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Illinois Bans Social Network Use By Sex Offenders
RobotsDinner writes "Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has signed into law a bill that bans all registered sex offenders from using social networks. '"Obviously, the Internet has been more and more a mechanism for predators to reach out," said Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), a sponsor of the measure and a governor candidate. "The idea was, if the predator is supposed to be a registered sex offender, they should keep their Internet distance as well as their physical distance."'"
I took a leak outside the bar one night when I was drunk and now I'm banned from Facebook for life.
What's wrong with this picture?
FreeBSD.org - The power to serve
... it should say "Why are murderers treated better than sex offenders"
Maybe the punishments for sex offenders are already ok, and the punishmnets for murderers should be more severe?
"You could argue that sex offenders should have longer sentences"
Bingo. If sex offenders are so likely to recommit their crimes, then give them life sentences. I did not mean to say that they should be held longer than their sentence; they should have their rights restored after their sentence is served, and not live in fear of being arrested again just because they use a computer. If we are not willing to give sex offenders life sentences, then we should not start complaining about them logging on to Facebook when they get out of prison.
Palm trees and 8
This is a good law. I had to fight my ex-wife for years just to be able to talk to my kids on the phone. A law like this would've helped immensely.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
To my eye, this would be akin to the distinction between "assault," and "aggravated assault with a deadly weapon." Granted, both of my examples are violent, but I was trying to show a place where the law does in fact draw such fine distinctions. As opposed to rape, which is sort of the only word the law recognizes in terms of nonconsentual sex acts, with no grades of offense, at least as far as I know. Shoot, even flat-out killing someone has grades of offense, from accidental manslaughter through premeditated murder. Not that a rape is ever really accidental, but it would be interesting if it wasn't a binary legal switch.
Never mind all the crap that will get you on the sex offender list all by yourself without ever touching another soul, like getting caught pissing in an alley way.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
Simply: a sex offender is someone who 1) has sex in a way that the majority thinks ought not to be taking place, or 2) makes it possible for a child to see another human naked.
And as crazy as the U.S. is, it's not even in the same league as say, anywhere Muslims are in charge.
Why is such a person not in jail, where a law is not needed to prevent them from using social networking sites?
If you are out of jail, you have served your dues to society and (in theory) seen the error of your ways. Tacking on little extras that you can never rid of, even if you were to become the next Mother Teresa, is bordering on cruel. As it stands, there is no way for a sex offender to ever be redeemed in the eyes of the legal system, which in turn forces them to become social pariahs. They are lost to the world, and the world to them, because of one action which may have taken place 40 years ago. Sexual offenses have become modern-day witch trials. Banning them from social networking sites is laughable considering how things already are.
If that's your idea of justice, I think you're a very sad person. I would not even advocate that for crimes such as murder.
Great Intellect...
You could argue that the rearrest is as high as it is because we make it impossible to live outside, what with all the imposed restrictions. The recidivism rate is fairly low when looking at sex offenses - around 5%.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
The first problem with your claim is that the US has dozens of jurisdictions, with different rape/sexual assault laws. You can't flat out assert that that utmost resistance is a requirement for a rape accusation in the USA; you have to name jurisdictions. I can tell you for sure that there is no such provision in California, the most populous of the states. Hell, read the link and see to what lengths they go to make it clear that the threat must not even be violent (many bits omitted):
What is indeed the case is that historically, in many countries' traditional legal system, an utmost resistance standard has existed along the lines that you have mentioned. These requirements have mostly gone away in Western countries, however, along with other sexist requirements such as (a) the victim must not be the wife of the accused (e.g., California has a crime of spousal rape), and (b) the requirement that the alleged rape victim be an "honest" woman (e.g., the "no harm in raping a slut" defense).
Are you adequate?
Accidental rape?
Well, there was this one time when I was snoozing on the couch and my roommate's girlfriend came in drunk at 4am and mistook me for him. When she *cough* woke me up, I assumed it was the gal I was seeing at the time, because honestly who the hell else would?
Once the sun was up, I was less pleasantly awakened when our mutual acquaintance came out of his room and found her passed out on top of me, obviously post-coitus.
Technically, accidental rape on my part, deliberate rape on her part(although I'm sure my roommate wouldn't have pressed charges had it been him on the couch:)
If punishment were meted out based on the odds of recidivism, we'd give life sentences for speeding and fines for murder.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Yup. And I'd bet when that law was passed, people who cried "slippery slope" were dismissed as whackos. Now look where we are.
Liberty in your lifetime
Just because it makes sense to have an objective line for age of consent, doesn't mean that everyone who breaks that law should be treated the same.
Or maybe we should put people on these lists for littering too?
I could play your game in reverse: if it's the 5 year difference that makes it not okay, what about a 17 year old and a 22 year old? What about an 18 year old and a 23 year old? What about a 40 year old and a 45 year old? Are they all not okay?
Obviously, in either case, it's not as black and white as 5 year differences.
And if you leave it up to judges, then what do you do with a judge who thinks it is okay for Old Men to marry young girls in those polygamy cults?
Marriage is a separate issue - it's a legal contract, one that should be restricted to adults. Indeed, on that note I find it mad that here in the UK, at 16 people can, as well as simply having sex, enter into a lifelong legal commitment. Yet if a 17 year old takes a naughty photo of him or herself, or his or her partner, they're guilty of possessing "child" porn.
Naturally these laws had nothing to do with protecting children; they were usually used to target homosexuals. In fact, of the 70-or-so countries where these laws are still in place, 40 of them only target male homosexual acts.
So the (typically religious) nuts get all fire and brimstone about gay sex between dudes (which is icky and gross and you put it where?) but when it's between women, oh! well... well surely if God had wanted hot lesbian action to be illegal wouldn't have made it so damned arousing. No, can't go making that illegal.
That actually goes waaaay back - IIRC, male homosexuality is a deadly sin in Judaism, but female homosexuality isn't (in fact it's existence is not even acknowledged anywhere). If I understand correctly, it is a consequence of their society being patriarchal - a homosexual male might just decide to not marry, or to avoid sexual intercourse with wife in marriage, and thus not produce any offspring (which would be vital for the survival of the tribe). There was also a fairly widespread belief that male semen is limited in supply, and thus shouldn't be "wasted".
On the other hand, women would usually be married without their consent, and once married, couldn't refuse sex to husband, so if they chose to screw each other in between their male gratification and child bearing duties, no-one really cared.
Wouldn't someone who is looking for sex with little kids.. or whatever the deal is... just use a fake name??? I think that Illinois might be underestimating the intelligence of people here...