From The Legal Watchdog:
For each violent rapist, a registry may contain dozens of teenagers who had consensual sex with younger teens, and dozens of other teens who were convicted of “sexting,” urinating in public, or similar behavior. But, perhaps the biggest problem with sex offender registries is that they’re not just for sex-related crimes anymore.
An excellent example of this trend can be found in the Wisconsin case of State v. Smith, where Smith, a 17-year-old boy, made another 17-year-old boy go with him to collect a debt. Smith was convicted of felony false imprisonment for this behavior and, because his “prisoner” was a minor, the state forced Smith to register as a sex offender.
And Scott Greenfield writes:
Of critical importance is that the court did not hold that the purpose of the sex offender registry is in any way directly related to sex, but rather “protecting the public and assisting law enforcement.” That pretty much covers everything in the world, except releasing Brett Favre when he still had life in his arm.
By decoupling sex from the sex offender registry, there’s no rational end to where legislatures can go. It’s invariably in the interest of protecting the public and, my personal favorite concern, assisting law enforcement to keep tabs on every person ever convicted of anything, anywhere, any time.
This is pretty horrifying — and the decision is pretty ridiculous. I wonder if this is partly a problem with having judges be elected; elected judges may have a strong incentive to be “tough on crime” and to not make any decision that could be misrepresented, in an election, as being soft on sex offenders. Or maybe Wisconsin judges are just cheeseheads.
It would be nice if the legislature would step in and fix some of the problems with sex registries, but that’s not too likely, either. Neither major party has shown any real interest in these sort of justice issues. A lot of this comes down to the American public, which seems very comfortable with injustice. At heart, we just don’t care if prisoners get raped and tortured, if people’s lives are unjustly ruined by misuse of sex offender registries, if prosecutors falsely prosecute innocent people, if police raids lead to dead dogs (and sometimes family members) because someone is suspected of smoking a joint, and so forth. And as long as we don’t care, why should our politicians?
Via The Agitator.
Abolish the Public Sex Offender Registry – Sign the Petition Change.org http://t.co/wOYmeTf
Why do they still want to call it the “Sex Offender Registry”? If this is their intention, why not just call it “Felon Registry” or “Bad People Registry”?
Nice to see feminist sites taking on issues that are primarily mens rights issues.
Nice to see parochialism alive and well. How is the fucked-up way in which governments treat sex not a feminist issue?
At heart, we just don’t care if prisoners get raped and tortured, if people’s lives are unjustly ruined by misuse of sex offender registries, if prosecutors falsely prosecute innocent people, if police raids lead to dead dogs (and sometimes family members) because someone is suspected of smoking a joint, and so forth. And as long as we don’t care, why should our politicians?
It is self-deceptive to frame the issue as one of “caring”, and leads to bad analysis.
People care deeply about all of these things. But they care equally deeply about OTHER things as well, and in the balance between the things, sometimes one thing outweighs another.
You, for example, care about unemployment, and you also care about racial discrimination. There are various policies or laws which put these competing goods in tension. You could, with perfect good will, decide that a policy that favors one of these things over the other was the right policy – or the converse. In neither case would the explanation for your decision be “Amp just doesn’t care about the plight of black workers” or “Amp just doesn’t care about poor people trying to find work.”
In general, people are more afraid of crime than they are of state abuse of power. Libertarians like me would argue that they are mistaken in their prioritization of fears, but that’s a difference of opinion rather than “people don’t care”.
Abolish the Public Sex Offender Registry
SIGN THE PETITION TO TAKE THE PUBLIC SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY DOWN
SHORT LINK TO THE PETITION
http://bit.ly/f7Z4MJ
If anyone you love has had their life train-wrecked by the Public Sex Offender Registry. If you are sick of being shamed, humiliated, degraded and banished from society by the in sanity of the public sex offender registry.. If you cannot afford an attorney to fight for your rights.. at least make an effort to say YOU WILL NOT STAND TO BE HUMILIATED AND DEGRADED LIKE THIS.
Sign this petition.. We will send this petition to Washington… Your Voice can be heard.
Eoghan said:
Wow. Yeah. Because there certainly aren’t any women that have been unfairly put on any of those lists, right?
And we all know that any issue that an MRA cares about automatically becomes solely a “men’s rights issue” (and therefore off-limits to all those “namby-pamby feminists” out there).
Seriously, dude. It’s an issue for anyone that believes that the actual implementation of the “Sex Offender” registries are fairly ill-though-through. This is just the latest example of how ill-thought.
i have to be anon for this. because it can hurt people who aren’t me.
recently, a 14-y-o girl in my family was coherced into taking “sexing” pics of herself and sending them to a 25-y-o man.
most of the conversation took place in private chat on World of Warcraft – violating several of their rules.
the parents of the girl wanted the man prosecuted. the lawyer they went to was the opposite of helpful [he, essentially, just assumed that the parents had broken various laws, and informed them that they would have to go thru drug testing and similar, as if this was a reason to not attempt to prosecute – this lawyer just COULD NOT GET that the parents don’t do things that are unlawful. well, perhaps they occasionally speed, but they don’t do criminal things]
then he told them that any attempt to prosecute WOULD end up with the girl being forced to register as a sex offender.
as in – her being coherced and threatened *didn’t matter*.
as a side note, WoW did nothing. at all.
despite the fact that it was against their own rules.
they said it was “hearsay” until such a time as there were court proceedings that found the man guilty.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
why the HELL would a 14-y-o girl be forced to register as a sex offender because she took pictures of herself? even WITHOUT the cohersive actions [and i grant that a jury might not feel they were “real” threats, being that they were threats against her character in a game] it’s idiotic. it’s insane.
and i wonder – is it actually true? to my knowledge, all the girls who’ve been prosecuted, have been because they got “caught” by authorities [i.e. school administration] and had sent said pics to people their own age, and said pics had then been sent all over the bloody place.
in this case, girl went to her parents fairly quickly – the first pic was essentially innocent, but guy kept demanding more and more, and she didn’t know what to do. so she asked her parents. [if nothing else, that did prevent any of his threats from being carried out – it turned into guild vs guild, and the parents’ guild was bigger, stronger, and outraged that someone did such a thing to ANYONE, let alone a child.]
is there ANYTHING that can be done? aside from taking that specific lawyers advice and “hiding it”? lawyer seems convinced that if the parents try to do anything, not only will the kid be punished, but they’ll lose the kid, and police will find something to put THEM in jail, too.
MisterMephisto and SeanH
The rape and pedo hysteria that has been created in society to demonise men that is used by the governments to legislate against us is created by feminism, most draconian laws relating to AOC and sexual behaviour have their source in feminist jurisprudence. Men are primarily affected by false accusations and male sexuality being constructed as something that’s evil and needs to be controlled through legislation.
I don’t think that the anger I seem to have provoked from either of you is justified.
@MisterMephisto: Take a look at the New Orleans sex offender registry sometime: At least half of the people on it are prostitutes that are there for consensual sex with another adult. Only the prostitute, the client isn’t put on the list. It can’t be misogyny, though, because MRAs claim only men are discriminated against. (Prostitutes caught or admitting to having performed oral sex are listed as “Crime Against Nature”.)
@Anonforthis: In situations like that it’s common for the person taking the pictures to be charged with creating and distributing child pornography. It’s bullshit, but there ya go. So is sticking consenting adults on there for prostitution, and several cities and a state or two are doing that. So are a whole lot of the other things they put people on there for. I keep waiting to see someone get stuck on the list for saying “Fuck” in public.
@Eoghan: It’s tempting to call poe because you’re such a perfect example of an MRA. In one paragraph you managed to claim women are lying about rape, there’s a vast conspiracy against men, and that it’s a travesty that you can’t bugger children anymore because of those evil lying wimmenz that are out to get you.
Strangely enough, women are put on those lists unfairly as often as men. Possibly more. See the thing above about prostitutes: It’s the only thing I can think of that ends one of two consenting adults on the list. And the one that gets listed is a woman 99% of the time. The other 1% it was two men. Then they list them both.
