EnviroLink Forum

http://reason.com/archives/2011/06/14/p ... singlepage

Sex offender laws represent the triumph of outrage over reason.
“If we had been aware of his record,” says Maureen Kanka, “my daughter would be alive today.” She is referring, in a statement on the website of an anti-crime group she founded, to Jesse Timmendequas, a neighbor in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, who raped and murdered her 7-year-old daughter, Megan, in 1994. Three months later, the state legislature enacted Megan’s Law, which created a publicly accessible registry of sex offenders.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

and a related article

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ar ... tml#013074

Jacob Sullum writes a powerful piece on the subject. We all know vaguely about the modern rash of laws creating mandatory public “sex offender” registries, and most of us think of them as directed at creepy adults who diddle minor children. Many of us know about “Megan’s Law,” the 1996 federal statute that forces the states to create such registries as a condition of receiving federal law-enforcement funds. But did you know that in at least thirteen states, the list of convictions that require lifelong registration as a “sex offender” include things like urinating in public? And 28 states require registration by those who, in their teens, were caught having sex with persons two years older or younger than them. Although the scope differs from state to state, being on one of these public registries generally entails lifelong restrictions on where one can live and work.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Well, Wayne, laws that make crimals of people who pee on the sidewalk are okay with me.

The fewer pervs on the street, the better.

My father was once asked by someone much younger why was it the reporting and punishment of child-molesters seems such a recent thing: you just didn't hear much about it years back.
My father grunted and said"Oh, there were as many then as now, I think. They just didn't live long enough to get into court."

Really? Make them register with the authorities everywhere they live for the rest of their lives? There is the scale of response issue that is a concern fo some.



I suppose it depends on your definition of perv, which seems to be unclear in the laws between the various states.



I would have no problem "taking care" of someone who had molested or tried to molest to any of my children nor of any other parent for a similar thing. The problem is my definition of molestation and theirs may not match and there may be some issues resulting. For example, a homeless person who is not allowed access to restrooms in many public places who heeds the call of nature discretely but is still seen is not a perve to me. You may think otherwise and that is your choice, but one would hope you never had to go without having access to a restroom .... unless you can live with being a perve.

I have a particular interest in this type of legislation after the son of one of my son's Tae Kwon Do instructors was arrested, tried, and convicted of being a sex offender. His crime was that his girlfriends parents did not like him and when they discovered there was a couple of months difference in their ages more than the current legislation allowed they had him charged. He is now and will be forever registered as a sex offender because of that issue of math. Neither were over the age of majority either. Now he is limited as to where he can live, where he can work, and what he can do for the rest of his life.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

When justice for perverts gets perverted it's just not just, eh?

Is there justice when it is perverted in the attempt to punish what some may call perversion?

Or

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood .... at perverts?

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Good heavens: the dreaded woodchuck chucking returns!!!!

It is ridiculous that they put kids a few years difference in age having sex into the same category as someone who beats and rapes women and young girls or worse.
Heck, I'm 10.6 years older than my wife. Am I a perv? Hell, no!!! But in most places an 18 year old boy doing it with his 17 year old girlfriend could get put on the sex offenders list, seen by a real perv and tracked down and killed just because of Megan's Law.
Reminds me of the Brady laws of over-reaction, where in this state, if you were falsely arrested for a crime (even up to 50 years ago!) which, if you were convicted, would take away your gun rights, you must prove that you were not convicted before you can even buy a single shot shotgun to teach your kid. They don't recognize Federally good out of state Total Rights Restorations, either. So you are punished for something you didn't do. Thanks to the pervs in the state legislature.
Both are plain wrong.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein