a normal life does nothing but encourage them to break the law.
So are they a threat to society or not? If they are, then keep them in prison. We have a court and parole system dedicated to making this decision on a case-by-case basis.
When you tell someone they have to make a living for themselves but can't live anywhere and can't do this and can't do that, what are they going to do? Accept it and try to live a miserable life or run away and hide from the system?
Oppressive restrictions like this only make things worse.
...of serving your time and paying your debt to society?
At this rate we may as well just cut to the chace and sentence convicted sex offenders (and whoever else is out to get your children) to lifelong destitution. We can brand them or something so people know to hate and fear them because, really, they can't possibly have reformed...and it would save neighbors and employers the bother of looking them up in the registries (heaven forbid people actually do something about their own security).
TFA implies this only affects the worst of the worst. Let's at least hope that's accurate.
No one has ever [...] contracted a sexually-transmitted disease on the internet.
You've obviously never had the goatse guy burned into your brain.
Oh no... it's the future.
Ridiculous. If they've paid their debt to society and are deemed reformed they should be treated like any other type of criminal. If they're considered a danger to society they should be locked up for life or simply shot. Creating a class of almost-persons is, IMHO, well within the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.
I've seen a number of vitriolic posts talking about those horrible sex offenders, as if they knew exactly what one was.
You don't. Trust me, you don't. Yes, it includes rapists, child molesters, etc... but the actual set of offenses that cause someone to be called a "sex offender" also includes stupid little things like flashing, victimless crimes like newlyweds making hanky-panky in a technically-public area, questionable crimes like public urination... all sorts of things that infuriate the puritanical elements of our society. It makes a nice, easy-to-administer Scarlet Letter for everyone the puritans hate.*
I would not have as much problem with this law if it actually applied only to the rapists and child molesters. Unfortunately, it does not.
* The label is also often used to repress closeted gays... "Those durned fagnits, having sex in the parks! This'll learn 'em!"
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/10/26/wilsoned_1028.html
Google for the names mentioned and you'll turn up news reports in credible newspapers, court documents, etc. There's even a report of a girl getting the sex offender label for having sex with a younger boyfriend.
This is like forbidding alcoholics from taking public transportation because they might take a bus to a liquor store.
Or, it's like forbidding a horse thief from wearing shoes because they might use those shoes to walk to a stable and steal a horse.
"Protecting the Children" is completely out of hand. It's nothing but politicians pandering to parents who feel guilty that they're so busy working they're not taking care of their kids, who they drop off at day-care or leave with the nanny every day.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In my practice I see a variety of patients who have been convicted for sex offences - ranging from predatory paedophiles to people who made a simple bona fide mistake. The former are people who suffer from a mental illness - they need treatment and not punishment, and should not be released onto society before there is evidence that the treatment actually works. The latter usually get punished way beyond their "crime" and really should be entitled to living a normal life after serving their sentence.
I practice in Australia - another country of puritan heritage, but fortunately not as openly hostile towards sex as the US, and courts here tend to be less "Mickey Mouse" style. Nevertheless, one of my patients fell for a 15yo prostitute and had non-penetrative sex with her, one single time. Independent witnesses all reported they would have taken her for at least 18 if not older. The "perpetrator" had no prior offence and the circumstances were such that he was not actively seeking such connection but it happened spontaneously when she was allegedly actively seeking such relation
For that the man got 5 years of which he served 3. Since he was announced as a paedophile to his inmates when he was jailed, they scalded him badly with boiling water and beat him up badly before they had opportunity of learning the whole story. When he was released, he moved to my town. He is a religious man who confided into a local priest who had nothing better to do than walk from door to door and warn people about the dangerous paedophile who moved into town. A really nasty witch hunt started against him where even otherwise nice and educated people blindly joined in. Is this just? Will it improve anything? Will this protect any children?
The legislation mentioned in this article which deprives so called "sex offenders" regardless of their background of essential human rights is obscene, and the people producing such legislation either ignorant or criminal.
This one makes for an interesting turn of events.
