Scarlet-letter dilemma in a suburban enclave

They've become household names, an echo in worried parents' minds: Danielle van Dam, Samantha Runnion, Elizabeth Smart. These high-publicity child abductions rattled nerves – and neighborhoods – across America. And here in suburban San Diego, the fears coincided with a new opportunity for precautionary action.

In June, the County Sheriff's department launched an online map of sex offenders, allowing parents to plug in addresses or zip codes and view sprinklings of colored dots, each dot representing the home of a convicted sex offender.

Logging into the website, a group of suburban mothers here was shocked to see one of those dots perched atop the home of a respected father and friend. That problem, they thought, was for other places. Not University City, an upscale enclave where neat houses nestle along winding roads and the sounds of children playing float through cul-de-sacs on warm autumn evenings.

Hoping to allay their concerns, Marie – who asked that her last name not be published – and two neighbors raced downtown to police headquarters, where they could view details behind the dots: photos, names, and charges.

To their horror, the familiar face appeared onscreen – and sparked an awareness that transformed the emotional landscape of this seemingly imperturbable place.

The discovery that their neighbor had been a sex offender slices to a core dilemma of the electronic age: the balance between the right to privacy and the right to know. Designed to protect children, the database can also spur panic and spark a rabid curiosity that feels eerily like a witch hunt to neighbors and convicts alike.

While the online map simply delivers public information, its use raises difficult questions.

Margo Schlanger, an assistant professor at Harvard Law School and a former fellow at Harvard's Center for Ethics and the Professions, suggests that the map itself is not the issue. The real dilemma is broader: "Is this a good way to arrange a social system, that there is always this stigma?" she asks. "You have to ask yourself if this permanent scarlet letter is justified."

The online map and database are a result of Megan's Law, named after Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl raped and killed by a child molester who lived across the street.

After Marie learned about her neighbor, her quandary was what to do. "I wanted to make sure I wasn't engaging in malicious gossip," she says.

Though she recoiled from contact with the man's wife, she had no legal recourse: Once offenders are off parole, they're free to live anywhere. Still, Marie became obsessed with the map, typing in specific addresses to test her suspicions of other neighbors.

"I found a young guy down the street from us is also [a sex offender]," Marie says. "If my daughter ever starts walking to school, it won't be in that direction."

In downtown San Diego, the map shows 367 dots; in upscale Point Loma, 22; in quiet La Jolla, 11.

Yet for Nancy, the wife of the sex offender Marie found on the map, a sense of injustice is palpable. After her husband's past was made public, she says, the couple lost all their friends. Everyone, it seemed, was talking about them: One neighbor learned of the situation after overhearing others in the supermarket.

Nancy's problem with the online map and database is its conflation of violent and nonviolent offenders and a lack of detail. "Every sex offender is not David Westerfield," she says, referring to the San Diego man recently convicted of kidnapping and murdering seven-year-old Danielle van Dam. According to Nancy, her husband's offense, which involved a boy fondling him, occurred 12 years ago. "At some point," Nancy says, "I hope society will say this person has been punished for his crime; let's give him another chance."

Parents routinely panic after checking out the map, says Jim Ryan, a detective in the Sex Offenders Registration Unit at the San Diego Police Department.

First, the numbers are shocking. And then, says Ryan, "People are always surprised that an offender can look just like one of them and live right beside them."

But Detective Ryan says that easy access to such information is intended to protect children, and not make sex offenders into pariahs. "It's important for parents to know who is in their backyard," he says.

Michael Nuccitelli, a New York psychologist who has worked with sex offenders, agrees. "The nature of pedophilia is that the pedophile can never be cured," he says. Although treatment can help arrest the behavior, the desire will persist, he says, and recidivism rates are high.

Among the mothers who rushed to the police station, this was the summer's major topic of discussion. None will allow their children near Nancy's home, though playdates there were commonplace last year. One mother sent her son to a different school this fall. And the principal of the neighborhood elementary school told Nancy's husband that a new state law prohibits him from volunteering there.

As autumn rolls in, the map remains a divining rod for worried parents. Before the map was online, and before the van Dam murder, few parents came down to headquarters to view the sex-offenders database.

According to Nancy, her husband's offense, which involved a boy fondling him, occurred 12 years ago. "At some point," Nancy says, "I hope society will say this person has been punished for his crime; let's give him another chance."

Have one little boy fondle you and people will no longer let you have access to their kids. This country is so unfair!!!

This freak wants another chance at MY CHILD. I'll think about it. Let me get back with you on that, chief!.

There is nothing "private" about a criminal conviction. It is a matter of public record. Hence, there is no "privacy" issue here. In another time, everyone knew who the criminals in a community were. Today, people move around and lose themselves in new, urban surroundings. They want to make the anonymity inherent in today's society into a "privacy" right. This is ridiculous.

According to Nancy, her husband's offense, which involved a boy fondling him, occurred 12 years ago.

According to Nancy....so we can assume this is the concise, cleaned-up version of his conviction. Also, how many people are convicted of the only offense they commit? This is probably the plea bargain this freak agreed to.

I just can't imagine associating with, especially marrying, a pedophile. Like all the gays tell you, a person cannot change their sexual orientation. Once a pedophile, always a pedaphile.

