Posted on 11/04/2010 10:19:46 PM PDT by jerry557
What I think many here fail to grasp is that more and more, the people who are ending up on these "Sex Offender Registries" are folks who are 17 and 18 years old who had consensual sex with their 16 year old girl friend.
Or as in the case of Georgia where you can be placed on the registry for life if you take a piss in public and a minor happens to see you. Regardless of circumstances, intentions or your history.
Everyone here sees nothing but "Sex Offender" and automatically thinks of some kiddie raping monster.
Registries like these were initially designed to mean well but over time have turned into nothing more than a vehicle for the government to control more and more of its citizens for life. Deny them the right to own guns, vote and now a place to live.
The spirit and the letter of these registries are unconstitutional as someone already said. The are nothing more than a bill of attainder and completely unconstitutional.
The CA database is full of hardened, often repeat, sex offenders usually convinced of molestation of or oral copulation with a child under 14. I've had at least two in my community living with a backyard against a public parks. One park is next to a school.
I agree, that also goes along with my stand on restoring gun and voting rights to former inmates. I don’t mean allowing them to CC on day one, but after all fines are paid and the parole or in other terms are met. Either you are a citizen, or you are not. Former felons HAVE to be allowed to strive to become completely part of “normal” society. Actually, I think the reason that the “man” is afraid of letting former felons own guns, it is their favorite means of putting them back in prison. You know, man pulled over for broken tail light, found with pistol in the trunk....sent away for 7 years.
the problem being, that with a thief, when his time is up, he can get out, and often be ok with not thieving. No so with pedophiles. Many will tell you, candidly, that when they get out, it is open season again.
Well, I completely agree with you too about Voting/Gun rights. This may or may not be unrelated, but in the “old days” if you had a felony you at least had the option of leaving the state you were convicted in and totally starting over, because for the most part, your record wouldn’t follow you to another state. With the internet, there is no longer ANY option, once you are convicted, EVERYONE will know it, wherever you are. It’s bad enough that they can’t find any job, but for the law to continue to punish them just adds to the problem. I believe that’s one reason so many continue to commit crimes. Many times they have zero options to earn money legally. :-/
Assuming that they have served their entire sentence, they end up in very rual counties where they are MUCH more difficult to monitor, if that's the desire. If they are still on parole or probation you end up with a situation where they are unable to get housing anywhere so they end up living on the streets, where, you guessed it, they are much more difficult to monitor!
I forgot to mention that parolees and probationers are normally forbidden from leaving the county that they were paroled to, or are on probation in. Just leaving is a parole or probation violation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.