@Ampersand:
So the sex offender list is being used exactly as its opponents said it would be. That’s not particularly shocking. Never give law enforcement more powers. If you do, they’re going to use them and they’re going to use them in ways they aren’t supposed to be used.
For every person put on that list for a dumbass reason, they have dozens of friends and family that are seeing exactly what a crock the list is. I think we’ll start to see support for the list declining more and more until the supporters are outnumbered.
JT Thompson’s bigotry demonstrates exactly why its good to see feminists talking this on; if a mens rights person does, they are falsely accused of being a sex criminal.
JT Thompsen, can I see you source on the frequency of wrongful placement on the register by gender?
There’s another reason to dislike the registry: It perpetuates the myth that the violent sex offenders are of the “stranger in an alley” type, when the reality is that 80% of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. People check the registry and determine either that there are no rapists in their neighborhood or that the only rapist is that one guy down the block. So, everyone is focused on these few offenders (many of whom are not rapists, and very few of whom are likely to be assaulting random people in the neighborhood) instead of where the real problem lies.
Most rapists target people close to them: their family members, partners, spouses, dates, friends. The vast majority of these rapists never get charged, let alone convicted. They aren’t on the registry. Drawing attention away from these rapists makes it that much easier for them to get away with it because no one is looking at them.
A quick point about gender and feminism: Violent sex offenders target women far more often than they do men, so this is definitely a feminist issue. And most violent sex offenders are men, so there is good reason to examine how gender attitudes are at work here. It’s not the whole story– we can’t ignore that some victims are men and some perpetrators are women– but on the whole, this issue directly affects women more. Still, third-wave feminists are not only fighting for women. We believe that everyone, regardless of gender, would live happier, more fulfilling lives if we could eliminate all violent sex crimes.
Lisa,
Rape and sexual assault is not gendered at all, men are as likely as women to be targeted out side prison and far more likely to be targeted inside. And men out side prison don’t sexual offend more often than women. Female sex offenders are just hidden by various societal myths and prejudices.
http://female-offenders.com/Safehouse/2010/11/adult-male-victims-female-sex-offenders.html
The link you posted doesn’t back up your claim, Eoghan, specifically the “men out side prison don’t sexual offend more often than women” claim and the “men are as likely as women to be targeted out side prison” claim.
As a moderator, I’m asking you to please post a link to a study that backs these claims up, and to please do it now.
Peer-reviewed would be preferable, but I understand that that can be difficult. It should be from a reputable source, though, not “Frank’s House of Waffles and Discount Sexual Predator Studies” or something.
—Myca
Myca, I’ll post the studies that are cited on the link, they are independent studies, not advocacy or politically or ideologically driven research.
[List deleted by moderator. Pick out a few studies that you’ve actually read that you think support your specific claims; reposting an entire bibliography, rather than just linking it, is not making a real contribution to the discussion. Thanks. –Amp]
I think that becoming aggressive in protecting female sex offenders and oppressing male victims or rape is not going to produce anything constructive here, also, is the contributer that I asked for a source going to to be asked to provide one too?
Here’s one from the list that uses feminist research methods in dual sex research pool.
3% of men reported forced sex (of which 2.1% was forced vaginal sex… this is in fact men reporting victimization by women)
22% of men reported verbal sexual coercion
By comparison, in the same study it was found that:
2.3% of women reported forced sex (don’t ignore the decimal point)
25% of women reported verbal sexual coercion –
Predictors of Sexual Coercion AgainstWomen and Men:
A Multilevel, Multinational Study of University Students
Denise A. Hines
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID45-PR45.pdf
Here is a good quote on the protection of female pedophiles, from a feminist source.
“American society has silenced the female pedophile from public discourses, removing her from history, because she threatens to deconstruct the cultural imagining of femininity as a genre.
Recent studies in criminology and psychiatry conducted by Kolja Schiltz and Boris Schiffer prove that today the trend is still to consider pedophilia as an entirely male pathology, as each study uses only male test subjects”.
http://academinist.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/030104McCollum_Femaleped.pdf
I wrote a post on some of the evidence that women are more likely than men to be raped outside of prison.
