This is so frequent,...

[bliss_eternal]

I can't even get mad and start alerting. It's all so predictable (w/the patented responses we've come to expect) it's almost funny...

Why is it, that posts like this: (Excerpted below)

I'm bugged by these laws about where sex offenders can live
First and foremost, I recognize that these are serious crimes and I'm not trying to be easy on them.

--------------------------snip-----------------------------------------------
I'm reading this article in my local paper about the new law being proposed from a neighboring community here in Delaware and I really started to think about this law.

If people in better communities fight to keep sex offenders out of their neighborhood then ultimately these people end up in the poor communities. Last time I checked - those communities are made up of the same families that are found in the nicer communties - families, kids, etc. Only difference is the income.

So in a nutshell, if you're poor then you're stuck with the sex offenders.
--------------------------------snip---------------------------------------------------------

Receive these sort of responses:

That don't bother me; but, what I am concerned with is who they clasify an
offender. I new a 19 year old boy once get an offenders status because he was sleeping with a 17 year old girl. These issues can get really twisted by our courts sometimes.

:eyes:

Others follow of course.

It's interesting to me how quick some are to always throw the "couple of year difference" into the equation--whether it is the issue or not.

Why is that?

[Katherine Brengle]

1. It gives us all a false sense of safety--

I've got to be honest--in the past, I have used the example myself.

The reason that we are drawn to this definition of sex offender is that it feels safe and nonthreatening.

No one wants to live next door to a rapist--so we pretend they don't exist...

It's all extremely counter-productive.

[Warpy]

2. Not only that, but the guys who register

are the guys who really don't want to reoffend, the jerks who acted out on their fantasy lives once or twice and got caught and don't really want that kind of trouble again, thanks, so they'll stick to the stash of magazines and the CDs full of kinky porn they've downloaded over the years.

The people you really have to worry about are the deadly normal ones in the neighborhood (and ALL neighborhoods have them) who are still acting out on their fantasies without being caught yet.

Those nice, neat lists on the websites don't tell you who the really dangerous predators are, they just tell you who doesn't want to be a predator any more.

[Katherine Brengle]

3. Very interesting point--

isn't the registration mandatory in most places now?

I think that these released offenders should have police outside their houses until they are registered--it's ridiculous how voluntary it is...

[bloom]

4. I don't know the details

but I noticed recently that in Indiana - it's only the violent sex offenders who have to register. So this business about a 19 year old having sex with a 17 year old would not be a real issue.

I don't know about other states.

[bliss_eternal]

7. Exactly--

it irritates me that this *always* is thrown into the argument. It isn't always by those assumed to be freeper trolls either.

I was 16 once. Sure, I dated a young man a few years older--but there was no reason to have him arrested. My parent met him, knew him, trusted him, etc.

The fact that this argument is ALWAYS trotted out for this kind of discussion bothers me...

[MountainLaurel]

6. And on another level as well

Most child molesters aren't the creepy guy across the street, they're the parent or sibling down the hall, the soccer coach, the pastor, the parent's best friend, the great-uncle. Parents don't want to deal with that side of the equation. It makes the world too scary a place.

[bloom]

5. I think it is the meme

or "philosophy" or whatever - that "personal freedom" supersedes all else (what I call the Larry Flynt Philosophy of Life). And if someone can suggest that their "personal freedom" is being interfered with - then they can imply that they are victims.


In a related matter - I made a couple polls:

If you *had* to choose one of these people's "philosophies" - whose would you choose?

In GD so far it is ->

Larry Flynt 38%
Dr. Seuss 55%
Oprah 7 %

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=757189&mesg_id=757189


And the one in Religion/Theology is ->

Larry Flynt 57%
Dr. Seuss 43%
Oprah 0 %

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x57910

------------

[politicat]

8. My problem w/ SO registries is they don't work.

Most girls who are sexually abused are not abused by some weirdo living down the street who lures them into his house with candy and Barbies. The offenders are their fathers, brothers, step-fathers, uncles, cousins, ministers, mom's boyfriend and most of them have no criminal record of being abusive. Sex offenses against children are opportunistic crimes of power in the majority of cases. (FBI crime stats for 1999 and Glassner, Culture of Fear.)

Most boys who are sexually abused are abused by step-parents, step-siblings, uncles, cousins and ministers. Again, these are people in a position of trust to the child, and are opportunistic crimes of power.

Children are at a much higher risk from their own family and pseudo-family members than they are from people who live several blocks away. Adult women are at a much higher risk of rape from members of their circle of acquaintance or family members than from strangers (because something like 70% of all rapes are acquaintance or date rapes).

And my house is more likely to get hit by lightning than to be burglarized.

[bliss_eternal]

9. Excellent point--

so valid, yet we never really get to explore this issue when in GD, because of all the people that feel the need to speak up for 19 year olds dating 17 year olds.

The system is flawed. But no one really looks at the people closest to them...it's easier (it seems) to think some big, scary boogeyman lurking in the bushes wearing a trench coat and little else is going to get the kids.

[politicat]

10. Well, here in Colorado, it's a real problem.

"contributing to the delinquency of a minor" is a class 2 felony.

Thus, anyone convicted of it - and this can mean anything from providing booze to a private graduation party as a harm-reduction tactic to sleeping with someone who lies about his/her age to buying cigarettes for a minor to allowing a runaway to use your shower and couch and not turning him/her in - ends up on our neighborhood felony list. (Our SOR law is very badly written, and no one has the political ovaries to fix it.)

Yeah, CDM is a stupid thing to do. But in the real world it happens and most kids survive it (and I was a delinquent minor who had lesbian sex with a woman a decade my senior for more than a year {not continually}, smoked, drank, lived away from my parents' homes, stayed out all night, broke curfew regularly... and still managed to get a college education, turn into a tax payer, and generally all around good citizen.)

But the bigger issue is the issue that most sex offenders aren't on the list, and won't be until it is politically expedient and socially acceptable for lawmakers to put teeth in the rape laws and for women to pursue their rapists in court. At this point, the latter is too bloody difficult and self-defeating, and the former is only expedient if it's for the Baaaaay-bies. Until it doesn't matter what I was wearing, what my BAC was, or where I was when I was raped, sex offender lists will remain a useless, sick joke that give yuppies a sense of false security and those who live in tenements an unfair exposure to risk.

[Lithos]

11. Locking

It is against DU rules to use these forums to "Rally troops" to another forum.

Lithos
DU Moderator