FTFA:
Salt Lake City - Utah Supreme Court justices acknowledged Tuesday that they were struggling to wrap their minds around the concept that a 13-year-old girl could be both an offender and a victim for the same act - in this case, having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4783650
In a world where the vast majority of sexual offences are committed by friends and family, it seems odd that so much energy is wasted fighting "the stranger on the Internet" and so little energy is spent rescuing the woman and children being abused and intimidated within their own home.
Furthermore, there was a well-publicized story not long ago about a man who has to register as a sex offender now after getting drunk and taking a leak in a public park. They got him on indecent exposure, and now he can't drop his own kids off at school (or use the internet in NJ, apparently).
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Everyone has heard a similar story, or has a friend of a friend that this happened "personally" to. Problem is, it's all complete bullshit. Show me one credible source that documents someone being labelled as a sex offender for having consentual sex with a younger girlfriend (and before someone bothers quoting statute, yes I am aware that there are laws against such things in most states; I'm asking for a instance where someone has been prosecuted and than placed on a sex offender registry solely for that crime).
I'll do you one better.
Prosecuted for posting nude pictures of her 15-year-old self. Charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography. I think the court's rationale was that they were prosecuting her on behalf of her older self, whose life she potentially ruined.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
If you get liquered up and someone takes advantage of you its your fault in the eyes of the law. Now other statitory exceptions may apply like if you sell me you beater car while I am drunk, and its a lemon, I still have lemon law protection and such. There is no exception for concentual sex between adults though. If he/she is drunk and you get them to consent to sex, its legal. I would call you an asshat as would most decent human beings but we can't put you away for it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Dude, this is Slashdot.
We get your point, but this may not be the crowd to be making that argument.
Most readers have more authority to complain about your chirp tag not passing xml validation than to testify about the practices of medical impersonation among the western youth.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
"A 26-year-old college student on federal disability, Whitaker doesn't fit most people's image of a sex offender. But, because of an ill-considered 10th-grade blowjob -- resulting in her conviction for an act that's no longer crime in Georgia -- she has spent nearly a decade on Georgia's sex-offender registry."
The sex offender registry laws are an absurdity. It's essentially a life sentence that applies to a huge swath of activity that we deem "deviant", not just child molesters.
In Georgia, the laws are so badly written, that no lawyer can really tell you what's required of an offender.
For example, I had a homeless client (registered sex offender) charged with failure to update his address after he had "moved". But the law says "homeless does not constitute an address." So does that mean that there is no address change and that he has committed no crime? (the position we took) Or does it mean that it's illegal to be homeless?
The court saw that ours was a plausible interpretation of the statute and dismissed the case. But the opinion of most lawyers in this state is that the sex offender law makes it illegal for a registered sex offender to be homeless.
I'm a parent, and I'm guessing that under your worldview, I want to be `soft on sex offenders'. But I don't see it that way -- instead, I want the punishment to fit the crime. If you're 17 and have sex with your 15 year old girlfriend, you should be grounded for a week, perhaps have your cell phone taken away. Peeing on the side of a building? $50 fine. Rape a 3 year old girl to within an inch of her life? Life in prison, perhaps even the death penalty.
`Sex offender registration' is a huge crock. All it really does is let us take some people, found guilty of certain offenses, and make them pariahs for life. I imagine the original premise was to protect society from these dangerous predators, but in many cases they're not predators at all! And why only sex crimes? I'd be FAR more concerned if the guy next door killed his neighbor in a fight 10 years ago than if he got caught diddling the 16 year old girl next door when he was 19 -- but guess which one has to register?
I might be better able to support registration as either further punishment or to protect society if it applied to all crimes of a certain level, not just `sex crimes'. But even then I can't really support it -- when you've paid your debt to society, that should be the end of it. And if you're too dangerous to be let out, then you shouldn't be let out -- the sex offender registry should not be a `last ditch' sort of thing.
And what good does the sex offender registry do? Sure, it gives people a list of names of people to harass, to run out of town, to lynch, to kill. And you can tell your kids to avoid these houses, but what good does that really do? Has anybody ever shown that knowing where the sex offenders in town were led to children (we're worried about protecting the children, right?) who were less likely to be the victims of crime (or sex crimes, if you want to be more specific?)
And the whole banning them from the Internet thing, even worse ...
Not bullshit.
FC Closer
You, sir, are my hero.
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'