Regarding the Denise Himes study, it was conducted using the Conflict Tactics Scale, which is a measurement instrument that I’ve argued in the past is extremely dubious.
I also note that they ONLY looked at sexual abuse that took place during a current or recent romance; rapes that took place outside of a recent romance would nto have been considered. Studies that include acquaintances, past relationships, hook-ups, etc., tend to find a lot more sexual abuse of women (relative to men). There’s a variety of reasons this might be so, but my point is, the way that this study was designed is going to have the effect of minimizing sexual violence against women. (I’m not saying that was deliberate, but the effect is there even if it’s unintended.)
Aditionally, I think the particular way they asked about sexual abuse was less than state-of-the-art. There was no question about rape while drugged or drunk unconscious; there were very few questions about rape at all (most experts believe that multiple, very specific questions get more accurate answers), in fact.
Finally, like too many studies, they didn’t attempt to account for the fact that (on average) men and women don’t interpret being “forced to have sex” the same way. As I wrote in comments here, “One thing that Struckman-Johnson’s study does show, however, is that if you ask men and women if they’ve been forced to have sex, most men report incidents of feeling emotionally pressured to give in, while most women report incidents of being physically forced. (Other studies have shown the same thing). That men and women interpret the same questions differently isn’t speculation; it’s a definite result.”
I don’t think that any study so far conducted has done this correctly. But for a study to really compare sexual coercion of men and women, I think what’s required is both a much more detailed questionnaire, and follow-up interviews so that researchers can determine with some confidence that their questions are being understood the same way by both sexes.
I’m leaving for the airport soon, and heading to Florida, so I won’t be able to keep up with this discussion. Sorry!
In most situations where women (or men) coerce or force sex on a man, the victim has little doubt that it was coercive or forced. It’s easily recognizable as not a normal experience. However, our society has defined male sexuality as “aggressive” by nature and female sexuality as “passive and reluctant,” which means that a man coercing or forcing sex on a woman is far more likely to be perceived as just normal sex — even by the victim. So of course very few women who are coerced/forced tend to describe it that way. They’ve been well trained to think, “Well, it was just not very good sex,” or “It wouldn’t have happened if only I had worn the right clothes/flirted less/fought back harder/not kissed him/etc.” In some cases, they might even think that what they want isn’t supposed to matter.
(Also, the percentages Eoghan cited above are actually university students who reported having been coerced/forced into sex in the past year only. It’s more than a bit of stretch to extrapolate from there to generalizations about all men and women, particularly when perceptions of one’s own sexual experiences take years to evolve — and when many of those who do identify themselves as rape victims drop out of school for at least a semester following the assault.)
Eoghan, your interpretation of sexual violence and gender ignores that, on the men/women binary, men hold the privileged position. Feminists are not man haters, as it seems you perceive us. Instead, we explore how the pressure to conform to gender roles is harmful to everyone. The difference is that men who do conform to the expectations of their gender are granted more privileges (economic, social, political, etc.) than either conforming or non-conforming women. Both gender roles are severely limiting, but men are in a better position to define the roles to their advantage. Of course, there’s a cost to maintaining that position, and both men and women suffer for it.
Feminists are working toward a world where a woman can be assertive without being called a bitch, where a man can express a full range of emotions without being called a pussy, where a heterosexual woman’s lovers want to know what her desires are, where a heterosexual man’s lovers do not assume that he wants sex all the time, where people of any and all genders can respect each other as fully rounded, self-defined individuals and not merely as prepackaged generic identities based on gender. That has to begin with dismantling the power differential. Until then, feminists will keep trying to raise awareness of male privilege and its effects.
You don’t seem to have examined or even acknowledged your own male privilege — it sounds like you want even more privilege than you already have — so I’m not going to engage with you any further. I’d also suggest you consider a venue other than one clearly labeled “Feminist” unless you’re willing to engage with Feminism on its own terms. If you’re not, you’re nothing but a troll.
Lisa, I posted multiple studies, the mods don’t seem to be letting them through.
