:rolleyes: You phrase that as if it’s not possible to have sympathy for both. I doubt if any of the people who’ve dared to sympathize with criminals who continue to be punished by society even after they’ve finished their prison sentences don’t also feel sympathy for their victims.
I think that a sex offender, even one who has comitted the most vile crimes, still has the potential for some sort of redemption–some sort of meaningful life. I don’t want to get into an argument over how likely or unlikely that may be; however, I think even the remotest possibility of redemption warrants a second (or more) chance.
[lunacy that can’t be rationally debated]
Suffering isn’t a zero-sum game. Hurting a sex offender doesn’t fix what he did to his victim. [utter lunacy]The best thing to do is to love them both–that way the victim has the best chance of recovering, and the offender has the best chance of living a healthy life.[/utter lunacy]
[/lunacy that can’t be rationally debated]
As an added complication, not only is actual consent not a defense to statutory rape, the majority view is that reasonable mistake isn’t either. So say you meet a girl at a bar who looks and says that she’s in her 20’s and you have a one night stand with her. You find out later that she was only 16, which is a few months under your states’ age of consent. In some states she would have been of legal age and your only punishment would be a guilty conscience and a creepy feeling, but unluckily in your state you are now a sex offender. You have to register as a sex offender exactly the same as someone who committed aggravated sexual assault at knifepoint for the rest of your life, and the registry doesn’t say a thing about the vast differences between the two of you, they just identify you both as SEX OFFENDER. You have to disclose this when you apply for a job, when you move, and in some jurisdictions you have to put a sign in your yard telling the neighborhood that a sex offender lives at this location. Your ill-advised one night stand earned you the same scarlet letter as a violent rapist.
Cheese, Dex. He may have broken the law, but it’s a bad law. He doesn’t pose a danger to society. It’s not like he attacked a 5-year old, or anything.
He had consensual* sex with a 16 year old girl. In many countries 16 is considered old enough to give informed consent. In most of Europe, this would not be a crime at all. And, I believe, several of the States.
And he may have technically broken the law, but the scale of punishment is way out of proportion to the scale of the crime. Must he pay forever for this? should he not be allowed to put it behind him anbd move on?
Not allowed to stay at his parents house, or take a job at McDonalds because of this. That’s just not right. It’s so inapropriate that he is registered as a sex offender.
we are all assuming the relationship was consensual. If the sex was forced it’s a different ball game
Point well and truly missed. We’re not primarily feeling sorry for him, we’re recognising that this part of his punishment serves no useful purpose and poses a potential danger to society. He has no chance to lead a normal life, so what options does he have left? Wouldn’t you rather see him leading a normal life? Do you want him to rob a bank just so he can have food to eat and a bed to sleep in?
Actually, you bring up a good point. She’s probably been forced to undergo therapy, where she’s told every week that she’s been violated, abused, taken advantage of, and how she’ll never enjoy sex or trust men again because she’s a victim, and always will be, so don’t forget to come back next week and bring a check.
All for an experience she probably enjoyed and may even have invited. The sad truth is it’s the same for many, many cases involving sex with minors, even younger children. The damage done by therapy and counseling and the legal process is often more traumatizing than the sex itself.
Oh brother. People think Dex missed the point, but at least he wasn’t tangentially grandstanding. Somebody did report Doppleganger’s friend to the police. Was it the girl? It’s not wrong to ask what happened to her.
I think most states have similar laws.
As far as the complaints about statutory rape in general go, there IS a reason it’s a lesser crime. Doppleganger’s friend wouldn’t have done six months for te standard kind of rape.
Precisely, murderers are left alone. People who sleep with their 16 yo girlfriend aren’t.
I’m not worried about a 16 yo who slept with a 22 yo. Though she was probably distressed and distrubed to have her boyfriend arrested, dragged in a court of law and treated as a criminal, and probably having herself to testify, being told how evil it is to have sex with your boyfriend and so on…
Just occured to me that you maybe read the OP as meaning that she was actually raped by the OP’s friend. I didn’t interpret it that way. My understanding is that she had consensual sex with the OP’s friend.
Nope, they’re not. I’m getting a little off-topic here, but we’re getting dangerously closing to becoming a society that makes every crime punishable by a life sentence.
Say you’re a teenage kid, or even a 22-year old, who’s kind of a fuckup. You get into trouble. One night you and some of your buddies steal a car. You ride around. You get caught. You’ve got some controlled substances in the car.
You go to jail. You get out. You decide that you’re never going back to jail, and you’re going to straighten up and get your life together.
You apply for a job. You answer honestly on the part of the application where they ask if you’ve ever been convicted of a crime.
If you applied for that job where I work, you’re not getting the job. And I bet that’s true just about everywhere.
Now what do you do?
We treat ex-offenders like shit (note the “ex” prefix to the word “offender”).
I agree with those who say we have to draw distinction between sex offenses which are violent or which target children and offenses like statutory rape (which I still think is WRONG and that the guy is a sleaze, but not in the same category as forcible rape or child molestation.
Basically, I think if you commit a forcible rape or molest a child (and I know it’s arbitrary but for the sake of argument, let’s define a “child” as being under the age of 12 or 13) then you should go to the stripey hole for life. I think rape and child molestation should be treated the same as murder. Life without parole. You don’t have to worry about living on the outside becaues you aren’t ever going to be on the outside (in my world).
As for lesser offenses (those which are not violent or coersive and do not involve children) then I see no need for a registry. The way it is now is ridiculous. You can get tagged as an SO for taking an emergency piss on the side of the highway.