Posted on 01/15/2009 9:26:59 PM PST by Steelfish
Talking is so last week! It is frightening, but not really surprising how little shame this generation of kids has. Everything is ok. I really worry about what sort of 40 year olds they will be. (let me say, not all of them, there are still plenty of parents out there doing a good job and many good kids, but I think they will be faced with a bunch of peers who have no morals-truly if it feels good do it, who cares how it affects anyone else).
I knew a boy who had sex with his girlfriend (I don’t recall the ages, I think he had just turned 18, she was younger, maybe even as young as 15). He was charged and ended up on the sex offender list. Now, while I think what he did was wrong, and I think we need to really discourage 18 year olds from having sex with 15 year olds, I’m not sure putting someone on a sex offender list for what is essentially normal behavior is the way to go. I have really mixed feelings about how to deal with the problem.
Did the boys send the pictures on?
And I do like the idea of a Terminally Stupid list! LOL
I think a 75$ ticket and perhaps an hour of having people point and laugh!
You make an excellent point.
Not long ago a guy in Massachusetts randomly picked two people off the sex offender database and tracked them down murdered them. The immediate reaction on this forum was, "This guy should get a medal!" Turned out one of the men he killed had been convicted under circumstances just like you wrote. He had been convicted for statutory rape while in high school for having sex with his still underage girlfriend.
We seem to live in a society where lawmakers compete over who cam be the toughest on criminals. Laws are passed as knee-jerk reactions to sensational (but rare) crimes without any thought as to whether or not these new laws will even work. And when it comes time for re-election, Joe Politician stands on a podium and shouts, "I passed the toughest laws against perverts the country has ever seen!" Meanwhile, we've got sex offender registries that are being filled with streakers, skinny-dippers, mooners, public urinators, johns and hookers, and teenagers with cellphones making it easier for the true serial rapists and child molesters to hide.
Of course, once the knee-jerk laws are in place nobody will ever repeal them because the politician that says, "hold on a minute here..." will be attacked as being "soft on perverts."
Wow.
...and you are incapable of understanding that the children involved, in this case (14 and 15 year old girls), are the ones being punished by the prosecutor.
The current system requires sex offender registration for certain convictions. The judge may just give them a few hours of community service, but if he is required to impose the registration requirements, that would not be good at all. This is the kind of case where the prosecutor needs to use his discretion and consider not filing this serious a charge to begin with. At a minimum he (or she) ought to work with these kids, reduce the charges to something that will not require registration or leave them serious criminal records that could hurt them for life.
I hate it when they overcharge people like this in the first place. Usually the case is going to get worked out and the charges reduced, but sometimes the defendants in cases like this will end up with extremely harmful convictions because they (or their parents) will hire an idiot lawyer, or they'll be assigned an idiot public defender, who convinces them to take their case to trial, or their parents will force a trial, and they'll put the court in the position where the judge feels he has to enter a conviction. It might be a case with a fact scenario that wasn't at all what the lawmakers had in mind when they wrote the statute, but the court will determine that technically there is enough there for a conviction and they'll end up with a serious conviction on their records. A kid who has no idea what he is doing or what is likely to to happen will take bad advice from his lawyer or his parents and the consequences will haunt him the rest of his life.
The article is not specific as to whether this case is being handled in juvenile court or not, but even if that is the case these records don't just disappear when these kids come of age. You try to go in the military, be lawyer, a stock broker, a teacher, have any sort of job with a security clearance and odds are your juvenile records are fair game for your prospective employer.
Sorry that it is inconceivable to you that some things human beings do requires punishment
I realize that is a shock to your sensibilities, and it will take some time for this shocking concept to filter into your brain. But here it is - some actions should have consequences. I realize that this is unpleasant to you and the rest of the "If it feels good do it" crowd but there it is.
I didn't buy that crap from hippies in the sixties, and I am not buying it from you now.
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