Apples to Apples: You WON'T regret reading and aswering the question!?

Question

Please play along and answer honestly. It is kind of long, but I think you will enjoy the story.

Lets say that I walk into a bank and hand the teller a note. The note tells the teller that I am robbing the bank and demand $1000 dollars. She does what she is trained to do and hands me a $1000 dollars. I leave the bank into the loving arms of law enforcement. I am arrested and sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. When I first enter prison – I find myself being truly sorry. I am truly sorry that I got caught. As time goes by, I realize that I have done wrong and now have a choice of either going down the road of bitterness or down the road of self-improvement. I chose the rode to self-improvement.

After my sentence is over with, I leave prison a better person. I get a stable job, a stable home (which is ironically about 400 feet from the bank I robbed), I even open up a bank account at that bank. I enroll in college and make mostly A’s with a couple of B’s. I have no anger because I realize that I made the mistake. I realize that what I did was 100% my fault. While on probation, I meet a wonderful woman whom is the love of my life and get married and have a child. Everything is going great.

A couple of years after I finish my probation, a total wack-job goes into that bank and blows a couple of people away and leaves with a couple million dollars. There is a public outcry to make tougher sentences on bank robbers. Under pressure, lawmakers make tougher sentences. Some of the conditions of robbing banks are: 1) Mandatory minimum sentences 2) Can’t ever open a bank account after your sentence. 3) Can’t live within 1000 feet of a bank.

To the public, this isn’t good enough. They want ALL past bank robbers to be grandfathered in. The lawmakers cave on that one also. One day, a lawmaker comes to my house. He tells me that he knows I have not been in any trouble with the law and have complied with everything that I was told to do. He tells me that he knows I am off probation, but his hands are tied. I am forced to close my bank account. I am then forced to move at least 600 feet down the road to meet the requirements of the new law. My boss finds out and doesn’t think much about it – yet. A group of people find out where I work and tells my boss that if they don’t fire me, they will not patron the establishment any more. The boss does the only thing he can. He fires me. I now have no job. I can barely afford to feed my wife and child. I am forced to drop out of college because I can no longer afford that either.

I realize that I have done wrong, but now my wife and child are paying for a crime they didn’t commit and I am paying for that crime twice.

Does this sound to crazy to be true.

I want you to answer HONESTLY what you think in THIS given situation. I will post and “ADD DETAIL” later and I want you to read the new detail and give me your thoughts on that also.

NOW... change the petty robber to a person who committed a victimless crime that made him a sex offender (trust me, it is possible to be a registered sex offender with a crime that involved no victims). change the big time bank robber to a person that physically molested or God forbid killed a child.

What do you think now?

Answer 1

Regardless of the crime once you do your time you should be done with it. No restrictions on where you live. Yes that goes for sex offenders. They only reason why I believe sex offenders shouldn't have to put up with all that crap is because they should be shot on site! Then they can have their pick at what cemetery they wanna be in.

*smiles*

Answer 2

No, I don't think that this sounds too crazy to be true. The problem with laws too often is that they are not detailed enough. They cover everyone who has committed a certain crime with no provision for different types of offense for that same type of crime.

I'm not sure if I am making sense here.
I will use the sex offense laws as an example. One of my daughters had a boyfriend in high school. They dated a long time and she got pregnant at 15. The boy was 16. It was just a month or so before her 16th birthday but it was a crime all the same. I could have pressed charges against him, he would have been tried and convicted of statutory rape and he would have had to register for the rest of his life as a sex offender. I chose not to do that because I felt it was my daughter's fault as much as her boyfriends and I could not see ruining the rest of his life for that.

Now, on the other hand, I have another daughter who is living with a registered sex offender. He let two runaway girls stay at his apartment in return for sexual favors. One of the girls was 12 the other was 14. While the parents looked for their daughters for over a week, he knew where they were and was taking advantage of them. In my mind he is actually a pedafile, but he took a plea deal to a lesser charge.

What I am trying to say is, had I had the one daughter's boyfriend brought up on charges, both men would have to live by the same rules and both would be registered sex offenders for the rest of their lives.

I do not feel that the first daughter's boyfriend is a danger to society. He was a 16 year old boy with raging hormones as was my daughter. The second guy is a danger to society and why he is not listed as a pedafile is beyond me. Most people do not even know the truth about him but I went and did research.

Sorry, I hope this made sense to you.