Gendered rape, is a progressive political tool, accusing political enemies of sex crimes as a bread and butter tactic of progressives going back to the days of lynch mobs.
How do you think that male victims of female pedophiles and rapists feel when they come into contact with people like you that react aggressively and tell them that their abuse doesn’t really happen or that their abusers don’t really exist or that it doesn’t count because of feminist privilege myths, because they belong to the wrong group?
The main oppressors of rape victims and protectors of rapists in society are people like you, I’m afraid.
Instead of degenerating into a contentious discussion of feminism, etc., shouldn’t somebody point out that even supporters of a Sex Offender Registry as a public safety measure should be vehemently opposed to any act that fills up the registry with people who shouldn’t be there, thus undermining the Registry’s usefulness as a tool for law enforcement? It’s homeland security all over again. Before 9/11 they couldn’t successfully identify threats or follow potential suspects because the system suffered information overload. So they wiretap everyone, making the information overload worse. I expect sex offenders to increasingly view Wisconsin as the best possible place to go to get away with it.
This conversation is a derail on this thread which could otherwise be about substantive issues in the military industrial complex.
Eoghan, you will be permitted to continue this discussion on an open thread, for the moment.
Gelee: Fuck you. You’re banned, and I’m not posting your comments.
Eoghan: I checked mod and everything you’ve posted has been let through, so far. I also looked in the spam folder in case multiple links held something up, but I didn’t find anything. It’s possible that a technical error occurred somewhere on your end, in which case you’re welcome to repost–on an open thread, as mentioned. Drop me a note through the mod list if you need further assistance. (One recommends that you maintain decorum, however; your reputation precedes you.)
Could you please provide evidence of Lisa reacting aggressively to anybody at all on this thread, or saying that anybody’s rape or molestation didn’t happen? Because I don’t see anything like that at all. Lisa is disagreeing with you, not bullying you, and is saying nothing at all about lying rape victims.
When feminists say, “rape oppresses women”, we are not saying “men are never victims of sexual violence”. If we assert that rape oppresses women more than it oppresses men, we are still not saying that men are never victims of sexual violence. Feminists and MRAs do not necessarily have to be enemies. Feminists do not have to lose in order for men to have their real grievances with a sexist society addressed. Most feminists will agree that the end of sexism and patriarchy will mean that women and men will be freer, happier, more authentic human beings, and that relationships between people of all genders will be greatly improved.
In other words, men do not have to be portrayed as victims of feminism in order for it to be recognized that men are victims of a sexist system.
You don’t seem to have examined or even acknowledged your own male privilege — it sounds like you want even more privilege than you already have — so I’m not going to engage with you any further. I’d also suggest you consider a venue other than one clearly labeled “Feminist” unless you’re willing to engage with Feminism on its own terms. If you’re not, you’re nothing but a troll.
This is the bit that I’d call dismissive.
I suggest that privilege is a patchwork thing, and part of rape culture is that sexual abusers are generally privileged over their targets. There’s some nuance (good-looking heterosexual abusers are especially given an edge), but it’s pretty clear that sexual bullying by women isn’t on the social radar as a problem yet.
Hahahaha! Wisconsin! Cheeseheads! *slaps knee* Hahaha! Midwest! DAIRY! Backward! *rolls on floor* Hohohohoho!
Yeah. Thanks for the penetrating analysis of a system that is clearly only screwed up in the flyover states.
Eoghan said
Eoghan, you seem to be so targeted on your mythical version of the “feminist man-hater” that you have a radical misunderstanding of actual feminism and are willfully ignoring the statements that other posters are making.
For example: Lisa was specifically pointing out to you that statements like the one quoted above are counter to actual feminism. Actual feminism, as opposed to the imagined construct you seem to put so much stock in, actually does believe that men can be raped, are raped, and probably more often than we see in reputable reports and studies (as opposed to the highly questionable studies you’ve posted that are not as unbiased or well performed as you seem to think). Actual feminism realizes that this discontinuity exists because of really awful gender “norms” that have been inflicted upon those victimized men, telling them to “buck up and take it” and “men can’t be raped”.
