Do Americans realize who gets placed on sex offender registries?

Question

I feel like I am fighting an uphill battle on this, and I really don't blame Americans but rather the journalists. This morning I was reading a question from a woman who was in favor of castrating sex offenders. Perhaps in GB do only child molesters get listed on sex offender registries But do Americans realize that the list of offenses which one can get listed on the sex offender registries is staggering and growing. In California, there are 107 separate offenses. In some states, a non-custodial parent taking their child may be listed as a sex offender. A Georgia woman was listed as a sex offender who "allowed" her 16 year old daughter to become pregnant.

The original intention was to track child molesters and serial predators. And with Jessica's Laws being passed, many of these "offenders" are being banned from entire cities and states. Talk about ex post facto laws.

Is anyone else concerned and outraged about these laws? What is the next step?

Ricky: I don't think you understand my question fully as you addressed it by my question. Pt. #1: I never said the list was a bad idea, only that the government is placing people on the list who do not need to be there. Pt. #2: If one goes by the original intention to place people on the sex offenders who continue to be a great risk to society after their sentences, yes, there are many people on the registries who don't deserve to be there. Guys who have sex with their underage girlfriends are deemed low risk, yet they're on the registry. People who relieve themselves are on the registry. What is their sex offense? Pt. #3: On the contrary, the registries started in 1992-4; some states such as California list back to 1944; others list back to 1970. Maybe your state doesn't list that far but mine does. The laws restricting movements are recent and apply to everyone on the registries, not just recent parolees and probationers. So, yes they are ex post facto or punishment after the fact.

JG: When you stated law abiding parents, you made my point exactly. You believe that most if not all of the people listed on the registries pose a danger to children, which statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice show is not true. A child molester is a sex offender but a sex offender is not always a child molester. Your second and third paragraphs prove you didn't read my question carefully, falling into the trap that all sex offenders are child molesters.

And of course, your contention that sex offenders or child molesters (I don't think it's clarified in your head) should all be placed in the Antartic or a planned community is wrong for sex offenders - the U.S. tried that for people deemed a risk to Americans. We imprisoned 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during WW2 for four years.

Auld: Yes, the lead plaintiff in that case is a 24 year old woman who as a 17 year old made the youthful mistake of trying to "orally copulate" a fellow student. Stupid and dumb, but hardly a threat. She's married now, trying for her career, purchased a home but is unable to live in it because it's too close to one of those places where children congregate.

Auld: Another point: Because she's attending a college that has under 18 year olds attending, she can no longer attend. The law is completely stupid. There is absolutely no common sense built in. She as a 24 year old married woman is equated with someone like John Couey or Joseph Duncan.

Silvg: I agree with your comment that this is a messed up situation. And I have seen hundreds like it in communicating via the internet. The point is this: Megan's Law was designed to allow law enforcement to keep tabes on the repeat sex offenders and predators among us, because sometimes these guys were released and the cops didn't know until they committed another crime. It was not designed to punish, place a scarlet letter or run anyone out of town, which it is being used for across the country.

I believe that the politicians have become so outrageous in their hunt for registered sex offenders and further punishing them that the public will begin to see it for what it is - a sick attempt to scapegoat an entire group of people (and because the laws affect the sex offenders' families, too, many innocents) because in election years, it's easy to kick around certain groups of people. Hitler found it easy, too, and look where it got him.

Vixen: Yes, Americans can be a ignorant lot. That's why I don't expect them to do much. It's really up to the courts. It might also take a couple of innocent members of sex offender families to be killed, too, although Lord I don't hope that. It's also up to responsible politicians and leaders to point out the hyprocriticalness of these registries.

Steve: I'm not; I'm a high school teacher and the worst I've ever done is get speeding tickets. But I know one, who is there unfairly for a false accusation and conviction 20 years ago. He's still paying the price. This is getting so out of hand that maybe they'll start a registry for something you've done (DUI, arson, dead beat dads, petty thefts, drug dealing, etc.) All of those crimes and then some have been proposed by one politician or another somewhere in the U.S. Then you'll know what it's like to lose your privacy.

My point is all sex offenders (married couples having sex in their cars to the worst and worst) are being branded by the same scarlet letters, and with Jessica's Laws, are being punished through exclusionary zones into being forced to move. And their families are also paying the price. Maybe you don't care, but I for one care about the constitution and Bill of Rights.