Edit: I agree that the sex offender laws should be strict and quick. But the problem is that there are no "degrees" of the law. The only way to find out what a person actually did is to do the research youself. If you are a 16 year old boy having sex with your 15 year old girl friend, you are treated the same way as someone who picked up a 12 year old, hid her in your apartment for a week, and had sex with her. Also, a person that commits a crime like the one stated above, can plead to a lesser charge to save the tax payers money.

We have to protect the public from someone who is a true sex offender but there seems to be no way to do that without hurting the 16 year olds that are doing what 16 year olds do.

I know that you can commit a victimless sex offense crime because my husband does all of the hiring for a company and if there is a sex offense (no matter what the offense is) on an applicants back ground check, they can not be hired ever.

The laws err on the side of caution and it seems that you got caught up in it. To save the world from the second guy I discribed, you have to also punish the first guy I discribed.

Answer 3

Of course it sounds crazy. First of all, exactly how would you have the money to pay for college? People with felonies can't get student loans. As for a job, any application you filled out the potential employer would know you were a felon. So if you found a job your boss would already know that.

As for lawmakers passing stiffer laws against bank robbers that would never happen. Look at the case of that Bank of America robbery in California in 1995. Those guys killed a few people and themselves and nothing happened as far making tougher laws.

Secondly, with respect to laws laws cannot be made retroactive, because that would in my opinion would constitute double jeopardy, which is unconstitutional.

The meeting a great girl seems plausible, as for the self improvement I guess that's possible, but the rest of it isn't realistic.

Answer 4

Fairly speaking, before a person commits doing something, he is aware of and can take into account only the foreseen consequences, including legal consequences. Accordingly laws should not be retrospective - and this is normally the case in many countries.

In the case you mentioned, when the new law requires certain restrictions on people with past crime but having a normal citizenship now, it is retrospective.

Humanely, after the person finishes his definite term imprisonment, plus some legally required probationary period, he should then be regarded as a normal citizen. In the case you mentioned, that treatment from the government is like carving on the forehead of the person a sign, telling people that he is redundant from the society, locking him out..., and this should not be true in a civilized society.

I hope this is just a made-up story, otherwise I really feel sorry for the person in your story - when this is really the case I think activists in the country should protest against the law.

Answer 5

Honestly, this does not sound too crazy to be true to me. I'm no great shakes at law and stuff, but the way you have explained it, it seems like it could happen. I did not think you could be punished for a crime for which you already did the time, though.

I think it's great that you're truly sorry (But you're only sorry for getting caught? You aren't sorry for doing the crime, then?), and that you're a productive member of society.
However, at the same time, and it is sad that you are paying for the crime twice, and that you wife and child, in turn, are paying for it as well, but you *did* make the choice to rob that bank, and I think it is your responsibility to go through with any punishment that the crime calls for.

Answer 6

It touches many of my sensibilities.

1) I don't appreciate how murderers and rapists and child molesters are able to gain freedom. But I can let a convicted thief have a second chance - provided that they have no proclivity for violence.

2) I'm uncomfortable with the grandfathering of the new law to include past felonies. I am unable to reconcile such an outcome in a judicial system that has a statute of limitations.

3) Considering the aspects of your fictional scenario, I could see the possibility of you having to move, but you would still have your freedom and bank account.

Answer 7

Sounds kinda wack and even though you weren't tried twice like double jeopardy. You've been sentenced twice for it.
Now that you've changed it to a child killer or sex offender
First I would hope someone who kills a child gets more than 30 months in prison. I know it doesn't always happen that way but yes they should not be able to live within so many feet of schools and children and such. Kinda funny how peoples opinions change when you change the crime.

Answer 8

I am of two minds about it. I have no problem believeing that you have changed your mind and improved your life. However, I think that the laws that were set up are acceptable.

On the other hand, I don't believe that the employer should have been able to fire you, assuming you indicated you had been convicted of a crime on your job application.

Answer 9

See, this is where common sense could be applied. Unfortunately, common sense went extinct some time ago. Couldn't pinpoint the exact date, but it's long gone.

Someone who f'd up, but paid their dues, and turned out to be a valuable member of society. Someone like that, they will mess with. Now, hardened criminals like street gangs, they will ignore because they are scared of them.

Answer 10

Sorry but going to jail for a few years is not the ONLY punishment. You have defined yourself forever as a felon for the rest of your life. That was a choice YOU made. Deal with it.