I don’t see anyone here defending overly broad sex offender registries, or zoning laws which make it impossible for people on such lists to find anywhere to live. As I pointed out, above, I don’t even see Ernie Allen, head of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children – and one of the preeminent voices for child victims of sexual exploitation – defending these situations.

But I see a lot of folks here merrily leaping from legitimate criticism of overreaching state registry and zoning laws (as well as indisputably idiotic anecdotal examples), to basically claiming that all child sex crimes represent an attempt by The Man to turn us all into criminals.

As perhaps the only person on this board who has some experience investigating and prosecuting child sexual exploitation, let me tell you that it’s not “easy” to get a conviction in such cases. Although juries are typically sympathetic to child victims (sometimes overly so), that comment ignores the incredibly real stress and hardship experienced by law enforcement and prosecutors getting cases to the point where a jury hears a child speak.

Some of you talk like there’s no real crime here. Let me tell you a couple of real examples. The first one involved a guy who was identified by an Internet Service Provider as transmitting child pornography. I took on the case, along with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. The guy was posting video virtually nightly on a foreign-based website, showing him raping his four-year-old daughter. There was no doubt this was really happening, virtually in real time. Then he would brag about what he was going to do the next night. We never could locate him. As far as I know, he’s still raping his daughter, who would be nine or ten by now.

A friend of mine handled a case out of Miami. The defendant was HIV-positive, and ran a lucrative business selling videos of himself raping children all over the Caribbean and Latin America. He took order from pedophiles who would ask that he film this or that sex act, performed on a child of a type they would specify. Many of his victims, when identified, tested positive for HIV.

I don’t know anyone in law enforcement who enjoys this work, although obviously it is rewarding when a case was able to end terrible abuse.

Anyway, you can complain all you want about guys on the list because, as 16-year olds, they were caught having sex with their girlfriend. You and I would easily agree – along with 99% of law enforcement – that such as person shouldn’t be stigmatized. But give me a break about how child sex abuse isn’t a real crime, how it’s all made up and exaggerated, because, frankly, you’re full of crap.

I know what you mean but…

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brat

was the definition that came to mind. :)

Throwing some “ill-mannered annoying children” on the grill sounds good to me but it might be illegal where you live.

#65 Matt D

Dave,

Frankly, I think you’re giving into a hysteria of your own.

The only regret I have about my hysteria is that it took me so long to get to that point. But, I doubt my attitude would be considered hysterical to someone who, upon being let out of prison for having consensual sex with a girl who, only a few decades ago, wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow if she had already been married is now living under a bridge knowing that this is probably the best his life is ever going to be.

Yes, it’s true that we’re rather reactionary about sex. And yes, it’s true that lots of things which are considered crimes probably shouldn’t be (I’m thinking of the various examples already provided on this thread, along with prostitution/solicitation, etc–basically, victimless crimes).

That people are necessarily being victimized by the law is reason by itself for abolishing the registry. The registry is a life sentence. I choose not to disregard, with a wave of the hand, the injustice of condemning people to a living hell for the rest of their lives who don’t even deserved to be charged with a crime to begin with. If that makes me hysterical, I wear the badge with honor.

But it’s not as though our revulsion is based purely in our own personal sexual hangups.

America’s hypocrisy and obsession with sex is, by definition, a hangup. Americans can, with a straight face, declare someone a felon for committing a mutually consensual act with a girl that, the very next day, would be perfectly legal if she just happens to be at the age of consent. And, to top it off they would argue vehemently that such a person deserves to have his remaining life completely destroyed by being branded a perverted monster and alienated from everyone on the entire planet.

To me, that’s just fucking sick.

From Sam’s link earlier: “The median age of the victims of imprisoned sexual assaulters was less than 13 years old.” I guess if you want, you can argue that those assaults are just a matter of somebody “exposing himself” but I very much doubt that comports well w/ reality.

At least some of those cases probably didn’t even rise to the level of someone exposing themselves. Read up on the Satanic Ritual Abuse daycare cases. There are a lot of them. It wasn’t a slight anomaly n an otherwise flawless justice system.

There is no crime in the country easier to get a conviction on than a crime involving a child victim. The child can be coaxed into saying anything the prosecution wants and experts will take the stand and tell the jury that the child can’t possibly be lying. The parents, meanwhile, are blind to anything short of unmerciful vengeance. Add to that the fact that a mere accusation of child sex abuse is all that’s required to convince most people that someone is guilty and I think it’s quite possible to make a case that more people are falsely convicted of child sex abuse than most other crimes. And that’s if the case even makes it to trial which is highly unlikely.

But, even if everything you say is perfectly well founded, that still doesn’t justify the sex registry. The sex registry is worse than prison because it takes away the hope for a better future. It alienates a person from everyone around him who might have a positive influence on him. It embitters him and forces him into a camaraderie with others who are likewise condemned to a joyless existence. There is no benefit to be derived from the registry that can possibly offset the destruction it brings to people who, having served their time, have now been brutally deprived of all hope of attaining some semblance of normalcy by people who can forgive any crime except one that involves sex.

Hopefully, I didn’t fuck up the blockquotes. Time to go throw some brats on the grill and pack for the trip.

Criminalizing normal behavior subjects everyone to prosecution at the whim of the State. Therein lies the ease with which the State controls everyone, whether one has passed through the criminal justice system or not.

The threat of death is just as effective as death itself, and just as violent.