Nancy married a Nancy Boy who, like so many gay men, likes his partners young.

My 2 cents.
1st, pedophiles are incurable. Therefore they should be branded and tracked for life. That said...
2nd, we need to ensure we correctly brand "sex offenders". 19 year old boys having sex with 17 year old girls have been convicted of statutory rape and been branded as sex offenders. If we are going to brand someone and track them for life on public websites we need to be sure we are getting the real pedophiles, the sicko creeps after kids - not teenagers humping someone "just under the line". Their punishment should be different and not be a branding for life.

And the principal of the neighborhood elementary school told Nancy's husband that a new state law prohibits him from volunteering there.

Would a reformed pedophile, if there is such a thing, want to put himself into such a position? Isn't it like a reformed alcoholic getting a job as a bartender?

Like all the gays tell you, a person cannot change their sexual orientation. Once a pedophile, always a pedaphile.

I disagree with this. But then I believe that people can actually change, their behavior if not perhaps their inclination.

"Is this a good way to arrange a social system, that there is always this stigma?" she asks. "You have to ask yourself if this permanent scarlet letter is justified."

I usually just lurk, but I have to come into the light to voice my utter disgust with this B.S..

WAKE UP! Actions have consequences! sheesh.

"Is this a good way to arrange a social system, that there is always this stigma?" she asks. "You have to ask yourself if this permanent scarlet letter is justified." I usually just lurk, but I have to come into the light to voice my utter disgust with this B.S.. WAKE UP! Actions have consequences! sheesh.

If this creep were stoned to death upon conviction the wife would not have to deal with the problems of being married to a pedophile.

I disagree with this. But then I believe that people can actually change, their behavior if not perhaps their inclination

I agree with you. I almost added that very comment to my post. I was just being a smarty pants toward all the pro-gay agenda folks who claim that changing sexual orientation is not possible.

I believe we all have predispositions to certain behaviors but we also have free will, enabling us to reject behavior that is self destructive. I have had many alcoholics in my family, causing me to suspect I am predisposed to alcohol abuse. Because of this, I choose to never consume alcohol. Why take the chance?

As far as being predisposed to sexual attraction toward children, this behavior can also be resisted, but I think once you began to engage in the sick behavior, your ability to control the behavior diminishes.

My daughter's Sunday School teacher molested a child in her class a few years ago. He was turned into the police by a church staff member responsible for SS. After observing all this, I came to several conclusions:
1) Once a person has molested, he should never be in position of authority with children again. While this man still attends this church, he will never be allowed to work with children.
2) The perp acknowledged his sin in front of the church (many hundreds of people) and that took guts. He also cooperated with the police and pled guilty. As a result of that and therapy, he has gotten the wide support of the church. What that means is that he is forgiven. But people will not allow their children around him. If anyone new comes and an old-timer sees their children around him, I'm sure they will take them aside and set them straight. The church would also intercede.
3) People have a right to live their life in the community after they pay their debt to society. But that always includes the public availability of their past. The public has that right. He should never again be around children, plain and simple. For either him or his spouse to argue otherwise is like asking a recovering alcoholic to stay sober in a neighborhood of liquor stores. It's not fair to them or the neighborhood.

Lord, help him, but people need to realize that actions have consequences. Children are told from nearly the cradle that we all have to be nice and forgive each other. Forgive - yes, but that doesn't mean my child would go over there to play.

There are so many parents out there who never enforce the rules - so many who defend their children NO MATTER WHAT, that we have almost an entire generation of society who believe that there should be no consequences after saying, "I'm sorry..."

Abortion and AIDS are perfect examples. Go ahead and do all the stuff you want. If you get pregnant, we'll have your womb cleaned out. If you get AIDS, we'll sue and protest to get you cured. And, if you grow up to molest little children, we'll make sure no one knows.

ACTIONS HAVE LASTING CONSEQUENCES, WHETHER OUR SOCIETY THINKS SO OR NOT.

Like all the gays tell you, a person cannot change their sexual orientation. Once a pedophile, always a pedaphile.

I thought gays could change and that it was a choice?

Which is it?

Check your sacasm detector, you must have forgotten to turn it on.....

It is on but it seems like a contradiction, so gays choose their perversion and can become heterosexuals instantly if they choose, but pedophiles are perverts for life who have no hope of ever changing?

Both are sexual perversions. Why can you change one but not the other?

Seems like agenda driven hypocrisy.

Seems like agenda driven hypocrisy.

In a sense, you are right. But I see that as a tool. If one is "curable" the defenders must lose the other argument.

So - if liberals say that pedophilia is curable, they must cut the crap on homosexuality being "predestined". If they stick with the "I can't help it" routine, then pedophiles should have to live in a leper colony. Either way, the "agenda driven hypocricy" wins one of the arguments.

Personally, I believe both gays and pedophiles can change. It is a religious-based belief on my part, having nothing to do with modern "psychology". However, the alcoholic analogies cited above are good. Sin, of any kind, is like water seeking its own level. Without divine help, everyone will revert to his/her sin, whether pedophilia, homosexuality, alcoholism, or littering. Some are more easily overcome than others.

So - while I might see my way clear to loan a serial car thief my car, I will not trust a pedophile with my children. There is too much at stake.

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