Answer 1

Yes, it's stupid, irrational, non-sensical and utterly fails to make important distinctions. The category includes everyone from the serial child rapist, to the 19 year old who slept with a 15 year old after she showed him ID 'proving' that she was 18.

The category is meaningless, because it is so broad, and yet people blame everyone within the category equally based solely on the label. It's stupid, irrational, and shows how dain-bramaged our country has become.

Maybe it really is time to just have God wipe everyone off the face of the earth by fire and start all over again.

{EDIT} And yes, the housing restrictions are ex post facto laws by definition. An ex post facto law includes any law which imposes a new penalty or sentence that was not in effect when the crime was committed.

Evicting people, even criminals, from entire cities or counties is a punishment, and doing it after the fact (after the crime was committed) is the very definition of ex post facto. Sadly, again nobody seems to care about the definitions.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Don't think Ricky understood the question. The sex offender registries were meant to track child molester and serial predators. Do we term a young man, age 17, convicted of statutory rape, because he slept with and impregnated his 16 year old girlfriend, a predator? Make him register, everywhere he goes and preclude him from his child's life because as a sex offender, he's not allowed to be anywhere near children?

Yes, it's a wide reaching application, but until there is a better way to keep the real dangers out of neighbourhoods and out in the open where parents can know about them, we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Have there been any challenges to the registry laws by people like that mother in Georgia?

Answer 4

Sex offenders number in the millions in the US alone if you look at the statistics.Those are the known offenders. The same statisticians also say less than 10% are ever caught so that means there are millions more unknown. So if millions and millions of americans are sex offenders, we need to change the laws. Deviant behavior is not really deviant if so many are doing it.It wasnt until the last 30 years that it was even discussed openly so they went way overboard with the moral majority and religious right and puritans leading the charge. My grandma married at 14 to a 30 year old, her mom was 13 and he was 35.
In the bible, David took all the enemies virgins for himself. A virgin in his day was any woman who hadnt bled yet.Old men with young girls has been forever and always will be.
A woman like Mary Kay gets treated alot differntly too. She raped her student, got pregnant and caught, got released raped him again, and only got her original sentence instead of a new charge. A man would have been given life without parole for the same thing. she got 7 years and still was allowed contact with her own kids. Men are not allowed to even see their own children, even if their kid was not the victim.
I know of one child, an emancipated minor, who tried to sue Washington state because she felt the state was denying her the right to see her father and she had done nothing wrong. She lost.
Also, a study at the University of Washington showed that less than 8% of convicted sex offenders re-offend. The same cannot be said of murderers, robbers,etc...whose numbers are high double digits.Why dont they register all criminals

Answer 5

Perhaps you should take a look at these registries from the perspective of law-abiding parents. While some of the offenses are a stretch the majority of those listed are exactly the types of persons that are not welcome in most American neighborhoods.

As for ex post facto - you are barking up the wrong tree. Speaking for myself I don't care if they have to build an igloo on an ice floe in the Antarctic as long as those sick SOBs are no where near my children. There is not a long enough jail term for child molesters.

Next step is to create a planned community where NO CHILDREN are allowed period and move all of these sickos into the place where they can live with themselves away from the rest of society.

Answer 6

While it would be nice to clean up the process and make sure that those on the list actually deserve to be on the list, that does NOT mean the list is a bad idea.

Finding people on the sex offender list who are not really sex offenders is the EXCEPTION, not the rule, and should NOT be used as an excuse to make penalties for sex offenders any lighter.

As for the ex-post facto, and the laws restricting movements, none of those are ex post facto laws. Anyone on the sex offender list became a sex offender with the sex offender registry law on the books, and as such part of the sentence for their crime was a permanent restriction of their movement and the label "sex offender". Laws made afterwards the define where they can and can't be, are not ex post facto, as they are merely exercising a previously existing law, the one that limits the movement of the sex offenders.

Answer 7

Just my 2 cents.

First off, I live in Illinois.

I am very hurt by the "Sex Offender" Laws.