Beyond all of that, it should be clear to any reader of this blog that the difference between someone who has been through the ordeal of the criminal justice system and someone who has not is a matter of luck and/or time.

Shit, I’m a rational and sometimes I catch myself muttering, “But for the grace of God.” Doesn’t everyone here?

The fact that recidivism among so-called “sex criminals” is lower than for the general criminal populace suggests that many people are so branded who should not be. It in no way disproves the notion that there is a certain IDENTIFIABLE subset of the prison population whose recidivism rate will be extremely high after release (obviously, the subset of the prison population that will in fact get caught for crimes after release will have a 100% recidivism rate, hence the ‘identifiable’ qualifier).

The state certainly has more control over people whom it has decided are guilty of a crime (i.e. prisoners, probationers, and parolees) than those whom it has not. That should be pretty much obvious. The only aspect of the quote whose truth would be debatable is whether the state criminalizes more and more things //for the purpose// of gaining such control.

Dave will be at Disney World starting tomorrow and ending next Saturday, so you will all get a reprieve. Use it well. :)

So your proof for the assertion that it’s easier to control people who are guilty of a crime than those who are not is that somebody in a novel said so?

I have coined a phrase: The Krueger-rant.

I intend to invest heavily in them.

You may now carry on.”

Yea. Wow. That was amazing, even for Dave.

I have coined a phrase: The Krueger-rant.

I intend to invest heavily in them.

You may now carry on.

#65 Matt D

Dave,

Frankly, I think you’re giving into a hysteria of your own.

The only regret I have about my hysteria is that it took so long to get to that point. But, I doubt my attitude would be considered hysterical to someone living under a bridge for peeing in a doorway.

Yes, it’s true that we’re rather reactionary about sex. And yes, it’s true that lots of things which are considered crimes probably shouldn’t be (I’m thinking of the various examples already provided on this thread, along with prostitution/solicitation, etc–basically, victimless crimes).

That’s sufficient justification by itself.

But it’s not as though our revulsion is based purely in our own personal sexual hangups.

I think the revulsion if perfect grounded in total rationality. Below a particular exact age, sex is revolting. The very next day, however, sex is perfectly acceptable. And, of course, everyone agrees precisely on what that age should be.

From Sam’s link earlier: “The median age of the victims of imprisoned sexual assaulters was less than 13 years old.” I guess if you want, you can argue that those assaults are just a matter of somebody “exposing himself” but I very much doubt that comports well w/ reality.

At least some of those cases probably didn’t even rise to the level of someone exposing themselves. Read up on the Satanic Ritual Abuse daycare cases.

There is no crime in the country easier to get a conviction on than a crime involving a child victim. The child can be coaxed into saying anything the prosecution wants and experts will take the stand and tell the jury that the child can’t possibly be lying. The parents, meanwhile, are blind to anything short of unmerciful vengeance. Add to that the fact that a mere accusation of child sex abuse is all that’s required to convince most people that someone is guilty and I think it’s quite possible to make a case that more people are falsely convicted of child sex abuse than most other crimes.

But, even if everything you say is perfectly well founded, that still doesn’t justify the sex registry.

I’ve always thought the most of the criminal laws could have been written in the first year after the government was established. After that, the Congress could get together for a few days each year to conduct whatever updates were required and to pass necessary spending bills. then they would go back home where they would hold down a real job.

Dave that reminds of a quote from Gore Vidal that I like:

“I date the end of the old republic
and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late Thirties, of air conditioning. Before air
conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September. . . . But after air conditioning
and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and
sits while the presidents-or at least their staffs-never stop making mischief…”

Frankly, I think you’re giving into a hysteria of your own. Yes, it’s true that we’re rather reactionary about sex. And yes, it’s true that lots of things which are considered crimes probably shouldn’t be (I’m thinking of the various examples already provided on this thread, along with prostitution/solicitation, etc–basically, victimless crimes). But it’s not as though our revulsion is based purely in our own personal sexual hangups. From Sam’s link earlier: “The median age of the victims of imprisoned sexual assaulters was less than 13 years old.” I guess if you want, you can argue that those assaults are just a matter of somebody “exposing himself” but I very much doubt that comports well w/ reality.

#46 MattH

…but some in this thread seem to be saying recidivism among actual rapists is statistically not a big problem…

Not sure who “some” are, but my point was primarily to object to the claims that sex offenders are so much more inclined to repeat their crime than are other criminals. Speaking only for myself, I would vastly prefer to be raped repeatedly than murdered once, and it pisses me off to no end that sex crimes (violent or not) are almost universally considered to be more deserving of severe punishment than non-sexual violent crimes. Sure, Shelly was beaten and robbed, but at least she wasn’t victimized by someone who exposed himself to her. At least no one was sitting in a closest jerking off to a picture of her in a seductive pose.

What it really comes down to is simply the fact that it’s easy (particularly in the U.S.) to vilify sex criminals far more than other violent criminals because of the absolute irrational hysteria about all things sex related. In other words, they’re fair game. What good is it to be fair game if people don’t know it? Hence, the registry was born.

Our country, the land of the free, is run by people who believe that you should be locked up for simply being seen naked. If that’s all the “injury” it takes to remove someone from society, then there is no inherent right to freedom. There are only things that haven’t yet been banned by government (ie: your neighbors).

That is the million dollar question. Almost every nation on earth receives “foreign aid” from the government in Washington so its not like you can easily get away from them if they wanted you bad enough.