Sex Registry in the US

Holy cow, I just watched dateline about these sexual preditors. They talked about how people are listed online. So I decided to check it out. I got folks living not 2 miles down the road here in MD listed. Freaks me out.Glad I don't have children. I then searched by random people I know I thought was a little out there and found a guy that works for me, well his father. He went thru this rough time about 3 years ago. Kept telling me his family was going thru a rough time. As a rough lab manager, I blew it off. I think I figured it out.

I then when to my hometown in Ky and saw people I went to high school with.

I think anyone thinking of moving to a new town ought to do a search at least before moving. You never know who you neighbor is.

Do you think it would be wrong if they started a registry on just about any felony? I think it would be a good idea to know who youlive beside.

[BenGarrett]

Yes, I do think it would be wrong to start a registry for any and all felonies. It goes back to the argument of "once you've paid your debt . . ."

I think that when you get to the very root of the matter, a sex registry is a poor concept. People that commit crimes like statutory rape shouldn't have that following them around for the rest of their lives. However, the cold hard fact is that it is well-documented that around 80% of all child molesters WILL be repeat offenders, so I'm not going to complain about the sex registry.

I don't know Ben, a debt like murder could never be repaid.Somebody changed afamily,stopped someone living while he or she gets to live life.I guess who should draw the line.

It seems different state by state. But they usually tell the offense. And sadly 90% was either violent rape or children under 14. They usually referred to the age. I don't think anyone could ever repay that debt if they did good acts for the rest of thier lifes.

[BenGarrett]

BigCountry, I certainly don't think we should apply a blanket policy to anything, whether to put them on a national registry or leave them off.

Anyone who commits first or second degree murder and is convicted should be given a life sentence, as far as I'm concerned, and so their future after prison should be a moot point. As for violent felonies, I guess it'd have to depend on the crime. I still tend to believe that a person who has "paid their debt to society" as we like to say, and has been released from prison, probably should either have every right that we have (including their privacy, which would be violated by a national registry) restored to them, or if that isn't possible due to their risk to society, then they should remain incarcerated. I DON'T believe that ANY non-violent felon should be placed on a national registry once he/she is released from prison.

As for the sex registry, I'm not so much concerned about those who commit rape or otherwise molest or take advantage of young children. I'm quite convinced that anyone who rapes a child, in cases where there is DNA or other undisputable evidence to support it, should receive a life sentence. Otherwise, as I mentioned earlier, the law of averages says that for every ten people convicted of a crime of pedophilia and then later released from prison, eight of them will re-offend. Therefore, a national registry for that type of crime is probably necessary. I'm not necessarily comfortable with it, but given the statistics, I think we might be doing our children a disservice if we didn't maintain such a registry. Besides, unlike a typical felon, who I truly believe can be rehabilitated, I don't think pedophiles can ever be trusted. There is obviously something that got installed backwards in their head. Which I think brings up another delimma. It would serve us all better if we could give convicted pedophiles some sort of test before releasing them from prison to determine whether they continue to harbor their perversion towards children. If they did, wouldn't it make our streets safer to keep them locked up? Unfortunately, that would be unconstitutional since you can't lock someone up for simply THINKING something. Nevertheless, given the likelihood of pedophiles to re-offend, we must have rules for them that follow them for life upon their conviction, such as not going within x-feet of places like schools and daycares, etc., and the only way to enforce that is with a national registry.

So I'm certainly not trying to defend convicted pedophiles. On the other hand, there are a LOT of people who are on the sex offender registry for crimes that I don't necessarily think should be classified as registry-type crimes, such as the afore-mentioned statutory rape. There are plenty of cases where you have a 25-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl having a purely consensual relationship, and the girl's father finds out about it and prosecutes. I don't know how the law works in other states, but in Tennessee, that does constitute statutory rape, and the man would for the rest of his life be listed on a sex offender registry and be denied decent employment and be shunned by his neighbors, all because he used decidedly poor judgment but probably meant no real harm. I don't think that's right. Also, we must remember that there are a LOT of people convicted for sex crimes that aren't guilty. In rape cases, it is basically he said vs. she said a lot of the time, a la the Kobe Bryant case. So while I'm not defending ANYONE who is truly guilty, especially the child molesters (give them the death penalty for all I care), I'm still not comfortable with the sex registry, although I do think it is probably necessary.

Dang, I got on another rant. I was gonna stop that.

Well Ben, we will have to disagree some, but its cool. Thanks for your opinion.

[North Texan]

I agree, Ben. Everyone has this idea that rapists arestrangers that hide behind bushes and ambush young women, when that is actually more of an exception than a norm. Most times, the woman knows the accused. And you are correct in that a lot of times it's he said vs. she said. You've got a young lady crying on the witness stand and a man sitting at a table trying not to look guilty, who do you think the jury is going to believe?

If you have consensual sex, and then later the woman regrets it and claims rape, how are you going to defend yourself?

[mustad]

Ben,

I think you make a very good point here, but it seems as if it would be very difficult, if not impossible to implement a descretionary list as you imply. The first step would be to define the level of infraction that deems it appropriate to include or exclude from the registry. Then people would need to be employed to institute and manage that. It seems to me that it goes a step beyond what is necessary and is not worth the money needed to implement.

In my opinion, people who look at the registry and I am one of them, are capable of deciphering the level of which an individual could be deemed dangerous. They can see what infractions were made, when they were made, and can come to their own conclusions; and I would guess most of the time they would come to the correct conclusions just like you.

The question of privacy is a tricky one for me. Today, the concept of the national registry is very well known. I think the average person knows that if he commits a crime of this nature, one of the consequences will be having his name, picture, address, etc... on the national registry. If they decide to still try to commit these crimes, well their out of luck. I'm not so sure how far back the registry goes, but I would imagine there are offenders on it that committed their crimes before the list was put in place and have not repeated. I think these people would have a valid argument of not being listed.

Apologies for the soap box....

Cheers

[BenGarrett]

Mustad, I agree that it would be extremely difficult to implement. Perhaps one way to do it would be to allow each person to petition the court for a hearing to determine whether he or she remains on the registry. I'm sure the folks within judicial circles would oppose that since dockets are already overloaded in most parts of the country, but that is an idea that might work.

Well, first thing is to quit making the prison system into a place where a criminal learns how to become a better criminal. I don't know the answer. If we educate them, people are bothered. If we work em in the ground, human rights people are upset. If we keep them in solitary for more than 2 months, again human rights.

But I know one thing. Having your picture and address posted for what you have done sounds like a heck of a deterent. I mean its public info. I notice like in Ky for instance, they have a time limit set the info can be posted. I guess depending on the crime.

Hey, I come from Eastern ky, and when I lived there, I was 18-21 and was going out with 16 year old girl. It was very normal. Talking to my little nephew he informs me that it has became a big no no. Bad part was I was on the state line and crossing that, the parents of the girl could blow the wistle at anytime and have you arrested on a multitude of charges. I could on a list.

But what I have noticed is its up the discrestion of the judge. I didn't see one case of stat rape. They listed age of children and all was either below 14 or 12. I think 12 was considered more of an offense.

Guys go to google and type in your state and see what it says.

[kevin1]

I have no problem with the sex offender registry , the violent felon registry , or any other registry for felons for that matter . I like being able to know whether or not the guy down the street is a predator so that I can keep my eye on him . In fact , I recently used the sex offender registry for my state to see who was nearby , and I found 2 within 5 miles of my house . One was actually living in some apartments that 2 of my sons had lived in before .

No , I don't care to discuss it Charlie .