Registering Sex Offenders
I found this website recently:
Map Sex Offenders
Go ahead, I'll wait while you see if there are any registered sex offenders living around you. (I don't, by the way.)
You've been able to look up local sex offenders for awhile, but I don't think it's ever been so convenient. You can even register for it to warn you when a new sex offender moves to your area!
I think I'm really against this idea, for the following reasons. I'm going to try and do it as Wittgenstein would have, if I remember correctly. Lines beginning with numbers are mine, lines beginning with letters are counterpoints to me. I'll try to indent as appropriate.
1) The current laws are totally inconsistent; as far as I know, we don't do it with any other type of convictions. This, I think, could have the following explanations (or some combination thereof):
A) Sexual offenses are different because they're worse than all other crimes.
1) While being raped/molested is obviously a very awful experience (I've read A LOT on how awful it is,) it seems obvious to me that there are worse crimes, namely murder. I just kind of assume that everyone basically agrees with me that murder is worse than sexual offenses, so I won't labor the point.
B) Sexual offenses are different because of their extremely high recidivism rates. (Sexual offenders are more likely to commit more sexual offenses than burglars are to burgle more homes, for example.)
1) I really don't know the numbers on this at all, but I get the impression that sexual offenders have higher-than-usual recidivism rates. One could make the case, then, that a convicted sexual offender is more dangerous than a convicted murder on average. (I think that may be an interesting point to try and make.) Regardless, we're left with convicted sexual offenders either being too dangerous to live around, or not too dangerous to live around. If they are too dangerous, then we need to keep them in jail. We need to adjust the statues regarding sexual offenses, and make them tend towards life inprisonment. We also need a lot of studies demonstrating how sexual offenders are incurable. If they're not too dangerous, then we shouldn't require them to demonize themselves to their neighbors.
A) There's another possibility: They raise the danger of that neighborhood some undetermined amount, and people need to be aware of that possibility.
1) However much they raise the danger in a neighborhood, it seems likely that their amount of danger isn't qualitatively different than the dangers induced by murders, burglars, car jackers, drug dealers, etc. It's silly to pretend that a guy who slept with a seventeen year old is more threatening to his neighbors than a triple-murderer.
C) Sexual offenses are differernt because they creep the hell out of everybody.
1) I agree, sexual offenses are universally creepy as hell. But a lot of people are also creeped out by homosexuals or minorities. Presumably, we'd all be against a "Fags in your Neighborhood!" website, so I don't think creepiness is a good indicator of anything.
2) The current law has the following negative side-effects:
1) It demonizes sexual offenders
A) Good, they are bad people.
1) Well, if they're bad people, we should put them in jail longer. As a society, we've all agreed that jailtime is the proper punishment for major offenders.
2) It has the effect of exposing more poor people to sexual offenders. Nice neighborhoods will quickly find out about a sexual offender, and can effectively force him out. Alternatively, a wealthy family can move away when a convicted offender moves in next door. A wealthy family is also more likely to find out about a convicted offender moving next door. Thus, poor people are disproportionately exposed to sexual offenders. I'm sure they would be without this law as well, and there's no reason for the law to further this discrepancy.
Alright, I'm sick fo writing this.
I see two solutions, I think I'm fine with either. One is to stop requiring sexual offenders to register. The second is requiring every criminal to register. Perhaps you could go to threatlevel.gov, type in your address, and it would give the threat level for that address. It would be an aggregate of known criminals in your area, the number of crimes each criminal has committed, and the amount of crimes committed in that area. It would make a sweet Google Maps extension. Actually, the more I think about it, the more fucked up an idea that is.
So, I propose doing away with sexual offender registeries. Any thoughts?
posted by Nate at 1:34 PM
5 Comments:
Nate,
First off, Beef here. Dave The German Burgan showed me your sight and it's pretty kick-butt. Reminiscent of a lot of good post-lunch and post-dinner debates.
I agree that murder is a worse crime than sexual assault. After that, though, I don't think there is anything worse. I think about the "put-yourself-in-that-situation" rule: How would I feel if somebody broke into my house and stole my TV or computer or stereo or car? Yeah, I'd be angry.
How would I feel if somebody sexually assaulted my wife or child? Well, I think at that point logic would leave me. I would have an awful tough time letting the justice system take its course.
I think part of the registering a sex offender thing is this: it is a continuation of the punishment. I agree that prison is what our society has generally dubbed as "the way to deal with criminals". And although I would advocate longer sentences for sex offenders, I think there are cases where they deserve to be back in the general populace (on a case-by-case basis, of course). But by making them register, it is a punishment in itself. Not as bad as the prison part of their punishment, where chances are good they served some of the toughest time there is, but still humiliating, embarassing, and socially crippling. I think that is part of why we have sex offenders register and not, say, drug dealers, burglars, etc.
I would agree that murderers should probably have to register too. That only seems fair. However, and like you I don't have the numbers in front of me, but my understanding is we have much longer sentences for murderers, particularly those that kill in cold blood or for personal gain rather than for self-defense.
