I’m posting a link to an op/ed piece by Findlaw’s Julie Hilden .
The recent number of horrific child kidnappings certainly has been well publicized, tho stranger abductions continue to be extremely rare events. There is, of course, not much scarier to parents than the idea that some stranger could swoop in and snatch, rape and kill their child. I know this, I’m a mom, too.
We’ve debated Megan’s Laws here before, but I have no wish to get into that here. Ms. Hilden seems to be proposing (in the linked article) an expansion of these laws to include internet publication not only of people who have been convicted of any rape, child abduction, child molestation, child pornography, but to add to the mix:
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Those who were convicted of any killing, regardless of victim/circumstances.
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Those who were acquitted of any of the above charges.
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Those whose charges were dropped before trial
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Those who have current warrants out for their arrest for any of those kind of charges.
Her rationale is that, of the most recent abduction cases, at least two of those charged would have, under this expansion, had their pictures out there, and she believes that parents would have been looking out for those folks, and hence prevented the tragedies.
My feelings on this include -
a. even if all those folks would have been included on such lists, the perps in at least two of the cases wouldnt’ have appeared on any such list at all.
b. In any event, again, as tragic and horrifying as these cases are, they are also exceedingly rare.
c. I don’t think she has any idea of the sheer number of pictures that would be involved - in my area alone there’s thousands on parole/probation for wide variety of cases, which would mean at least hundreds of photos for just my little area (not counting travelers and visitors), it’s incredible for me to believe that anyone could view a couple of hundred photos of people and be able to keep them in your mind at all times as you wander down the street (that guy there - do I recognize him 'cause of those photos or 'cause he was behind me in line at the bank yesterday???). IN addition, one would have to re-check on a very regular basis since folks are charged, acquited, released every single damn day.
d. the sheer numbers involved also should bring to mind the cost of doing this - couldnt’ that $$ be better used by getting a better communication between jurisidictions, or putting more cops on the road???
e. the sheer numbers involved also should bring to mind the potential, inevitiability of error in data entry.
and that isn’t even touching the whole concept of the rights of people who were not just ‘found innocent’ but were innocent. Her contention that ‘for charges to have been filed meant that there was some evidence’ does not justify public condemnation for an innocent person wrongly accused. And, of course, it seriously increases the level of mischief available to those who would do mischief by leveling false charges. While the mischief maker may be subject to prosecution, this system would retain the object of their wrath on this list since an accusation and/or warrant would be sufficient.
In a scarey scarey world, this ranks up with one of the scarier ideas to me.
