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The sex offender laws often lump in people who pee into a bush because they just can't hold it any longer with those who molest and otherwise sexually abuse children. Also, these laws are sometimes ridiculously ambiguous- in Michigan, for example, one form of "molestation" includes touching a child anywhere between the knee and the groin. No overt sex act is required.
Further, when we teach children that it's always bad for someone to touch them "down there", and we further teach them to tell an adult they trust and the problem will "go away", well, sometimes it makes them think, and think hard, about whether they could say the same about an adult who didn't touch them "down there", just to get rid of that adult. Think stepchildren who hate their new stepparent with a passion, and would do anything to make them leave, and you'll get an idea of where I'm going.
The problem with that is, once the child realizes that their little lie cost that person a whole lot, if they try to recant, all too often the state won't buy their recanted story at all. Even if the child comes forward moths or years later, the person they accused doesn't stand a chance at all most of the time to get their charges reversed. Even if the charges do get reversed, there's always the stigma of having been accused, and some people will not believe the child's new story.
I have very close personal knowledge of how damnably easy it is to get someone accused of a sex offense. The punishment for these crimes goes far, far beyond jail time, fines, and restitution. Try, for example, to get a job- any job- once you've been convicted of a sex offense.
My partner had the lightest sentence the lawyers we've spoken to have ever seen for a sex offense- he got three years probation, fines, and restitution, and he got to keep joint custody of his daughter with unsupervised visitation rights. It was only two years later that the sex offender registry came into being, and in spite of the registry not being part of his sentence, it was applied to all, even after their convictions and sentences were done and over with.
My partner fell asleep on the couch and his stepson crawled up onto the couch to lay next to him. While sleeping, the back of my partner's hand flopped over onto the kid's groin. THAT was the extent of my partner's "offense".
The "victim" testified to the fact that his stepfather was sleeping and the hand didn't move at all after it landed in his groin. In other words, my partner didn't have any knowledge that it had happened and in fact was not in control of any of his faculties at the time (since he was completely asleep).
To put it quick and easy, my partner was set up. His wife at the time came into the room and saw a lucrative divorce proceeding lying in her son's groin. And guess what? That's exactly what she got- everything. House, car, comic book collection worth several thousand dollars (which she foolishly burned), all the credit cards, and physical custody of the kids. Jackpot, and my partner has paid the price with his freedom, his dignity, and no small part of his very sanity.
My partner hates kids now. Won't go near them, ever. He hardly leaves the house at all because his photo is on the internet and all it would take is some crazy dickwad to ruin it all for him all over again- try defending yourself from such when you already have a felony record thanks to the sex offense... when he was on probation for that, he wasn't allowed to take any defensive action whatever if attacked- his probation officer told him any contact with the police would land him behind bars again. I was with him when his P.O. told him that, by the way; ?I know he's not making that one up! So, if he had been attacked for being a sex offender or for in fact any other reason, he would have had to either allow himself to be beaten to a pulp or swing his fist even once in self-defense and go straight back to jail.
Then there's employment. Temp agencies and even some fast food places wouldn't even consider him, both because of the felony he has thanks to all this and the nature of the felony. He's on disability now due to deep, untreatable clinical depression (the source of the depression- his felony status, completely undeserved, will never be dealt with because the law will not allow it). We can't even petition for his conviction to get reversed, since sex offenses are a "special case" and not eligible for reversal, no matter the circumstances or specifics of the case.
His ex wife could come forward and say she made it all up, say it directly to the judge who handled his case, say it to the prosecutor's office, hell, she could go on Oprah and tell the whole nation, and there wouldn't be a bat's dot we could do about it.
I'm sorry, but what happened to him tells me the handling of sex offense cases is arbitrary, often sloppy, and unjust at its base. For relatively small crimes- like peeing in a bush, or flopping around in your sleep- we are willing to inflict "justice" to such an extent that we often lose sight of whether there's really a victim at all.
While it is true that there are REAL sex offenders out there, my partner IS NOT one of them, yet gets exactly the same treatment as a child rapist- which he has been called before. I've come to the conclusion that it was the hysteria that got him more than anything else, the sex offender registries are wrong, and should not be public information to all comers, but should be held a zealously guarded by police. Any and all information about sex offenders should be kept behind glass and available only to those who can demonstrate that they in fact live in the area they are inquiring about. This information SHOULD NOT be online for all to see, and the convictions thamselves should NOT be an employment issue if no children are involved with the job.
I've seen too much undeserved "justice" on this issue for me to conclude that the registries are anything but a sort-of good idea gone horribly wrong. I am against the sex offender registries, and believe they should be abolished, or at least removed completely from pulic view.
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