Unrelated note: are you at Northwestern? If so, 48-7. If not, where'd you end up man?
10:22 PM
Ben! How's it going, man? Yeah, I am at Northwestern. Yeah, I know you smoked us, big whoop. Did you hear about our big come back vs. Iowa? I wasn't there, but I hear it was good. I actually went to a game (us vs. Michigan, we lost), and I was stunned at how boring it could get. I had always kind of hoped/assumed that the players did something to entertain the fans during the time when the tv would go to commericals. NOPE. While everyone watching at home gets to get up and pee, get more chips, check email, ASO, everyone at the game just sits there. Or, more accurately, stands there, because everyone always stands the whole time at every game apparently. I was on TV for approximately a quarter second, though. My agent isn't convinced that I can parlay that into an appearancce on the Ellen Degeneres show, but I just tell him to keep trying.
Anyways, yeah, sexual assault is definitely one of those things that you can legitimately freak out about when it happens to you/your family. But I don't think you can make policty decisions based on how furious victims are. If my child was molested by a convicted child molester who just moved in next door, I'd be furious. But I'd also be furious if my statutory rapist brother had to endure openly hostile neighbors for the rest of his life because he told them he was a sex offender. I'd also be furious if my house was burgled by a convicted neighborhood burglar, or I couldn't sleep well at night because my neighbor was a notoriuos loud fucker/love-maker. I think we agree that there's a point where it gets stupid/unnecessarily damaging, and we probably just disagree where that point is.
Furthermore, I agree that telling your neighbors you're a sex offender is "humiliating, embrassing, and socially crippling." But it sounds like you think that's a good thing, and I don't at all. I think we really need to get away from the whole "punishing criminals" idea, because I don't think it works nearly as well as "rehabilitating criminals / showing them a better plan" idea. It seems to me that the last thing you want to do to a socially-outcast criminal is humiliate them and alienate them from society even more.
I believe that 90% of criminals fall into two categories: fucked-up unhappy people, and people who screwed up once or twice. It seems like for both of these groups, punishment for the sake of punishment isn't what they need. I'm not suggesting at all that we hand criminals a pamphlet and send them back out the door. Prison is perfectly ok, I think, but we need to have something for people to do there besides getting beat up, getting buff, and getting raped. Crackheads don't need to be punished, they need to get off crack. I think the same thing is true of sex offenders. I'm sure this kind of idea is expensive and tough to do; in the meantime, though, I don't think humiliating and pariahificationizing sex offenders is helping anything.
On a different track, I would like the system someway if there were a way to do good and get off the list. Something like, "You're going to be registered for five years after you get out of jail. If you don't do anything bad for those five years, you can get off the list." I think this has two nice benefits. One is that there is an achievable goal. With the current system, there is reduced incentive to not commit sexual offenses, because you'll be labelled a sexual offender until you die anyway. The second one is that separates second-time offenders from first-time offenders. If we're worried about sexual offenses because of their high recidivism rates, it seems like this solution still separates people recidivist offenders from people who only committed one offense.
Another possible solution would be to assign Det. John Stabler, the hard-nosed detective from Lawa & Order: SVU to personally handle every sexual offender's case. I imagine that his tough-as-nails approach would drop repeat offenses to zero.
12:41 PM
Re: assigning John Stabler to every case
The increased number of constitutional rights violations and ensuing litigation would certainly outweigh any benefits of this plan.
I can't think of any worthwhile comments that wouldn't take several paragraphs and good chunk of time to write, and I'm kind of on the fence on this issue, so I'm going to pass for now.
CT
12:58 PM
The Constitutional violations would ideally be reined in by world-weary DA Adam Schiff, but I agree it could be a concern. It would be in everyone's best interest to get Stabler and his estranged wife back into counselling.
I agree with you on the energy to type paragraphs thing. It's incredible how long it can take to articulate a thought by typing.
1:07 PM
Hey Nate,
I have to throw my lot in with Beef here. I definitely see the need for a sexual offenders list; mayhaps we can remove statutory rape from the crimes associated with the Sexual Offender registry? Although I do not consider myself enlightened on the laws regarding statutory rape, it seems that all of these involve consenting adults close in age. Therefore, I thihnk statutory rape should be removed from the Offenders category. Perhaps rename the Sexual Offenders Registry to the Serious Sexual Offenders Registry and remove statutory rape? That's my solution. O, and I would definitely be furious if I found out someone I knew was a victim of a sexual assault. If that someone was a member of my family, I would probably hunt down the individual in question, torture him, and kill him (but that's just my view on the crime of sexual assault). Perhaps a little too extreme? I don't know. I also agree that many crimes deserve longer sentences and I agree that there should be a Murderer registry; however, most serious murderers get life imprisonment or death; therefore, the creation of the registry seems extraneous if this "fact" is true. Liked the Single Housing vs. Group Housing comparison. G2G
Sheop
9:01 AM
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