Re the kidnap and murder of 9yo Jessica Lunsford in Florida:
This is a highly unusual case. A girl is kidnapped from her bedroom and murdered. The killer’s record in the Childsafe Network’s database contains only this listing: “Lewd,Lascivious Child U/16 (Principal In Attempt)”. The db is up to date, his incarceration in Georgia having been added on March 17.
Given our visceral reaction to anything that threatens our kids, and the human tendency to grossly misjudge the likelihood and significance of threats in our lives – cf reaction to West Nile virus and mad cow disease v. relative apathy over some of the most common causes of preventable death in the US – what will the fallout likely be from this case?
I foresee hue and cry, calls for further legislation, an uptick in vigilantism against men on sex offender registries, increased calls to put microchips in our children’s bodies, harsher penalties and juries more willing to convict men accused of molestation and similar crimes, and no reduction in crimes against kids.
What do I want? Life w/o parole for repeat child-sex offenders INTO THE GENERAL PRISON POPULATION.
Either that, or just mark them & release them into the general public.
Heh heh heh.
What I found troubling about the recent media coverage was that Couey was repeated identified in national newscasts as simply a “known sex offender” rather than a pedophile, as if all sex offenders, and all sex offenses are the same.
Couey will probably get a needle in his arm … even as a death penalty opponent, I’m not really livid about that. Life in prison without parole would be better for us as a society, and in my opinion, crueler, but I can’t really get exercised about anything bad that might happen to Mr. Couey.
I have a two pronged suggestion. For the time being insitute a zero tolerance policy and execute child molesters for the first offense. Such behaviour seems to be incurable with out present capabilities. That leads to the second prong. Spend at least twice as much in trying to find out how to stop from raising molesters as is spent on the trial and execution of existing ones. Maybe then we stand a chance of reducing the problem. What we do now isn’t working so it’s time to try something else.
Given the potential for erroneous convictions, I find that suggestion reprehensible.
Also, keep in mind that if you provide the death penalty for child molestation, there will be no incentive for child molesters who are prone to violence not to kill their victims and eliminate the witness. This is one of the primary reasons why rape is not punished by the death penalty.
Don’t get excited. The proposal is not about to be taken up and on its face is outrageous. However, I would point out that for the child molester there now seems to be little incentive not to kill the victim now except in case of fathers molesting daughters, or sons. And in many cases it seems to be for the purpose of eliminating the witness.
No form of punishment, short of death, seems likely to stop the molester. And we don’t seem to know how to avoid creating molesters or to treat the molester to remove the urge. So let’s concentrate on prong two and spend some money and time and effort in trying to improve our capabilities in parenting to reduce the creation of new molesters and the treatment of those existing.
Buy one less B2 and use the money for this purpose instead.
Then why did you propose it? I do get excited, because where I live, people can take ideas like that seriously. In fact, that was precisely the point of my OP when I wrote:
If you were not serious about your suggestion, you should have made note of that. Since you did not, I don’t think you should admonish me for having the reaction I had.
It is grossly inaccurate to claim that non-incestuous child molesters are generally inclined to murder their victims. (In my post above, I only referenced violent pedophilic sex offenders, but you seem to be lumping them all together.)
Your comments regarding “the molester” are uninformed, and your mindset is precisely the type of thinking that frightens me. Yes, I am also frightened by predators like Couey who, imo, deserve to die. But your posts provide evidence that I am right, that the Couey case will spawn uninformed knee-jerk reactions that may increase the number and severity of false convictions but are unlikely to do anything to protect my kids or yours.
For pedophiles - castration. Not the easy, sterile chemical kind. Knife and no anesthetic.
Seriously, this one hit close to home, as did the last one I am aware of (Carly Brucia, in Sarasota). No child and no family should ever be subject to this.
dotchan the cynical predicts:
*kneejerk panic and outrage
*moves to brand sex offenders more obviously
*massive “don’t talk to strangers” campaigns in schools
…nevermind that such a case is rare (and therefore is publicized because it is so rare), most cases of molestation aren’t reported (and therefore the person isn’t caught and probably doesn’t have a record), and most egregious abusers are friends and family.
To those who would seek death or castration for those convicted of child molestation, you might check out today’s AP story on yesterday’s Michael Jackson trial.
A psychologist testifying for the prosecution (Anthony J. Urquiza) testified that 2-6 percent of molestation charges are false. Keep in mind that in selecting their expert witnesses, it’s in the interest of the prosecution to minimize this figure.
So what he’s saying is that of the people accused of child molestation, at least one in fifty, and as many as one in seventeen, are innocent.
My concern in the Couey/Lunsford case is that outrage over this extremely unusual case will lead to erosion of the rights of the accused, a higher incidence of false conviction, and harsher punishments for those who are falsely convicted.
And joemama, the fact that this “hits close to home” for you is irrelevant. It hits close to home for me, too. All the more reason why we need to divorce our emotions and visceral reactions from it.
The idea that child molesters are treated poorly by other inmates is largly a fallacy. While I’m sure there are probably some prisons where this may be the case, most of the time, it’s not.
In the prison in which my husband works, there are over 2,500 inmates, around half of whom are sex offenders, and a good portion of those had child victims. There is no prejudice or violence against them. The other inmates either don’t care, or aren’t bothered enough by it to act out accordingly. He has worked in three other prisons, and has connections with prisons all across the state-- and has never seen an instance of molesters being abused.
Even if there were a problem, an inmate who is concerned about it could lie about what his conviction was for. It’s not like the other inmates can go up to the records office and check.
Now, women’s prisons are a different story. In one of our state’s women’s institutions, a woman who killed her children was actually stoned by her fellow inmates when she went out onto the yard.
Interesting. I am reminded of similiar phenomena among large mammals in the wild. There may be no taboo among males for killing cubs (father of the cubs excepted – he is likely to object, if he’s alive). But females will ostracise a female cub-killer, and kill her if they get a chance.
Granted, that’s more extreme than human behavior (among males, I mean… men are not generally ho-hum about men who kill other men’s kids) but I can’t help seeing a parallel, if your husband’s experience is generally true across the board.
It appears to be. He’s heard other, similar, stories from other institutions. I also vaguely remember reading about the torments that Susan Smith’s fellow prisoners put her through when she first arrived.
I’d say the sex offender registry needs to be redone. And any violent sexual offenders shouldn’t be on the registry because they should never be released from prison.
I hate to upset some of the morally bankrupt vengeful people here but believe it or not the tales of the general prison population raping/killing sex offenders is highly exaggerated. Most of the time these people don’t have any necessarily better or worse time in prison.
I’m not against the use of implanted microchips to protect our children, but I think the convicted offenders ought to be the ones with the chips. Hadn’t this convicted felon moved without notifying the authorities? If sex offenders knew that their every move was being tracked within meters by GPS monitoring this might provide deterrent, and aid in rescuing victims in cases where the deterrence fails.
No. After killing Lunsford, he fled to Georgia. The initial charge they used to detain him was leaving the state of Florida without proper notification. During that detention they questioned him about the Lunsford murder – which is what they were interested in him for – and after failing a polygraph he confessed.
Btw, I’m not sure that he was a felon. IIRC, his prior convictions were for burglary and attempted lewd acts with a minor. But I could be wrong. Anyone know?