In a society that just put the "Plan B" pill available for Over-the-Counter, it's still illegal for two 17-year-olds to have sex. Plan B is available for those 18+. If your 17 and need it, your mother can get it, your best friend, that is 18, can get it for you. Or you can go to the doctor and get a prescription. You're under 18, you had sex. Your doctor knows this, and it's illegal. Shouldn't the doctor have to turn you in? [Doctor-Patient confidentially or not.] And the guy you slept with. If he's 18+ it's illegal for him to sleep with a minor, but if he is a minor, it's still illegal! How does this make any since?!

I'm dating a convicted Sex Offender. I see nothing wrong with this, because I know what he did. He had sex with a willing minor. His ex-girlfriend found out and told the police. He was interrogated. They told him lies. This was a month after it happened. They said the girl was talking, and was at the hospital getting a rape kit done. He was scared and he admitted to it. Who wouldn't? The police never talked to her. She didn't answer their phone calls, she didn't show up in court. I don't think there's ANY way she was raped. It's just another girl he was with prior to me. I can get over it.

His life is ruined. He was an avid hunter. Shotgun, pistol, muzzle loader, etc. He can't ever carry a firearm again; he's a felon now. For 10 years his picture will be posted on the internet. For 10 years he can’t go to any school sport events, or any schools without permission. He's 23. A time where having kids within 10 years could very easily happen. He can't reside or work within 500' of any place designated for children under 18. (Soccer fields, day cares, school, etc.) How do you expect someone to live like this? They put his picture on the internet and him in counseling next to 50-year-olds that molested 4 year olds. How can you compare them to each other? Do you really think someone that slept with a very willing young woman (most girls her age have had periods and could produce CHILDREN, yet they can’t have sex…) is going to molest a 6-year-old? Doubt it.

When I was 17, I slept with an 18 year old. I could have turned him in, my parents could have. But we all know kids in high school, and even some in jr. high, have sex! This isn't fair; the laws are ruining young men's lives. [You don’t see many young girls on the Sex Offender Registries] And to make matter worse, there are young girls dressing to provocatively and just drawing the males in. Males are programmed to want and have sex. We all know that. What also isn't fair, if you're going to call a 22 year old a sex offender for sleeping with a 16 year old, shouldn't she get in trouble too?! It was just as much her fault, as it was his. She lied about her age, and came onto him.

THE LAWS NEED CHANGED!!!

Forgot to mention the fact that a Student-Teacher at our county High School, slept with a Sophomore, but has not been arrested. We believe it is because his dad is Asst. Superintendent in the neighboring County. How is that fair?

Edit 9/23:
It's all just sad. Instead of focusing on those that are truly raping young innocent kids, or repeat offenders, they are just trying to get as many as they can, on the list. Way before I was alive, 12-year-olds were getting married, having kids. Why else would girls start menstruating pre-teen, if they weren't intended to have kids? If god really wanted things changed, our periods wouldn't start until we were 18+. Those on the list are said to be "low risk", but it is no where stated, at least not in my state. Actually my boyfriend is listed as "Sexual Predator". Just because of the certain thing he got charged for. I'm not sure it's 100% correct, because they've screwed it up, before. He was told he has to register for 10 years, although the definition of "sexual predator" on the website, says they have to register for life. He was lucky, compared to some, however. He is on probation for 3 years, had to go to county jail for 10 days, on work release. He was to have a GPS ankle bracelet for 1 year, but was taken off after 6 months, due to his full cooperation. He is in counseling, every week, for 1.5 hours, and has to pay $30/week for it. He had to do 100 hours of community service. Hopefully he will be getting out of counseling soon, he's doing well, his probation officer is very nice and is pushing for him to get out. Per probation, he can not leave the state, but we've recently found out he can with permission of his P.O. and the appropriate travel documents. Everyday life is pretty normal for us though, it's just the times we try looking for a house (I live with my parents and he basically does to). No reason, yet, to go to any school events. The only way you'd even know he was on the list is if you looked at it, and connected the name. He hardy looks like the picture. It's from his license at 21. He doesn't even look 23 or violent at all. He's never been. He didn't even lose his virginity until he was 19.

Answer 8

It sounds like you are a convicted sex offender who is feeling the heat.
Don't do the crime if you can't handle the consequences.

Answer 9

they probably do not know and do not care. most americans have no idea of what is happening in the real world. it is all a matter of ignorance is bliss and americans are into bliss.

Answer 10

by definition it should be those that molest children under the age of 18 should be registered.