In other words, it’s not feminism saying men can’t be raped and they should be ashamed to admit to being the victim of such a crime. It’s the patriarchal gender norms that say this. Feminists fight that.
And that’s why feminists are also objecting to this flagrant abuse of the Sexual Offender lists. Because it hurts both women and men, both by the way it’s biased and the way it’s being abused.
Yikes this thread went off the rails. We don’t have to go back on topic, but if we want to:
“I wonder if this is partly a problem with having judges be elected; elected judges may have a strong incentive to be “tough on crime” and to not make any decision that could be misrepresented, in an election, as being soft on sex offenders. Or maybe Wisconsin judges are just cheeseheads.”
I don’t really think this is an elected judge thing, this is really a common law thing. Legal doctrines are rarely self-limiting and even when they are the self-limitations usually drop away a few cases removed from the original, so justifications that created in scary edge cases almost always make their way to non-scary normal cases in ways that end up being ugly. The sex offense registry would have had all sorts of problems under rules from the 1970s or early 1980s, but these judicial doctrines were pushed aside in the sexual predator panic. By now they are just routine law enforcement tools, which is what this ruling pretty much shows.
Areas where I predict this will happen in the near future: routine use of Patriot Act powers for non-terrorism crimes (already happened but isn’t routine yet) and the extension of civil detention for sexual predators after they have served their criminal sentences (Comstock case) to other crimes.
the exile makes a good point, I think.
I support a Sex Offender Registry in principle.
And putting a 15 year old boy on it for having sex with his 15 year old girlfriend is reprehensible and make it clear that the SOR’s aren’t working towards their intended purpose, which was primarily protecting people against the “aggressive hiding-in-the-alleyway” rapists (unfortunately, as opposed to the majority of rapists that aren’t that type) and the pedophile down the street from the elementary school.
Putting small-time teen-aged extortionists and loan sharks on the SO Registry pushes right past “reprehensible”, through “frightening”, and fully into “police state” territory.
I don’t think this proves that SO Registries are inherently bad, like Robert seems to be saying. I think this proves only that there aren’t enough protections encoded into how they’re being implemented and that, in the act of “expanding” the list of crimes getting people on the Registry, local officials are willfully abusing the loopholes to push an agenda that is, at best, irresponsible.
Robert: In general, people are more afraid of crime than they are of state abuse of power.
Someone who seems like the upgraded mind of Voldemort, in “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality”: …no one ever quite believes that they will go to Azkaban, so they see no harm in it for themselves…And the reason it is easy for you to forgive such fools and think well of them, Mr. Potter, is that you yourself have not been sorely hurt. You will think less fondly of commonplace idiots after the first time their folly costs you something dear. Such as a hundred Galleons from your own pocket, perhaps, rather than the agonizing deaths of a hundred strangers.
Sebastian and Mephisto, if I’m reading you both right, I think you’re pointing to the same issue: that the use of SORs as a punishment is often out of scale with the offense. Mephisto, your point is that it wouldn’t be problematic (or at least would be less problematic) if it weren’t out of scale, yes?
I can see that an SOR could serve two legitimate (and perhaps effective) purposes and so might not be inherently bad, as you put it. Alerting the public to potentially dangerous offenders who are likely to reoffend might help people avoid becoming targets. Also, public shaming might discourage the offender (and anyone else) from committing that particular crime in the future.
But I have a major reservation, particularly about public shaming as punishment. As soon as we allow the public to be involved, we lose any control over the scope of the punishment that they might choose to dish out. There are certainly legal limits on what people can do (lynching is illegal), but people can find all sorts of legal ways to make someone’s life truly miserable. And their actions might not be all that predictable. For other sentences, the offender is likely to have trouble getting a job when the conviction pops up on a background check; that’s predictable, and the sentence can be applied with full knowledge of that effect.
But can the judges applying the SOR sentence really have any idea what the punishment will actually be? Are the laws that mandate SOR for certain offenses made with an awareness of how unpredictable its effect is? And why would it seem like a good idea to punish someone with the possibility that any of several bad things might or might not happen to them?
