Neal Peirce, a syndicated columnist (nrp@citistates.com), recently wrote an op-ed piece concerning the effect of state registration laws ("Megan's Law" and "Jessica's Law") which were designed to protect children from sexual predators. Peirce claimed that these laws were doing more harm than good. And we now have a new federal law ("Adam Walsh Act") which mandates a national registry to include, in addition to adults, all juvenile sex offenders. (All three laws were named in memory of children abducted and murdered by sexual predators.)
The other day, I had a spirited discussion with a good friend about the residence restrictions encountered by sex offenders upon their release from prison. My friend is a well-educated retired professional, not some redneck jerk. He was most emphatic that all sex offenders, no matter what their crime, should never be released from prison. He preferred they be "taken out and shot!"
Let me make myself perfectly clear. I have no sympathy whatsoever for sexual predators. Shooting is to good for those who sexually molest infants, toddlers and pre-teens. They deserve the death penalty. At the very least, they should serve the rest of their lives confined behind bars, never seeing the light of day outside of prison walls. None of this crap about an abusive childhood or a diminished mental capacity. Those who forcibly rape older juveniles and adults deserve a harsh prison term and, if released, should be required to register as sex offenders.
Thailand is notorious for its child prostitutes, many of them being 12 years old or even younger. While we can't do anything about sleazy European heterosexual or homosexual creeps going there to have sex with little children, American assholes who travel to Bankok for that purpose should simply be prohibited from returning to the United States. I wish it were possible for Congress to enact a law barring the return of these scum bags that would not violate their rights under our Constitution.
Peirce calls attention to the consequences of sex offender registration laws for those who were convicted of lesser offenses than those that I have just described. A "weenie waver" is a sex offender while some jerk taking a leak in public is not. Yet, when the guy taking a piss is convicted of indecent exposure, he is required to register as a sex offender. When a 20 year-old is convicted of having consensual sex with a 17 year-old, he is also required to register.
And now, going from the sublime to the ridiculous, the new federal Adam Walsh Act even mandates that any male juvenile who had consensual sex with a female juvenile must be included in the national sex offender registry, a requirement that is strongly opposed by many prosecutors and by most probation and social service officials.
School teachers who have sex with a student should be fired, have their teaching credentials permanently revoked, and be punished by the law. But, should a female teacher be required to register as a sex offender for fulfilling every red-blooded young schoolboy's dream? I think not! Male teachers who engage in sex with their students, and female teachers who have lesbian affairs with female students, subject themselves to sexual predator laws. But a female teacher, who has one of her ecstatic male students "get lucky" with her, hardly seems to be a sexual predator in the strictest sense of the term.
Registration laws require that sex offenders be identified on government internet websites which are accessible to anyone with a computer. While parents should have the right to know they have a sexual predator living in their midst, these websites have led to harassment and vigilantism. There have been a number of cases in which registrants' residences were damaged or destroyed and/or in which they were physically attacked and seriously injured. When sex offenders are released from prison, society has an obligation to see that they are not subjected to harassment or vigilantism.
Sex offenders are required to register with the police agency having jurisdiction over their place of residency and they must notify the appropriate agencies whenever they move. Registration laws prohibit sex offenders from living within a specified distance of any school, day care center, park or any other place where children might gather. Miami has some of the toughest sex offender restrictions in the nation. Sex offenders in that city are prohibited from residing within 2,500 feet of any place where children might gather.
Miami has thus made it impossible for sex offenders to reside anywhere within that city. Its restrictions have the effect of making sex offenders homeless. Miami has an ordinance prohibiting the homeless from taking up residence under bridges. However, the probation department was forced to place some sex offenders underneath one of the bridges because there was no other place for them to live. They were ordered to register with the police as residing under that bridge and they are visited there nightly by a probation officer.
There is no question that child molesters, notorious as repeat offenders, should be required to register as sex offenders. So should those who commit forcible rapes. So should adult men who have consensual sex with juveniles. And so should "weenie wavers" when they expose themselves to children. However, not those who have consensual sex with someone only two or three years younger. And certainly not the guy who takes a leak in public. And most cetainly not the 15 year old boy who has sex with his 14 year old girlfriend.
Sexual predator registration laws should be more reasonable than they are now. Those convicted of minor sex-related crimes, who are most unlikely to molest children or commit other serious types of sexual assaults, should not be required to register as sex offenders. And no matter how despicable their crime may have been, if sexual predators are to be released from prison they must be given the chance to lead lawful normal and productive lives. Prohibiting them from living within 1,000 feet or more of any place where children might gather does not give them any chance to do so.
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