This discussion has echoes of others that I have heard about the US criminal justice system in general: how more offenses are being categorized as criminal, how sentences are getting more severe, how privatized prison systems create a financial incentive to imprison more people. I don’t necessarily think this is the place to expand the scope of the discussion, but it might make for interesting parallel reading.
Oh, but I forgot to address the issue at hand. A general list even of people who commit sex-related crimes seems of dubious value. A narrower list, focusing on people whose crimes genuinely suggest a danger towards children, would seem good if presented to schools and similar places of work.
I actually read my local registry once in a while, usually in September and February. That’s when new kids join Scout Packs and Troops and their parents – of whom I know nothing – might register to be leaders (or just start showing up at meetings). I check out the registries as due diligence. Not that it’s a guarantee that anyone on it isn’t a sexual predator, but it would be damn stupid to sign someone up or have them on a campout and not know that they were in the registry.
So, I find the registries useful in helping me maintain the safety and well-being of the children in my charge. I also know that as far as public opinion is concerned someone accused of child molestation is guilty until proven innocent. Doing what Wisconsin is doing is a gross injustice to a number of people, and will in the end defeat what sex registries are for.
“This discussion has echoes of others that I have heard about the US criminal justice system in general: how more offenses are being categorized as criminal, how sentences are getting more severe, how privatized prison systems create a financial incentive to imprison more people.”
I’ve seen the most recent episode of Leverage, where its exactly that. A privatized prison admits it wants to increase its inmates amount for profit, and the heroes (who are a sort of weird modern Robin Hood gang) decides to prevent that and make him accused of allowing a prisoner to escape (the leader of said gang, ironically, who allowed himself to get caught on false pretences) and him being apparently paid for it (thus being corrupted).
Privatization of prison is like making prisons become McDonalds, their survival depending on their “clients”, you DONT want that for the highest prison population ratio of the world, believe me. As much as it might be profitable to do so for them, it wouldn’t be for society as a whole.
Lisa,
I see your point concerning uncontrolled public response. I hadn’t really considered placement on an SOR as an additional “punishment” so much as a side-effect of conviction for a crime. But I do see how it becomes an additional punishment once the convicted gets back into public circulation.
I’m still not sure the “SOR is an additional punishment” argument would still sway me from having people that are actually convicted of a reasonable “sex offender” crime put on such a list. And, to define my idea of reasonable, I mean: non-statutory rape, sexual abuse of a child, and statutory rape where the convicted person is more than X years older than the alleged “victim” (I’d say X should equal 5 or 6, but that’s a debatable point).
Now, this is admittedly based on a more ideal system. I agree that our privatized prison system is a huge issue. But, again, I’m not sure putting more or fewer people in prison should have much of an effect of what we put people on an SOR for, if the law says: “these specific things are the only things that get you put on this list” (though I’m willing to admit that I’m coming from the privileged position of not actually having been a victim of abuse of an SOR, so I’m willing to concede that I’m missing something).
I’m definitely arguing for a more explicit and less flexible definition of specifically what parameters are necessary before someone ends up on an SOR.
MisterMephisto:
Why?
That question actually has several parts, so I want to unpack it a little:
* Do you support Car Thief Registries? Murderer Registries? If so, my next questions will get to that, but if not, why would you single out “sex offenses” (even narrowly defined as you did)?
* What benefit does a sex offender registry have over keeping dangerous people in prison?
* Assuming I’m not going to engage in vigilante justice, how does it help me to know that a sex offender lives down the block? Again, arguendo this person is a real sex offender.
Hershele Ostropoler said:
I don’t consider Car Thieves comparable to Sex Offenders. So no. No registry for them. Yeah it sucks to lose my car because a car thief lives down the street. Not as much as it sucks to be raped.
Murderers? Maybe. With a similar set of limitations to those I’d like to see in a SO Registry? I’m certainly more in favor. Maybe only convictions of first through third degree and voluntary manslaughter.
But I wouldn’t be for it at all if they were throwing anyone ever convicted of accidental manslaughter charges. And I especially wouldn’t support it if they were throwing Car Thieves on it.
Good question. In a world where we had amazing predictive faculties, we could keep people we know to be dangerous in prison. But since we generally don’t know how dangerous a person will be in the future and our legal system , at least theoretically, requires us to presume innocence, then we need another option.
Releasing one-time criminals is cheaper. Also it allows criminals that have recognized the error of their ways a chance to “fly straight”. And, at least according to these two studies:
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorp94.pdf
http://recidivism.samcaldwell.net/
recidivism is fairly low among sex offenders (though this may be based on some of the same flawed ideas of “sex offender” as we’re seeing used in above examples) compared to other felons.
So, the benefit is that:
a) it makes the prison system a little cheaper
b) keeps people informed of the existence of a past-convicted rapist or pedophile in the area while still giving that person a chance to reintegrate into society in some fashion.
I don’t want my children near a known pedophile (maybe he lives next door to my baby sitter… maybe he’s down the street from the school). Sure, only 4% of those convicted do it again (and get caught)… But I don’t want my children to be victims of that 4%. I want to be aware of who I should probably keep them away from.
And I’m sure my SO doesn’t want to walk past the house of the convicted rapist.
And if a convicted pedophile applies for a job at a daycare or preschool or a nanny position, or a convicted rapist of women applies for a job at a women’s fitness club or a women’s shelter, I would want the employer to be able to choose not to hire that person based on that criteria for the safety of their clientele. Again, maybe only 4% “do it again”… But I’m sure the employer doesn’t want their clients to be victims of that 4%.
Ultimately, rape and child molestation are on a different scale of victimization and violation compared to most crimes.
Am I willing to consider that murder falls in that scale, too? Totally.
Am I willing to count pickpockets? No.
I want to be aware of who I should probably keep them away from.
Well, statistically speaking, that’d be yourself for a start. Followed by any other male blood relatives, particularly those who reside in the household or have a lot of contact with them, followed somewhat more distantly by female relatives. And if you’ve divorced and re-married, you should definitely keep them away from any step-parents.
Strangers who live a couple of blocks from school barely even rate. Just sayin’.
Who here has EVER checked a SO registry for information; much less constantly checked one in all the areas where you might live, work, or travel (or your family might); much less clicked through every single link for a photo so you could try to recognize them if you saw them?
Anyone?
And who here has ever tried to check each of the hundreds of people with whom they interact on a weekly basis?
Anyone?
If you want to try it, go to http://www.familywatchdog.us; search by location, and use your zip code. You’ll see a map with boxes on it (I don’t know what the colors mean;) each box shows the residence of an offender.
Of course, they don’t show their workplace, or car, or what they look like now, or (in some cases) what they were convicted for. You’ll never see the people who commute into your city: offenders from out of town may not even show up on your map. And they don’t show if this is an accused violent child rapist who pled out to sodomy in the 3rd degree because his assailant was too terrified to ID him, or whether this is a 17 year old who slept with his 15 year old girlfriend.
For me, that’s the kicker: SOR are not used by the people. Other than permitting governments to shove all SO registrants under bridge overpasses through zoning restrictions, and other than placing a really onerous burden on registrants, it doesn’t seem that the SO registry actually DOES anything.
I’m not necessarily 100% opposed to monitoring limited numbers people who have a demonstrated tendency to reoffend in unusually harmful ways. But I don’t see the point in doing so if it’s worthless.
I have.
I beg to differ. Portlandmaps.com includes photos of those on the list. For example
Why have I checked? Because I love portlandmaps.com and one day they added that link, so I clicked on it. I can’t be the only one.
@41 –
Re the colors of the boxes on the map: at the top left of the map is a little note that says “map legend.” Click on the triangular bullet next to this, and a legend that explains the colors of the boxes should open downward.
Every registry list I’ve looked at had photos.
(This was mostly out of idle curiosity, but if I thought someone in the neighborhood was being really friendly with my kids in way that seemed a little off, yeah, I’d probably look that person up. Human nature being what it is and all.)